SCENTS, SMELLS, STINKS AND EFFLUVIA

Our senses wake up with the coming of Spring. A small bunch of snowdrops is sufficient to refresh one’s sense of smell which may have been flattened by the smoke from winter fires. The soil itself begins to open up and send out its earthy perfume, letting you know the roots are growing and shoots are about to sprout.

Then comes the early spring sensation of Daphne Odora, with its small cream coloured flowers with a deep pink centre that give the most heavenly scent. These are followed by lilac and laburnum, and attracted in part by these wonderful aromas so come the early bees and insects. A walk in the woods will give you the scent of leaf mould, bracken and bluebells. Puff balls, oak trees and ferns all send out their messages which we pick up through our noses often before our eyes see them. 

Proust harped on about the smell of privet from his childhood and certainly smells can take us back to forgotten memories: our first camp fire, our early scrambles in rock

pools by the seaside. Indoor smells from old books, in attics, from a linen drawer can be very evocative as can the smell of damp dog after returning home from a wet walk.

Walking in many landscapes, the air can be heady with the perfume of wild herbs. In foreign lands these perfumes can seem overpowering. The lavender fields of France, the National Parks of Spain with thyme and rosemary thickly scenting the air. Coming out of any airport in India one is hit by the combination of the smoke from little fires of dried dung, and the bidi cigarettes scented with cloves. It might not sound appealing but it is glorious and says “India” as much as the brightly coloured saris and crazy traffic.

Sometimes, of course, other people’s notion of smells can be a bit extreme. I remember one television wine critic sniffing a deep red Burgundy and saying she was getting the aromas of “Elastic Bands and Digestive Biscuits“. Even I do not get that sort of thing with my damaged sense of smell of the long committed (now ex) smoker! There is also the wonderful mixed scented metaphor of an actual speech in the Irish House of Commons when Sir Boyle Roche was impelled to say: “Mr 

Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud”!

Of course there are the good smells, the quite pleasant smells and the downright awful smells, stinks or stenches. Durian fruit has a smell so strong that it is banned from hotels in Asia, and signs banning it can be seen on public transport. Early in the novel, Jane Eyre was repelled by “the effluvia of burnt porridge" coming from the kitchen below, filling the Rochester house. But this is not the time of year to dwell on bad smells, it is Summer so let us go about with our nostrils flaring (nobody will see if you are wearing a mask) and take in the olfactory delights of this, our countryside! As they may say in Scotland, “Lang may yer Summer reek”!

Martin Kinna