Sweet summer stench.

I am one of those individuals that base a lot of my memories, moods and situations upon smells. Some old perfume can remind me of some certain period in my life so forcefully it seems like time stops, the smell of lavender makes me sleepy, wet grass reminds me of festivals and the smell of a fresh ice cold beer makes me really, really happy. People who know me, Erc for instance, can vouch for the fact that I open up and sniff about anything, from lotions to yoghurts to teabags. Supposedly I do have a rather finely tuned nose, too; I often smell things that no one else can.

These days I'm all about summer, and smells play a big part in making me go into a summer mood. The beforementioned beer is one of them, freshly mown grass is another. I could probably spend a good hour or two sniffing lilac bushes in full bloom (luckily I'm not allergic to it), along with fresh sea air, food cooking on a barbequeue and a good cup of coffee. As I'm writing this I'm slurping on a self made mango/passion fruit/kiwi smoothie of sorts (not pretty looking, but very very good). Passionfruit is rarely found in Norwegian grocery stores (not that surprising, really), so when I do stumble upon some I have to buy it. 'Tis a weird fruit, very hard and dry on the outside, filled with seeds and very little else on the inside, apart from a few droplets of juice. But those droplets... Hubba hubba. When I went to Uganda in '05, I quickly discovered that fruit really is in abundance down there, and I lived on pineapple, oranges, mangos, bananas and, particularily, passion fruit. We did a few experiments with it too, resulting in pineapple/passionfruit tea, ice cream and a very successful pineapple/passionfruit/orange and vodka drink which didn't taste of vodka at all, dangerously enough. And now, as I sliced open the passionfruit and scooped out the stuff inside I was transported back, and it almost made me cry.

Stuff I buy are more often than not decided by smell; different kinds of teas, fruits, shampoos, lotions... So was the case of the Soap and Glory stuff from Boots, the Moringa stuff from Body Shop, and the latest addition; Raspberry Puree Body Lotion. This stuff smells so good you want to eat it. Take my advice, thought: Don't. Stuff that smells like heaven doesn't always taste like it.

Right. I am going to go outside and smell the freshly mown grass, my passion fruit smoothie, the raspberry lotion on my arms, the neighbors lilac bushes and hopefully, later, a beer. It's offical: Summer's here!