It’s been (and is going to be) a bit quiet on the Range Borders front, whilst I swot feverishly for my next four RHS Level 2 exam papers on 12th February. In actual fact, if the swotting had been anything like at all feverish, I would probably have learnt a lot more of it, by now.
None of it is particularly hard, as such. It’s just that there’s quite a substantial lever arch file to commit to memory, and my powers of retention and recall are somewhat diminished from the last time I took any notable exams, which is now nearly twenty years ago. My brain is creaking from the effort and there is still over three weeks to go.
In addition to the sensible and practical revision advice provided by the RHS class teacher, a staff-member at Hulme Community Garden Centre suggested some brain-boosting herbal remedies, one of these being rosemary - Rosmarinus officinalis.
It appears that rosemary has a long history in folklore, for improving memory and salving addled minds. Move forward a few more hundred years and a distressed and grieving Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet distributes herbs to members of the Danish court, recounting their medicinal benefits;
‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember…’
Rather more recently, in 2016, research by the University of Northumbria found that the herb really does appear to be connected to improving memory. The research team hypothesised that in inhaling the scent of rosemary, the compounds are absorbed by the blood stream and transported to the brain, where they impact upon brain chemistry.
Their fieldwork subsequently demonstrated that people occupying a room scented with rosemary performed significantly better in certain memory tests and other tasks of recall than those occupying a room scented with lavender, or those in an unscented room. The same team found that peppermint tea also had memory-boosting properties.
Perhaps the power of scent and association also play a large part; sniffing rosemary during my revision sessions and then again during the exam might fuel my powers of recall. The plan tomorrow morning, therefore, is to sit down at my desk with a sprig of rosemary in one hand and a stimulating cup of peppermint tea in the other.
Unfortunately, this then means there are no spare hands to open up my course notes or get out my index cards and coloured felt-tips, but never mind; there’s celeriac on the menu for dinner. Perhaps all the beneficial vitamins and antioxidants in this root veg will grow me another pair of hands. Who knows?
