Freshly cut grass is basic. It’s the dullest answer to “what’s your favourite smell?” For the last year and a half we’ve had screens and speakers to remind us what the outside world looks and sounds like, but no one’s released a nightclub-scented candle. Now that I’m back out in the world, I’m appreciating the good stinks that I’m whiffing. Here are my favourites:

1. MORNING GREASE

 I love the smell of curry and chips in the morning. As I cycle down the street to work, the stale wave of last night’s greasy treats meets the wall of freshly-ground commuter coffee. Take note shower-gel manufacturers: there’s nothing more invigorating than a tikka-mocha mix.

2. BOOZE INFUSED CARPETS

 As I pass a pub I’m reminded that beer has a hearty stink to it. It emanates up from the carpeted floors and out the front doors as staff count their inventory. It’s the first time since working in a bar that I’ve been aware of the booze-aroma and it’s a comforting whiff of normality. The ghosts of pints-past conjure the possibility of pints that are yet to come.

Arriving at the office is a dose of the New Smells. My own breath absorbed and reflected back at me by a mask. The olfactory whitewash of alcohol hand gel. They are a reminder that we must cherish the Old Smells.

 

3. FUMES AND FLAKES

At lunchtime, I’m excited by the simple novelty of getting an ice cream. I had forgotten how the sweet scent of Soleros, Fabs, and Flake 99s is always preceded by a lungful of van fumes. This may explain our impending environmental doom: generations of children were pavloved into associating the chugging petrol engine of an ice cream van with a summery treat. Whenever I smell the smog of congestion, I get a real hankering for a Twister.

 

4. CHARITY SHOP MUST

Charity shops are like nostalgia sewers: everyone’s waste combining into one humming river of yesteryear stink. Only, the stink is that comforting mustiness of old books and Grandma’s house, not human effluence. I’m really not selling it, but please go and support your local charity shops with both your nostrils and your wallet. The nostalgia sewers have become a little overfilled recently, so plunger them with your purchasing wherever you can. I got overexcited and bought some jeans that are far too blue to ever be worn.

 

5. PUBLIC TRANSPORT PERFUME

Once the day is over and I’ve had a post-work pint, I cycle home in the quiet. There’s a fresh summer-rain smell in the air. As I pass a bus stop I detect the alluring scent of perfume. I’m captivated by it. Not like a cartoon character who must follow the tendrils of the smell-cloud to their source, but in a fleeting flashback of intimacy. Like smelling the shadow of your lover’s perfume on the pillow beside you as you drift off on your own. It feels good to remember that sensation.

 But, Jesus, to give me a noseful as I zip past, that must be a lot of perfume. Someone’s overcooked it and is inadvertently walking around in their own personal smell-o-sphere because they too are unused to going out again.

 

 6. WHAT YOU COOKED FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT

Even home smells different. As I open the door I’m gently reminded of the mushroom stroganoff I cooked the night before. I know that, tomorrow I’ll be heading up to Stockport to sleep on the floor in a room full of my friends. I’ll be reminded of the changing-room pong of a house of hungover boys, and will be surprised to discover that a small pet tortoise can create a fragrance that equates to biological warfare. But when that’s all over I’ll smell home. Instead of being an unwelcome resumption of my solitude, it’ll be a comforting feeling again.

 

Keep your heart and your nose open. Smell ya later x