I’ve read that all sorts of thing trigger memory, including sight, sound, and scent. For example, I can’t smell fresh pea pods without thinking of my Auntie Primrose, possibly great auntie as I think she was my Grandmother’s sister. We would visit her periodically, and invariably she’d send us out to the garden to pick vegetables, including fresh peas, from her garden. We’d also see Uncle Basil and I’m unclear, with the passage of time, if he was her husband or her brother visiting, as all the girls had flower names, and he is named after a herb. Either way, like my Grandmother, she was a fantastic cook and if her pans didn’t actually sparkle from cleaning, her food still tasted great. My Mother was an accomplished cook also, on a very limited budget, and I too, without trying to be big-headed, am a good cook. Can cooking be in the genes? Lol.

Scents of freesias, yellow roses, and Chanel no 5 always remind me of my Grandmother, and I too wear the same perfume though not every day due to income, or more correctly, lack of. My mother always had a very neutral smell as any perfume would smell nice until she wore it when it smelled like cat’s p*ss. Something in her DNA, I guess. My Father always smelled of Camay – soap, and later, Imperial Leather which I use and love. Funny how I smell like my parents/grandparents now…

Clothes too have memories, and recently, with this cold spate, I’ve been wearing a cardigan to bed that my Mother made me many years back. It’s a nice cardigan, long, with pockets, though the colour – oatmeal – is such that it always looks grubby, even straight after a wash, hence now being used to keep warm in bed. She also knitted me a beautiful blue arran jumper, but I don’t wear it often; it’s precious to me, and anyway, takes too long to dry after being washed.

When my son was very young, I bought him a gorgeous brown fluffy onesie that made him look and feel like a teddy bear. I thought it was adorable though he clearly thought otherwise as he’d invariably throw up on it within minutes of having it put on. He did, however, like a little hooded top that had little ears on it. His Dad would swoop him around the room and call him the ‘bat baby’ much to his delight. When that went in the wash, he’d be distraught, and he would have worn it every day if we’d let him.

My husband from the 80’s had a favourite jumper from when he was a child. It was garish, old, worn, and clearly didn’t fit him but it had a treasured place in the bottom of the wardrobe. One year, we had a cleanout and he decided to bin said jumper. Well, he fretted for a few hours, then rescued it, and back to the bottom of the wardrobe it went. Funny man.

As mentioned above, it’s been very cold here though on the plus side, we have had 3 days with no rain whatsoever. One morning we had a frost, then the following morning a really hard frost that made the green at the bottom of the street look like we’d had a fine dusting of snow. It’s d*mn cold now, though the lack of rain has been well received. Not much sunshine to speak of except the one day, though I’ll take it over the rain. We have a small chance of rain today, very heavy grey skies, then it’s rain forecast all the way for the next week or so. Oh joy… The only good thing about the rain is that with the cloud cover, the temperature is set to rise slightly.

Enjoy the rest of the week, and have a good weekend, with plenty of sights, sounds, and scents to tantalise and delight your senses.