Memories are Made of This

Recently I tweeted about a brand of cream soda which was so lovely it had me reminiscing about playing in my maternal grandmother's garden. It got me thinking: how wonderful is it that taste can trigger memories? And for that matter, smell?

I'm not going to try and explain how it happens because I don't have the credentials to elaborate and I don't want to come off like some Gillian McKeith idiot.

But for me, along with the cream soda, there are two outstanding products which send me hurtling down memory lane: Christian Dior Hypnotic Poison perfume and iced shortbread topped with a glacé cherry.

The former is a relatively expensive designer scent and has me right back in my childhood home's kitchen playing with my first pet, a black and white rabbit called Thumper. The circumstances over why Thumper was in the kitchen aren't pleasant but for some reason the memory is comforting to me. This is also not say that Dior have ravaged an array of rabbit hutches to create the notes but that there is a certain je ne sais quoi about Hypnotic Poison which I find utterly entrancing.

The shortbread is something I don't need to taste to have the memory return because frankly I can't taste it. It's something I had to eat when I was a teenager when I was recovering from a horrendous experience: my first allergic reaction to penicillin. As a result the very thought of it makes me feel not well at all. Unsurprisingly.

Our senses and memory centres are clever, devious and remarkable set ups.