Yesterday a facebook friend was researching for some writing and asked us to share our three favourite smells and why they were our favourite smells. After some initial head-scratching I came up with more than three. I never know when to stop.
So, in order of my remembering here they are:
Fresh cut rhubarb – my favourite aunt would give us stems from the garden that we would dip in the sugar bowl and wince as we ate.
Another favourite smell which slightly beats the smell of the little leather shop that sold handmade bags and made to measure belts was the shop that sold animal feed – visiting to buy pet food that was stored in big open sacks. I think it was not a pet shop but that smell for some reason has me think of eyeing up small creatures – back in the day when you could buy puppies and kittens and keep a coatimundi in a cage in a shop.
New potatoes with mint. I just like food. My mum was a good cook. She also made bread and I think I miss the smell of it more than the swallowing of it. I sometimes chew a piece of fresh baked white loaf and resist swallowing, knowing I will regret it later.
Oh yes the smell of the seaside! M&S had a Sea room scent a few years back that was almost perfect in the way it made you think of clean seaweed! They also had one (called Linen?) that did almost smell like another favourite – Cotton nappies that have been hung out in the sunshine. Well, pretty much anything that has been hung out on a washing line to dry and brings in the smell of the outdoors.
And in response to someone’s post about sniffing a book with its promise of a new story, I remembered how much I loved the scent of a fresh puffin paperback too.
Today I sniffed my way around the garden centre, with flowers and leaves evoking people and their gardens, before choosing three small thyme plants to put alongside our two-yard-long path to the front door. I will take them out of their pots and embed them in the gravel, where they may be too low for us to scent when we crush them underfoot but I’ll know they smell and so will the bees.
