The power of a scent, fragrance or aroma is incredible to me. It can make you recoil in horror, make you feel happy and warm and it can recall upon memories that you didn’t even know you had.

The smell of bacon wafting through the house reminds me of Sunday mornings when I was a child. My Mum would be in the kitchen, singing, cooking breakfast. My Dad would be in the front room listening to some awesome music, 10CC, Creedence Clearwater Revival…and my brother and I would be wandering around being cute.

Moth balls. Admittedly these do not have the greatest smell but I love them. They bring back so many memories of sleeping on the saggy camp bed in Nana Lil and Grandad Ted’s bedroom. My brother and I would snuggle down, both of us ending up almost on the floor because the bed sagged so much in the middle. The ‘Disney Classics’ cassette would be playing and I’d always want ‘Colonel Hathi’s March‘ and ‘Trust In Me‘ from ‘Jungle Book’ (1967).

Another one is my Nana Cora. I don’t even  know what it is but I randomly smell it around the house and my Mum sometimes smells of it. It makes me smile but I also wonder if my Nana is spying on me…

It’s amazing to me how our sense of smell is linked with our memories, in a similar way to hearing a piece of music. You’re instantly back to the moment that memory  was formed and there’s no control over it. The feelings that it evokes are so immense. It’s not something I’ve really thought about before but I would hate to lose my sense of smell. You don’t really think about it in the same way you would your hearing or sight, it’s almost taken for granted. The way it is connected to memory though just shows how important it can be. I found this to be quite an interesting read (Fifth Sense) and there are loads more thought provoking bits of information on the website about it and how detrimental losing your sense of smell can be.

Be happy and keep smiling 🙂