What is the strangest thing that triggers intense nostalgia or emotion for you?

[Missohnoyoubetterdont]

Not the standard smell of cut grass or old perfume. I mean something completely specific and quirky. For me, it is the sound of wood pigeons calling on a warm summer’s evening , or the feeling when you get up really early and there’s that stillness and possibility hanging in the air , I think it’s the wonderful feeling of potential and reminds me of travelling in hot sunny climbs. Other weird one is the smell of hot water bottles! Reminds me of childhood. It gives me a profound, aching sort of homesickness for a time I can’t quite name. What is your weird emotional trigger?"

No, it’s not honeysuckle. It’s not a pleasant scent!

Paraffin heaters. Before we had central heating we had one on the bathroom when it was bath time.
And Avon Soft Pink bubble bath. One sniff and Im a child again, at home with my mum and dad

Is it the flower that smells like cat pee?

Sometimes when I visit my bf at his flat there's a clean smell in the communal area that takes me right back to the hotel on the Isle of Wight we stayed in every summer as a child.

Boots Freshwood aftershave takes me right back to my first term at sixth form in the autumn of 1992, for some reason. And Exclamation! by Coty reminds me of my first proper unrequited crush.

Both fragrances have now sadly been discontinued. 😕

Pipe smoke, my great uncle smoked a Pipe, we only saw him once a year or so.
Occasionally I get a slightly odd that reminds me of the school hall/ corridors. I can't really describe it, its very much a particular smell.

I love the smell of pipe smoke, as it reminds me of my late DF.
People don’t smoke pipes anymore, it seems, though.
I was often sent to the shops as a child to buy an ounce of Condor Ready Rubbed tobacco.

The hymn “Give me joy in my heart”, because we sang it on my first day at junior school.

Lots of the well-known pieces of classical music will always be associated with the cassettes that went with the Ladybird books. 🐞 The opening of Beethoven’s 6th will always be Snow White; the second movement will always be “The Star Child”.

Smells are incredibly powerful. They are known to trigger that part of our brain.

The smell of freesias takes me sharply back to the Easter holidays during my first year at university. It was a beautiful sunny spring and on my birthday in early April my mum gave me some freesias.

She has every year since, but it's always that first time I remember. Things were good at home for almost the first time ever - everyone was getting on.

but the emotions and feeling of wanting to go back can be too overwhelming

I heard Trash by Suede the other day and the longing to go back to 1996 was absolutely overwhelming.

I wish I'd realised at the time I was living through I really notable period of British cultural history.

Lavender soap. My grandparents used to have two bars of lavender soap on the parcel shelf in their car in lieu of ‘real’ car air fresheners

Topping and tailing gooseberries. If I can I recreate a Sunday summer afternoon with the cricket on with a very pale parched pitch, the curtains half pulled but the door open so we had fresh air but shade, and both strawberries and gooseberries being prepped for the evening.

Going to sleep on really hot heatwave nights. It always reminds me of being heavily pregnant with my sons and yet I can’t actually remember it being a thing i was particularly fond of

The smell of tinsel. Modern tinsel doesn’t all smell like it, but you can still find the kind that does in cheapo shops that sell 50ft of it for a quid.

The smell of it reminds me of being very little and laying underneath our Christmas tree in the 80s. The smell of (probably carcinogenic) tinsel reminds me of how it and a plastic tree, all warmed up with fairy lights which were plugged in- four sets at a time- to a nice, hot extension lead was the smell of Christmas in our house. It really makes my heart ache with nostalgia.

Yankee make a candle called something like ‘Fir Tree Dreams’ but sadly they don’t make one called ‘80s Christmas Fire Hazard’.

Oh and Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male as my first proper love wore it. But I can’t smell it anymore, we broke up horribly and sometimes even all these years later the smell of it can bring tears to my eyes. After we split up I’d sometimes test myself to see how much it still hurt and go and spray it in Boots. It was delicious torture.

How bizarre, I had a strawberry glycerin soap for hospital when I had my tonsils out as well and the smell takes me right back!

Coal smoke, blackbirds singing after the rain, elderflower. Take me back to being little.

Most mornings when I'm up early,I stick the old Bullseye shows on. It's on challenge TV. This morning it was from 30th December 1984. The 80s decorated Christmas trees in the studio,made me wish I could step into the TV and see everyone I've since lost. My dad,and grandparents. My nan would have made her traditional cake and Christmas pudding. I would have been almost 11 then. I felt a real pang of sadness 😭

Summer mown grass, camping in a huge cotton Cabanon tent in the late 70's in Cornwall when I was 7-9.
The best memories of my mum and dad and when they were happy.
Postcards to write, the campsite shop, taking your blue ice pack there to pop in the freezer and pick up later.
Wimbledon on the radio.
A new dress to wear out to a local pub and looking forward to sausage and chips in a basket.
Top deck shandy.
Rip mum xxx

Frost glittering orange under sodium arc streetlights. Reminds me of being carried sleepily from the car to the house when we would have been out late at a friend or relative's house.

The smell of ck1

And the smell of tomato plants (granddad's greenhouse)

The Boddingtons factory in Manchester used to smell like baked potatoes

Pub garden on a summer evening, with the cool grass, a packet of Golden Wonder & a lemonade.

The sound of cars going by when you’re lying in bed at night and the feeling of stillness when you’re indoors on a very warm humid day both remind me of my grandparents’ house and spending childhood holidays with them. I miss them so very much and that feeling of being completely safe, loved, and carefree. Sometimes when I’m somewhere with light traffic noise at night, or I’m home on a still warm afternoon, the nostalgia hits me. In Wales, we call the feeling hiraeth.