A sweet and viscous substance

This is what Wikipedia says:

Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees.  Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining  the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey’s sugars until it is thick and viscous.

I’m sure we all pretty much knew this, but I thought I’d mention it anyway, as I’ve been looking at a little recipe book called ‘Honey Recipes‘ and it has a wonderful variety of suggestions of what you can do with the sweet stuff. At the end of the booklet is a suggestion for uses other than eating, sweetening and cooking; for example  there’s a recipe for home-made face cream which can also be used on the hands. It sounds very sticky to me, and I wonder if I’d look greasy and shiny if I used it (I am quite shiny anyway when I’m hot!) As well as the honey you would need lanolin and almond oil – now honey has a special smell, almond oil too – and they might be quite nice together, but lanolin?? When I used to be a swimmer, back in the olden days, we would literally swim miles in training and we’d put lanolin round our eyes to try and protect them from the chlorinated water (yes, it does sound ridiculous now I think about it) Now lanolin has a very strong and distinctive smell – so mixed with almonds and honey??? I think I might just be a cheapskate and buy face cream from a discount shop.

There is a much more simple recipe in the little book for a treatment for your face – lightly wash your face with warm water. take some honey from your jar with your fingers, then massage it gently into your face – particularly around your eyes and nose. Leave it for a quarter of an hour (I guess you can wash your hands) rinse your face with warm water. You should do this every day. I think I might just wash my face, dry it, rub in a little moisturiser, have a slice of bread and honey and sit and relax for fifteen minutes.

My featured image is of the front cover of Honey magazine which was published in the 1960’s and 70’s. They had a short story writing competition, I entered – and good heavens! I won! It was a story about a love affair in the south of France – we had holidayed there for several years and although I didn’t have any love affairs, I hoped I would! After that, Honey published two more of my stories, one about a creepy night cleaner at an airport, and another which was either a ghost story or an account of someone having a nervous breakdown. I wish I’d sent them more – I could have been famous by now!!!