The sense of smell
I have been quiet of late blog wise and at a bit of a loss but something struck me today.
The sense of smell and how it affects us.
First – other senses: I have always had really bad eyesight. Didn’t know that until I was 17. Got glasses. Looked like the blue eyed version of Nana Muskouri. Lost glasses. Didn’t bother again until I was about 23 and then did the whole – wow – trees have leaves and Colchester town hall has a clock – but I have written about that before.
As those of you who have met me know, I have an unfortunate nose. It’s not exactly yer pretty, pert, hollywood type up-tipped appendage but more of a schnonk. When I was little it was not so bad but by my early teens bad enough for my dad to give me the choice – plastic surgery:new nose or expensive boarding school. Oddly, and I have no idea why, I chose school. I understand it even less now that I am unemployed but hey, choices made are choices made.
Anyway – smell. Eyesight is great. Hearing is wonderful. But for time-space travel you need smell. When we went shopping last weekend I bought a not yet budded Hyacinth plant. Alan said ‘WTF? Why?’ I said I love the smell. And I so do. When it blossomed yesterday it just filled the room and my senses. A smell can take you anywhere. A smell can almost create time travel. Cut grass. The sea (ocean to you north American types). Fresh bread. Johnson’s Baby Powder. That ethereal scent early in the morning when stepping outside, the season going from winter to spring, spring is here. My babies, I loved the smell of my babies; yes I know they are a bit old now for me to sniff their heads or go blubbidy blubbidy blubbidy on their tummies to make them giggle or have them on my hip as we disco dance; all of which I did with all three of my sons. Smells are so evocative. bleach; toothpaste; WD40; muckspreading; sulphur (I lived in Guadeloupe which has an occasioanly active volcano); my husband’s shirts that need to go into the wash (a smell I love), his socks (not so much); pipe tobacco: seriously, I hate the smell of cigarette and pipe smoke but raw pipe tobacco, I love that smell; I am not a big coffee drinker but waft along the coffee aisle in supermarkets; the shell of an empty razor fish; heather; rusty iron; the smell of a pub/nighclub/bar during the early daytime, the place is closed, no customers, just that slightly sour smell of spilled beer, stale smoke and something else, oddly sweet, maybe the hope of the last punters propping up the bar the night before that they might just make a connection. Can you tell that I have been a barmaid in my past? A special one for me is the smell of a hangar. when I was little sometimes my dad would take me to work and I played in the PanAm hangars in Heathrow, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Schipol in Holland. I used to crawl inside aircraft tyres, watched as people worked on engines, felt the repeated rumble under my feet as planes took off and landed outside on the runways. There is a distinct smell that can tell you in an instant that it is a hangar.
On another subject, I am a bit disconcerted to notice that sometimes I channel Jeremy Clarkson and he’s not dead…. There are times, increasingly often of late, that I mutter ‘I don’t know!!!’ and as my accent kind of matches Jeremy’s it’s even more alarming.
A sidenote: his mother created the Paddington Bear toy which me and Alan saved up for, for months and months, to get together fourteen pounds sterling, and bought it for Jonathan when he was about 3 or so.
