Reminiscent smells

[Gemini]

Smells have the power to transport us back in time don't they?

Today I was cooking a baked potato in the microwave. I don't usually cook them this way as I prefer them in the oven. I had a busy morning and came home hungry and wanted to eat. When I opened the microwave the smell transported me back 34 years!
When pregnant with DD3 I was very sick for 14 weeks, sick as soon as I moved off the sofa. With girls of 12 and nearly 10 to cook for at teatime it was a quick option to make a microwave baked potato a lot of the time, being sick first. I would throw a topping on. and go and be sick again! Poor girls.


The smell of log fires takes me back even further. In my late teens I worked for someone who had an open fire. He and his wife often had us round. It was a happy time of my life and that smell takes me right back to being 17 again

What smells take you back in time?

[Plantaholic]

Sorry, can’t add anything as I do not have a sense of smell

[Oma]

Coal fires ,
If we go to Beamish museum and the coal fires are on it takes me back to my childhood ,
Toasting bread in front of the fire .

Germoline
is another smell makes me think of scraping my knees and my Dad putting germoline cream on them.
Lovely memories

Oxo’s
if it was cold Dad would make us a cup of oxo with a chunk of bread to dip in to warm us up 😁

[Gemini]

Vosene! I can smell it and see my dad walking into the living room towelling his head

[Oma]

Oh I loved the smell of Vosene,😁

[Nanto2girls]

Nothing springs to mind.

[Daisy]

Gem, no wonder that smell had the power to transport you back to the early part of that pregnancy. It must have been so difficult being so sick.

All sorts of things transport me back to particular people or situations.

Cabbage, sprouts or other green veg being overcooked - reminds me of the school dining hall on days when Lobby (a bit like Scouse) was on the menu.

Roses - my very first lipstick (I had such a battle with my mum to get her to let me buy it)

Raw sausages and meat - my Grand parents' living room (they lived behind their butcher's shop).

The smell of hot cocoa on a cold winter's day.

Hyacinths - a friend of my mother's who always wore perfume that smelled of them.

Mothballs - my Auntie Cissy's bedroom.

Eau Dynamisante - I used to wear this perfume occasionally and a colleague at work always commented on it.

Loads of other things, these are just what came to mind just now.

[Gemini]

For a long time I kept a scented nappy sack ( clean unused if course!) Long after DD3 was past babyhood, to remind me of those happy days of her early months.

[Lizzie48]

The smell of freshly sawn wood! For the first 8 years of my life we lived in front of a joiners workshop, it would not be allowed nowadays but we spent hours playing there, the sound of the saw blades, the smell of the sawdust etc.

[Sum1Ls]

Oma - yes, coal fires. I come from Nottingham and one of the few things that was cheap was coal. The coal an arrived with his sacks on his shoulders and tipped it into the coal hole, which was the space under stairs. We had to kept all the doors tightly shut to keep out the coal dust but it still got everywhere and made my mother exasperated.
Did you watch the fossil patterns in the big lumps of coal as it burned?

[Oma]

Yes and occasionally there would be a rogue detonator in that would explode ,
My dad used to try to check and always put the fire guard in front when a new shovel of coal went on just incase 😁

I remember our next door neighbours cat getting hit with flying debris , wasn’t hurt just scared it ran under the sofa and wouldn’t come out ,
Her son had to lift one end while her husband dragged it out poor thing .

After that Dad would say children and Cats take cover 😁

[Daisy]

I can remember the coal man delivering as well, Sum1. We were luckier that our coal hole was at the back of the house with the door onto the garden. Mum was never very pleased though if he delivered on a Monday when the washing was out on the line. We also lived in a mining area. I never recall having any detonators, but I do remember going to the slag heap to pick coal when we were short.

Oma, poor cat!

[Oma]

I remember doing that too Daisy , we had the slag heap behind our house , we would go with my Dad and he would collect coal and bring it home on his Bike , that’s probably where the Detonators came from .
It’s now a dry ski slope , you would never believe it had ever been a pit there at. All .

[Daisy]

Oma, I'm sure it was awful for the grown-ups but we children would take our beach buckets and fill them, empty them into the big buckets and then keep refilling them. Our nearest slag heap was a bus ride away, but I don't remember any problems with taking a load of coal on the bus!

[Gemini]

We had the coal man too! I remember playing coalmen by putting a cushion on my back and 'tipping' it onto the sofa! Our coal house was part of the bungalow, accessed from outside. Later it became my dad's gardening tool store.