When Mrs Sensible and I moved to Italy (against her better judgement) we decided to rent a house. This was for three reasons. 1) We knew we would ultimately move to Sicily and we didn’t want to get caught up in the nightmare of buying and selling Italian houses. 2) We couldn’t sell our house in the UK because the Americans cocked up the financial markets, when their sub-prime mortgages crashed (please no hate mail from you nice Americans)  and the 3^rd reason is, I forgot but there was a third reason, there always is a third reason in life.

There was another reason.

I should do a post on the differences between renting a house in Italy and renting a house in the UK but if you get me started on my little house in the UK, and the people who rent it I will get very angry, burst into tears and head for the grappa bottle. (See always three things)

Grappa, I love this stuff

In Italy we have tried not to acquire too much furniture, as Mrs S says, in a couple of years we will have to cart it down south so why bother. We have some really good friends up here, who have loaned Mrs S and I some nice furniture which we use to fill in empty corners, now here is the problem.

We have been given a very nice chest of draws, it is solid wood, lined with paper and smells of lavender. Not a nice fresh smell of lavender ; but more the strong, wiffy  smell of lavender. You know the smell I mean, the one you smell when Auntie Hilda opens her purse to give you a sixpence. Mrs S gave the chest of draws a good clean and left all the draws open to air. Each day I give it a sniff and it still smells of old ladies handbags. In fact I am worried that the smell is permeating our bedroom. I find I am sniffing my arms to see if I have started to smell like Auntie Hilda.

Ok, I admit it, I stole this photo from Google. I was going to take a photo of our chest of draws but the smell of lavender put me off getting too close with my camera

Mrs Sensible has said I am not allowed to bleach the draws, leave them out in the rain or to put them in the cellar. Last night it did cross my mind to accidentally drop some firewood in the draws and accidentally drop a match in them. So please give me some help what can I do to get rid of the smell of Auntie Hilda?

PS. Mrs Sensible will fly home around the 27^th of August, so if you suggest any treatments that she might not approve of, send your ideas now so I can try them before she gets back