?Smells of new book?, said Victoria when I opened the new reference manual to look for some information.

Then, other scents came to my mind: plastic to wrap new books; shavings from the pencils; new notebooks?

Smell of wet soil; of harvested field; of irrigated land; of tomato plants; of pennyroyal?

Smell of apples in the storage; of peaches; of stew; of lovely cheese?

Smell of jasmine and queen of the night; smell of nard; of basil?

Smell of perfumes; the scent left by some colleague along the corridor, which allow you to guess who he is; of a friend; that which remains on sheets?

Smell of dead animal; stench from the sewers or from garbage containers; rotten potatoes that stink?

Nauseating or seductive smells, nasty or pleasant ? each odor is linked to an image; to more or less pleasant sensations; to situations; and to persons.

I have no doubt that sense of smell is my most acute sense; in contrast, my poor sight needs to be corrected by wearing glasses. However, it would be very conceited of me to compare myself with the protagonist of the best-seller: ?Perfume: The Story of a Murder? (1985); or further, with its author, Patrick S?skind, who is a master using words to describe odors, scents and fragrances.

In this connection, smells like music probably affect our emotions, as experts in scent marketing know very well.? Apart from the above mentioned smells, I keep in my memory the musty smell felt when I first entered in the student resident in Brest; or how my sons smelled at birth. Also La Havana has a special odor. And when I tried first time to smoke a cigar, the smoke evoked memories of my childhood and my father.

Today there is no picture to illustrate this text, let?s enjoy all the smells around us.

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