Lemon leaves

I put out my coolest colours in my reading/sewing corner yesterday. On the table is a jug of lemon leaves from my tree and a basket of the same.

And when I got up hot and creased this morning after a night of 29 degree heat (at 2 am the dogs woke me up to tell me about it), I took a cup of green tea and sank into my corner with relief.

Now, about the lemon leaves. A jug full of fresh lemon leaves fills a room with a cool lemon scent. Lemon flowers have a richer, tangier scent, and if you pick them you lose the lemons they will become, so I rarely pick  the flowers.
The artificial lemon smell of so many washing and cleaning products is a mere lemon stink once you smell the real thing.

Lemon leaves can be dried for pot pourri or better still, can be put in a bath or a basin, soaked in boiling water and when cool the lemon leaf water will sooth hot and dusty feet. Be careful if you want to soak deeply in a bathtub of lemon leaf water. The oil is strongly antiseptic and can be very harsh on tender skin or intimate anatomical parts.