Last month our online writing group gathered from Austria, the UK and Canada for a face-to-face writing retreat.

The girl I was then rises in memory, walking along this same beach. It is the winter of 1967, late November. Today, more than five decades after that other walk on this same beach, I re-enter that young, inexperienced self. She is my foundation, and I am her future version; the same soul inhabits us both.

Aficionados of aromatherapy make many claims as to the virtues of this essential oil, which is distilled from the yellow flowers of a tropical tree. Considered beneficial for the skin, it also calms anxiety and depression, and functions as an aphrodisiac. These days I rarely apply perfume, but it’s a lovely feeling to open a rich vein of youthful memories by simply uncapping the bottle.