Scented candles. Hundreds, nay thousands, nay millions, nay probably actually just thousands. Anyway, today was another 10 hours of work with many unextraordinary but very satisfying tasks. I wont bore with the details but here are a couple stories. Please excuse my slightly unintelligible writing, a combination of exhaustion and a pitiable attempt to immitate the brilliant writing style of Dave Eggers, who I am reading (and slightly idolizing) right now.

But today I (Percy) rose early, not of my own volition, but rather because two fierce spell-casting, sword-bearing, warrior mages knocked down the doors of my room and proceeded to violently destory the entire building in an attempt to kill me. These, if you haven't already guessed, were my two cousins, Anya (4, spell-caster), and Quinn (2, warrior), waking me up with a pillow attack. It Was violent, and there Were spells. Anyhow, I managed to cast a counterspell and escape (thanks to Emma Ritcey for teaching me magic...expelliarmus!). Having escaped, I went for a long run through the beautiful fields and trees surrounding White House, went over to Home Farm, where a few aunts, uncles, and cousins live. The air was icy, bracing, and burned my whole being (interestingly this was by far the hardest part of the run, although I thought it would just be that I am in terrible shape). Got back to the house, big nutricious breakfast with the family and the two little gremlins, and then up to the warehouse.

We were thrown from the peaceful domestic scene of breakfast into total chaos, as the "lorry" (not Semi), arrived and we began unloading 350 more boxes of pine cones and far too many boxes of other scented goods (turns out that this import business is the #1, the one and only imported of Cinnamon Pine Cones in the UK. How prestigious). Unloading was a sweaty, intense, and dramatic affair, lifting enormous weights for a long time and generally suffering terribly. But with us, Ben, Toby, and Kate hard at work it went quickly, and we spent the rest of our working day stacking, restocking, and alphabetising endless crates of scented candles. We had two sandwiches for lunch!

This work is soothing to an extreme. Everyone has done jobs like this, but quite frankly, most of us avoid this kind of monotony. Now, it is blissful. Once you are lifting and carrying and unpacking and sorting and alphabetising your millionth box you eventually begin to go into that sweet state of numbness, (not unlike how you feel when you are, say, going for a run) and you mind eventually goes clear. Numbers and figures and where this box goes and whether this box is Lavender or Vanilla  become your only concerns. If you still retain the mindpower, you can think about things, like an upcoming trip to mainland Europe, or how much you miss your family, or whats for lunch (two sandwiches!, as I mentioned), or whats for dinner (incredible toad-in-the-hole, courtesy of Emma Stubbs). But you can also just not think, let your mind, normally so full and buzzing, go clear, not clear like a blank slate (I don't like that metaphor), but more like the clear, fresh smell of a sachet of Sweet Magnolia petals. This reminds me, I am going to post later all the fragrances we are working with so that you can, if you so desire, imagine them. Luckily, using only your imagination, you can control and limit your exposure to said fragrances so they don't get disgusting (I wish I could do the same). It is funny to be surrounded by such fragrances after reading "Perfume." If you have read this book you will know exactly what I mean when I say I hope I don't end up like Grenuille.

All right so after dinner we went out to a movie (Cyrus, if you haven't seen it Please do, it is a brilliant, painfully honest and truthful, well acted and beatiful movie. Classic Sundance film). Now back home, eagerly heading to bed for some deep sleep filled with dreams of cinnamon and spice and everything...ok.
Goodnight.