Olfactory records

[j4]

At the junction at the bottom of Castle Hill a cyclist pulled up alongside me, and she smelt so strongly of the Body Shop's "Dewberry" range that I felt like I was a teenager again, worrying that using deodorant would make my parents think I was seeing boys (because why else would you want to smell nice or shave your legs?). I still hate that dewberry scent; it's like boiled sweets without the tastiness, or flowers without the naturalness, or summer holidays without friends. (I thought for ages that it was a made-up fruit, but actually it's not.)

And as I walked along Sidney Street I passed a greasy-haired boy, undergraduate age I suppose (though they look so young and so on and so forth), who was standing by the wall and eating a pasty from a paper bag. Right at the moment when I passed him there was a huge papery pastryish munching sound, and I got a hot blast of the smells of lard-soaked pastry and gristly meat.

I think on balance I preferred the pasty to the dewberry, which probably says something about me.

Not something very interesting, though. But never mind.

Comments

[missjudas.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, that Dewberry spray takes me back to high school too. That, and White Musk, which someone had recently sprayed in the bathroom at work today when I went in there. Odd how smells can instantly transport you to another time and place.

[taimatsu]

White musk is one of the few not-obviously-noisome smells I really can't stand. Ick ick ick.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I think that it's the sense most tied to memory, in fact.