Smells

They* say that smell is the strongest of the senses for bringing back memories of people and places and I can well believe this is true. Every time I catch a whiff of someone's perfume I am transported back to a hotel restaurant in Majorca about 25 years ago, clutching a bread roll, I have no idea what the perfume is and the memory is only fleeting, I remember very little else of that holiday but it's such a vivid vision. 

This morning on the bus I could smell something, I don't know what it was but there I was standing in my Aunty Dolly's back room, eating a choc ice that had that very distinct taste that comes only from being in an old lady's freezer for a long time (Jesus, old lady's freezer sounds like some kind of euphemism). I don't know what the smell is only that it takes me back there immediately. 

Almost as soon as that had faded something else caught my attention, I could smell my Dad's fishing tackle box (and again, this is honestly not a euphemism), I can see the box sitting in the corner of the garage, filled with all manner of paraphernalia, I have no idea what any of it is called, but I can see it, as clear as day. The smell isn't fishy, it's more like the smell of the sea but with musty undertones. Every now and then I smell that same smell when I'm in work, on the stairs. I don't think he's with me, watching over me because, I don't believe that, he's dead, that's it, he's gone, I know it's just the smell wafting in from the nearby river but it brings him to mind instantly.

Then there's a very specific smell that brings to mind the medicine cupboard in the kitchen of my Dad and Step-Mum's house, it smells nothing like medicines, it actually smells of spices, they were on the bottom shelf, the plasters, bandages and pills were on the shelf above but that doesn't seem to matter to my memory. Spices = medicines to me.

*I don't know who 'they' are but you know what I mean