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Things from the past.
Dec. 1st, 2012 08:18 pmSmells make up pretty strong memories. In my mind, memories are stored on little memory creatures with pictures glued to their bellies. If you ever watched Once upon a time... Life, you know what I mean.
When we were kids, we would spend parts of our holidays with our grandparents. Their bathroom was unique to me in several ways. They had a gas boiler that gives the water a very different heat from hot tap water, which will never feel warm enough to me to be entirely pleasant for a bath. They had no shower, so there were no debates about preferring the bathtub. And the room and everything in it had a very unique smell.
The gas heater-water temperature relation, I figured out when I moved into my first apartment, which had one as well.
The smell, I didn't encounter again for many years more. At some point, I realised that "grandparents' bathroon" wasn't a proper place to file a scent, so that poor little memory fellow got tossedn into the heap of "to be sorted and filed properly".
I have a thing with herbs. I like to use them where I can. Last year, what with moving and all, I simply never got around to picking and preparing anything, so naturally I ran out. The easiest way to deal with that is buy something instead. It helps to pay attention to the writing on a bottle, rather than the colour alone, because sometimes, different things are coloured the same. Then you end up pouring juniper into your bathtub instead of poppy, and suddenly wonder about the scent that is rising from your water... Now isn't that a familiar one... For the record: Up until an hour ago, I was convinced that I hated juniper and would never have used it for anything.
That little memory bit is neatly filed now and happy between its friends, as I try to figure out why in the world my grandparents' bathroom smelled of juniper...
When we were kids, we would spend parts of our holidays with our grandparents. Their bathroom was unique to me in several ways. They had a gas boiler that gives the water a very different heat from hot tap water, which will never feel warm enough to me to be entirely pleasant for a bath. They had no shower, so there were no debates about preferring the bathtub. And the room and everything in it had a very unique smell.
The gas heater-water temperature relation, I figured out when I moved into my first apartment, which had one as well.
The smell, I didn't encounter again for many years more. At some point, I realised that "grandparents' bathroon" wasn't a proper place to file a scent, so that poor little memory fellow got tossedn into the heap of "to be sorted and filed properly".
I have a thing with herbs. I like to use them where I can. Last year, what with moving and all, I simply never got around to picking and preparing anything, so naturally I ran out. The easiest way to deal with that is buy something instead. It helps to pay attention to the writing on a bottle, rather than the colour alone, because sometimes, different things are coloured the same. Then you end up pouring juniper into your bathtub instead of poppy, and suddenly wonder about the scent that is rising from your water... Now isn't that a familiar one... For the record: Up until an hour ago, I was convinced that I hated juniper and would never have used it for anything.
That little memory bit is neatly filed now and happy between its friends, as I try to figure out why in the world my grandparents' bathroom smelled of juniper...
