smells

Today was spent tying up loose ends and preparing stuff for my little excursion to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow. (Due to the worrying fact that my parents thought I had already been there for a week, I feel the need to clarify that it is tomorrow that I leave.)

I'm really looking forward to it but I'm really going to miss some of my friends here. I'm going to chill out with my great uncle for the week coming back next Tuesday. He made sure to get in his (very specific and detailed) order for duty-free whiskey and pipe tobacco. (He cracks me up.) I love the after smell of pipe tobacco, so it'll be nice to be around it too. Nobody else I know smokes a pipe so I only get to smell it once a year when he comes to Scotland. (And even then I tend not to make a big point of it due to the inevitable mocking that ensues.)

Smell are funny thing. They have such a strong affect on memories. You never remember smells, but sometimes a stray scent catches you off guard and you are immediately reminded of a person, place, time or feeling. For me it's probably the strongest trigger of memories, but even once the memory has surfaced, if the smell has passed, I couldn't tell you what it was. I just know that it was.

Although, some smells are just intrinsically linked with certain people or places and you'd know it a mile off. Like pipe tobacco and my uncle, or body odour and an old French teacher, or curry and my grandparents house. I used to have an eccentric art teacher in primary school who you could smell coming a mile off. I have no idea what it was, and it wasn't bad, but it just smelled like him. A strange unplaceable smell, like incense or magical aftershave or something. One day I was walking down the street and I smelt it again. It wasn't until i walked passed two more side streets and turned a corner that i saw him coming towards me half the length of the street away from me. Bizarre.

I should be able to keep up the blog while I'm gone, although the photos will most likely need to be added later.