poll: favourite smells

Today's pictures are from one of my runs instead. The garbage workers have been legislated back to work (they've been on strike for a while), so looks like the parks are going to get cleaned up. Here's one of the scenes I've been passing during my runs which, as you can imagine, got more and more fragrant with each passing day:





The legislation back to work likely has something to do with the fact that World Youth Day is approaching quickly (see photo at the top of this page). The Pope's coming to Toronto!

I try to plan my run home so that I go through the Toronto Music Garden, which I've mentioned in earlier Blatherings. I love seeing the personality of the garden change over time. The heady aroma of lilac was my most recent favourite; I'm nuts about fresh lilacs. When we lived out in the country, I used to cut a few bunches of lilac from a tall bush beside our house and put them in a vase so I could enjoy the scent all day.

Now I use fragrance to reward myself on the way home from a run. After the lilacs finished blooming in the Toronto Music Garden, it was lavender. Now my favourite scent in the garden comes from these flowers (anyone know their name?):





Some of my other favourite smells:

- baking bread
- chocolate
- playdough
- spices: cinnamon, mint, basil
- freshly cut grass
- lily of the valley, roses, lavender, lilacs
- brewing coffee
- musty book smell in used bookstores or academic libraries
- babies (after they've just been bathed or changed), especially the tops of their heads
- snow. Or rather, the fragrance in the air in the morning after snowfall. I love the chorus from The Lowest of the Low's "Rosy and Grey":

Everything is coming up rosy and grey
The wind is cold but the smell of snow warms me today
And your smile is fine and itís just like mine and it wonít go away
Because everything is rosy and grey

Poll: What are your favourite smells?

Do you have any "weird" favourite fragrances? Did you have any favourite smells back in childhood that you don't like now? I used to actually LIKE the smell of cigarette smoke and gasoline, for example. Now I dislike both. How far will you go to seek out favourite smells? I like the smell of coffee so much that sometimes I will use a hotel room coffeemaker to make a cup of coffee in the morning, even if I don't have plans to drink it.