Lavender bags and disappointment - that's what little girls are made of

I went to the world's most idyllic and picturesque primary school.  Thirty children in the whole school, four in my year, May Day every year with a May Queen (No.  I wasn't, no.  Never.  For some reason they didn't want a fat girl with marbled cerise NHS glasses and long lank hair the colour of dishwater in their picturesque photographs) and a playing field with a stream running through it.  Of course one of the mums was a prostitute and another ran off with the headmistress but I was oblivious to all that.  Every year we Made Things for our mothers, and lavender bags featured heavily.  To me they conjure up a quintessentially English scene of my friends in their blue checked school dresses skilfully creating lacy beribboned bags while I laboured over a bloodstained bit of cotton, tongue sticking out, breathing heavily with concentration.  And the gorgeous, drowsy smell of lavender hanging over us all, NHS glasses and everything.

So I was very pleased to be asked to review L'Occitane's new lavender range.  The shower gel is absolutely gorgeous. Not too heavy, as the smell of lavender can sometimes be, but refreshing and soothing.  It doesn't slide away down the plughole and the scent stays with you.

I have to say though they also sent me the lavender massage gel, which I hated.  It feels sticky, it doesn't absorb for ages, it smells slightly artificial and it's gloopy like a flour and water paste.  In fact, staying with the primary school theme, I will maybe make a papier mache May Queen with it.   And put some NHS glasses on her and yah boo sucks to you all.