Niffs

It is common that often the most evocative things that stimulate our senses are smells. An exact aroma can take me back to very specific locations, not just buildings but individual rooms within them. Over the last few years, I have noticed that arriving back at home after being out for the day, it smells very pleasant in an unexciting sort of a way. The smell reminds me of visits to various other kids in the neighbourhood. I am sure I have often mentioned how a change in the polish used to clean the office can bring out memories of all sorts of various things from school days. Those polished woodblock floors with the herringbone pattern seem to soak up smells, like a sort of aromatic recording device. A school my wife once taught at was closed down and we used to drive by it occasionally. I would imagine that even with the broken windows letting in the rain and wind, the polished floor would still be there, still smelling the same as when the kids used to sit on it cross-legged, getting dirty and trying not to sing the “alternate” words for the hymns. I am sure that all the modern schools built under the PFI scheme (Jarvis anyone?) don’t have herringbone-pattern, woodblock floors any more; they’ll all have tasteful light-oak or pine wood floors. The woodblocks are all going into period-furnished houses on the back of the recovery boom. So not everything Dan Cruickshank does is good.

My all time favourite smell is that of my aunt’s house. It gives a deep sense of calm, all baskety and woody, a sort of academic refuge, a smell that I would expect in an old university library, though I have to say that the only time I was in an OLD university library, it smelled of the previous night’s dinner and not a very appetising one either. All this has been prompted by the mix of smells that fill the kitchen here at lunchtime. Many people bring microwaveable meals and the smell of all those different things cooking makes for a very strange and sometimes overpowering atmosphere, not at all reminiscent of anything I can think of, though in years to come, the smell of here will have become a memory trigger for this time. I don’t mind hospital smells though I can’t actually remember the smell of the ward I was in last year. The autumn smells good as well.

Sniff something today.