August 2010
The senses - we would be poor specimens without them. The sense of smell brings back thoughts and feelings. A baby for instance, the awful stink of nappy changing, but holding a child freshly bathed and powdered is delightful.
Crossing a field one could tell blindfold the flowers that you walk through or even the cow pat you may step into.
When I think of my mother, which I do often lately when there is question I really need to have the answer to, I smell Muguet du Bois, Lily of the valley, a strange perfume to describe, but I knew when she had been in a room. I occasionally smell it from another source when in shops and I miss her. She was my mentor, even if at fifteen I thought she didn’t know anything and certainly didn’t understand me. She never went to work after marriage, her position in the office at the Coop wouldn't allow it but she was a wonderful dressmaker and I had, for the time, glamorous clothes. I did try to follow her in this talent but was always too hasty and it had to be finished in a day. I actually remember wearing a jumper that I had decided to knit tacked together as I simply had to wear it on a date.
Dad, now, grew the most gorgeous flowers. Roses then had wonderful perfume but so much inter-breeding to have colour and size seems to have wiped out their most precious aspect. Chrysanthemums and tomato leaves also still have very distinguishable smell. I took more after him I think.
How would food appear if you could not smell the appetising aroma; I know the colour is pleasing in presentation but it’s the smell that affects your taste buds. The smell of chlorine stirs memories of my teen years when most of my relaxation was spent in the local swimming baths. It was a cheap pastime and all ones friends were there. I met this great boy and he would walk me home with our towels rolled up under our arms. The swimming club decided at the gala we would have synchronised swimming and he partnered me in a quite tricky swim and of course we needed lots of training ‘cos it was a touchy feely one.
The smell of a schoolroom evokes many memories; it’s amazing, just writing this brings back mates whose names readily come to mind, although I haven’t thought about them for years. Ink, chalk and the strong chemicals in the lab when we nearly blew up the school playing about. I loved Gym class and even that brings back smell of sweaty plimsolls. Even iodine as I never ended a hockey match without a bang on the ankle in the bully off.
Now, smells that gives me most pleasure are those of the sea-side, weed, sand and salty water. Don’t like fish smells, but like to eat it. After a swim on a hot day when you dry on the beach in the sun you can smell the salt on your body.
My younger son loves the smell of oil, well he always had his motor bike to pieces in the kitchen giving it the once over. And horses, they have a smell all their own, as does the farrier when that red hot shoe is laid on the hoof before being nailed on.
I have a niece who, after a crack on the head, has no sense of smell at all. She says it is strange as she always had it before, so misses it more. She cannot even smell gas or anything dangerous, so feels at risk at times. We take it all for granted like touch, taste and sight. It is said that when one sense is damaged another takes its place. Good job I have my sense of smell, as getting carried away with this script I can smell my dinner burning in the oven.