Sunday I went to Didcot with my dad to look at steam engines.  Wandering around, nostalgia hit me in such a huge way.  I remember being dragged from one part of the country to another to look at and go on steam engines.  I didn’t enjoy it much at the time, as it normally involved a long car ride which I found rather dull.

Recently there’s been a resurgence in classic programmes, re-filmed or set during or just after the second world war.  A lot of these have got steam engines in them, and it has a part of me wishing that we could go back to the time when travelling by steam was fashionable again.  There’s just something so romantic about it.  It probably wasn’t at the time, but now, I think there is.

It’s the sound, of the boiler as it chuffs out large plumes of steam when it pulls out of a station.  The steam whistle blowing loud and clear and the click clack of the carriages on the rails.  The smell as well.  Every autumn when the first of the fires are lit in the village, you get a heady smell of coal fire mixed with crisp fresh air and it reminds me of steam engines.  It fills the pit of my stomach with happiness and my head full of ideas.

Then you could move back to the classic, Agatha Christie novels.  That woman was a genius, and so ahead of her time.  You open the pages of her books and you dive straight into the time they were set.  Whether it was the roaring twenties or the glamorous fifties her ability to put you into that era was unequivocally brilliant.  I think it’s the thought of The Murder on the Orient Express or the 4:50 From Paddington both with heavy emphasis on steam travel.

It’s funny how one thing can make you think of so many things.  Can create a picture in your mind and can make you feel a certain way about things.  Trying to recreate a sense of nostalgia can’t be easy, but I think I will give it a try.

In the Sunday Times Style magazine, there was a piece about the ‘handbag mafia’ that seems to be invading school playgrounds.  Where girls in cliques mark their territory by having certain types of handbags.  The thing that really captured my attention was where a girl said ‘My bag changes my posture.  It’s funny, I stand much more proudly; I feel older’.  That really got my attention.

I know that a trick to creating a character is to put yourself in their shoes.  To think like the person who would be wearing a certain type of shoes.  So I’m wondering if the same could be said for a woman’s handbag?  Does a choice of handbag really define a woman?  Does it make them stand taller? Do they hide behind it?  Is it their shield against the world that they can wield to protect them? Think of the woman up north who stopped some would be thieves by battering them with her handbag.  To a lot of woman, it’s more than just ‘a bag’.

Men always bemoan ‘women, with their shoes and handbags’.  This pisses me off slightly.  Why?  Well I know men who spend a fortune on gadgets or watches.  So why can’t we spend a fortune on handbags and shoes?  OK so the woman who has been in both Marie Claire and the Style magazine who owns two flats, one for her and one for her clothes / accessories should and must be excluded from that statement.  I’m talking about everyday women.  The selection of a bag is quite important.

So, back to my question about being the woman with that type of handbag?  Does the woman pick the handbag because it’s utilitarian?  Do they pick it because they could sit there for hours and stare at it?  Do they pick the handbag because whilst beautiful, it’s also functional?  You see… there are a lot of different reasons a woman might pick a handbag, and this is before we even get onto what colour they might choose.

Being a female, I know what motivates me to pick a certain type of handbag, and yes I do covet them.  For example, my ultimate dream would be to own a Hermes Berkin.  In black.  It’s such a beautiful bag to look at, and you know it’s handmade to order.  I also know chances of owning one are nil (it’s the £10k price tag that does me in).  Also it’s not entirely practical for me, I tend to carry my laptop around with me a lot so it needs to be big enough (and strong enough) to carry that around.

I’ve seen women who have bags which I don’t think are particularly stylish or (for lack of a better word here) oomph about them.  So I do consider what motivated them to buy it.  Whether they think it’s stunning, or did they just grab it from a shelf in a department store?  Did they spend weeks saving for it, and going into the shop to steal a look at it, hoping that it would still be there by the time they could afford to pay for it?  I’m a bit strange, yes, but I like my curious mind.  It keeps me on my toes.

Incidentally, my current choice of bag is a canvas number from ASOS, I coveted it for months, it kept going out of stock, then I managed to grab one.  All for the bargain price of £35.  I love it, and will do until it falls to pieces.  So what does my choice of bag say about me?

She doesn’t care about her appearance too much.  Her shoes are probably cheap and functional rather than bought because they look nice.  Her clothes probably bought for thrift rather than style.

She smokes too much, the vertical lines that frame her lips give that away.  Her hair, which was probably carefully styled by a hairdresser, now hangs limply, devoid of life.  Not used to travelling on the underground, she trains her eyes around the carriage, nervous and fed up with life at the same time.  Her head rests against the glass wall by the door, her bags hugged tightly against her chest.

I know where she’s going, her suitcase gives it away.  Jumping off the train at St Pancras.  Does this mean she’s going to escape the country and enjoy Parisian sunshine, or just going up north to visit her family.  I plump for up north, the lack of smile, and dejected body language give it away.  Nothing great to look forward to.  No scenery morphing from the rolling English hills, to the flat Pas du Nord landscapes will whoosh past her eyes this afternoon.  It’s a shame, it looks like she could do with the adventure.

They say that smell and memory is a very powerful thing.  I’m inclined to believe this, although my sense of smell has been on the blink for a little while.  I was reminded of this the other day whilst walking down the stairs in our office.  Put back track a little bit, our office is in a former mansion, so it still has some of its original features, that being the kitchen is in the basement.

So, walking down the stairs first thing in the morning, one of the things that you will come across, is the smell of cooking toast.  There are few smells to me that drive me wild.  The kinds of smells that, to me are a drug.  I could smell them forever and never be tired of their scents.  Toast, is one such smell.  It’s not the smell that gets me though.  It’s what it represents that drives me wild.

I smell toast, as it winds its way around the staircase, until it hits my nostrils, its scent tantilising me.  The thing that comes into my head, is a perfectly thick slice of bread.  No, wait, not just a single slice of bread, there are two of them.  The bread has been sliced from a fresh tin loaf of white bread.  You know the kind, the ones with the a perfectly browned dome.  Anyway, back to the sliced bread.  The bread has to be slightly thicker than a toaster, so you’re forced to do it by hand, under the grill.  You heat the grill up, so it’s perfectly hot, then you slide your bread under the heat and stand (or crouch) until you can see the beautiful caramel colour forming on the bread.  Then comes the time to turn the bread, your fingers barely touching the bread, or your fingers will burn.  Your anticipation then builds, as your toast is almost done.

At the final moment, you slide the toast onto a waiting plate.  It has to be the perfect plate, one that suits your mood.  Carelessly chosen and chipped plates need not apply.  Then it’s a race against time.  You can’t let your toast get too cold before you’ve had a chance to spread the butter onto it.

Now, a word about the butter.  It HAS to be real butter, I mean it really has to be.  Also, none of your cheap crap, it’s got to be decent butter, with a hint of salt to it.  When I was a child, it was Anchor, now it’s got to be Lurpak.  Anyway, you scrape your knife across the top of the butter, a curlicue of butter coming away.  Remember, the butter has to be perfectly thin, so you can spread it onto your hot waiting toast.  Can you hear the crisp crunch as the serrated edge of the knife spreads that creamy yellow butter over the bread?  Can you smell that heavenly aroma of the hot toast as the butter melts into the bread?  There’s a sweetness to the smell.

There, that’s the moment.  That smell of hot buttered toast, unfettered with anything like Jam, or marmalade on top of it. This is what filters its way into my mind when I smell toast.  I can see it, sitting there waiting on the perfect plate for me to eat.  It really is one of those smells of childhood that makes me smile.  It reminds me of my dad, who always made the best toast in the world.