The Nose has it

It wasn’t at all unusual.  The other afternoon I took a few sips of refreshing water as I drove home after a job.  Its flavour was just as water ever tastes, but this time as I put the bottle to my lips my nose detected a somewhat unpleasant odour.  Either the neck of the bottle or the cap was distinctly tainted with stale dishcloth. Yeukk!

Thus reminded that the sense of smell is the most powerful, and most able to evoke memories, I spent the next few miles in silent, and for the most part happy, recollection of significant smells of the past.  One of the earliest I remembered was that of fir resin, as exuded by a ‘real’ Christmas tree, and as I considered those early Christmasses in the home of my grandparents, where the family gathered regularly each year, I remembered too a time only a few years back when I had sought out a seasonal wreath, simply to fill my tiny flat with the ‘right’ smell for Christmas.

The other key thing about memory is, of course, that those things longest ago are those we remember most vividly.  I’ve never got to the bottom of why this should be.  In my smell-induced reverie, I brought forth a few more from childhood.  One was the smell of freshly baked bread.  The route from my home through the town to school was past the local bakery; nowadays such places are an increasing rarity in the high street, but whenever I find one, there is a great temptation to linger and take in deep breaths of nostalgia.

Another smell that is becoming rarer with the passage of time and with anti-smoking legislation is the pipe.  A few wielders of the trusty briar remain, however, and – depending what brand of tobacco they smoke – the aromatic clouds that engulf them can remind me of my own home, where my father regularly smoked Juggler, or perhaps of family holidays - occasions when my uncle, who rolled his own cigarettes during the rest of the year, took out his pipe and enjoyed Erinmore Flake.

Other smells I remembered were more natural, and potentially healthier too.  The other day we all enjoyed a most refreshing perfume as we sat in the office with the door open – that of fresh rain falling on grass and concrete after a prolonged dry spell.  Connected with this is another that reminded me of schooldays – the scent of grass clippings as they dry in the open.  Every week or two during the summer our school field would be cut by a large device pulled by a tractor.  The clippings were never gathered up, and when we played on the field afterwards we seemed to be surrounded by this smell, which grew more pungent in dry weather as they slowly rotted on top of the new growth underneath.

Now – where did I put that bottle of bleach?