Blog Prompt – June 2, 2008: this month how about Sights and/or Smells. Maybe something from the past or something from the present or maybe even something from the present that sparks a memory of something in the past….
The smell of hot, sweet tea and oranges always brings me back in time to my grandparents house. I can remember walking into their home most Saturdays when I was a child, to be greeted by the smell of hot, sweet tea for afternoon tea, with a plate of biscuits from Huntley & Palmers, the biscuit factory where both dad and grandad worked. Dad used to joke that he remembered making ‘that particular biscuit’ when I would pick up a fig roll or one of the other cream filled biscuits.
I’m not sure why the scent of oranges reminds me of them because I can’t remember a time of any special significance that we had oranges or ate them together, maybe it was a heavily scented room deoderiser or cleaning product that left th scent of oranges in the house, I just know the smell of a freshly cut orange drags me back down through the years.
The smell of hot, sweet tea, or oranges, always has been a comforting and loving scent for me. Having only seen my grandparents a couple of times in the past 30 years, I haven’t forgotten my early childhood with their presence a major memory for me.
I missed them through my teen years and early twenties, then my having my own family took my mind off the fact I didn’t have my grandparents in easy access. My granddad died when I was in my early thirties and because of the expense of airfares I didn’t get a chance to go to his funeral. My grandmother is still alive, though suffering from late stage alzheimers, and I doubt I will be able to attend her funeral either, when the time comes.
But I’ll always have the scent of hot, sweet tea and oranges to remind me of them.
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