Springtime

It is Spring here in BsAs and, the same as everywhere else, Spring means fresh, new, lovely. Unfortunately Spring also means, hot, humid, wet (see my last post). However, I'm not complaining because one of the most amazing things here is the smell.

As you should be aware, I have a very acute sense of smell - yes I'm the one that can always smell gas - and it is one of the most delightful senses to have. Here in BsAs, in Spring, everything smells. Most of it's wonderful but sometimes there's a bad odour.

A few weeks ago I tried to get some of my students to construct a scent calendar. In other words what smells did they associate with each month of the year (pine for December, strawberries for June, etc) and they had no ideas at all - they claimed there were no smells in the city because it is a city and all the smells are drowned out (but they don't know what by). Eventually they came up with mothballs for May because that's when everyone takes their winter clothes out of storage (especially the big, old fur coats so beloved of middle class ladies of a certain age) and... that was about all!

At the moment the shrubs and trees are beginning to flower and that means jasmine, orange blossom, honeysuckle and bougainvillea (excuse any bad spelling). These are the good smells.

The bad smells? The tree that smells like cat's piss, the cat's piss itself (the humidity makes it worse), the sweaty armpits of people who think deodorant is for wimps (it so isn't).

Still, you can't appreciate the good without acknowledging the bad.