I burnt my toast this morning. I opened the windows, but the smell stayed in the kitchen for ages.  That started me thinking about smells.

People have five senses – sense of sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell. Our sense of smell is much more sensitive than our sense of taste. That’s why, when we have a cold and can’t smell anything, the food we eat doesn’t seem very interesting.

Our sense of taste only tells us whether something is sweet, or sour (like lemons), salty, or bitter. Coffee and unsweetened chocolate are bitter.

But smell is so much more. Even if I am tired and don’t feel hungry, the smell of onions frying in butter, or the smell of cheese on toast, will wake up my appetite.

For most people, smells connect strongly with memory.  Can you remember the smell of your classroom in elementary school? I can’t, but I am sure if I smelt that particular smell again – I would recognize it.

Being a words person, I started thinking about the different words we use in English for smell. Another word that has the same meaning as smell is odour.

Then there are positive words like aroma, bouquet, perfume, scent, fragrance; and negative ones like stink, reek and pong.

Words like perfume and scent are used mostly for flowers, while aroma is used for food and coffee. Bouquet is a word used to describe the fragrance of wine.

In another blog post, I’m going to write about a new “taste” word I learned – umami.

In your language do you have many different words for smell?

Are there some food aromas that wake up your appetite?

What smell memories do you have?

(P)

Do you have “a head for heights”?

If you have “a head for heights”, it means that you are not afraid of high places. You can stand on the top floor of high buildings or at the top of towers and you don’t feel any fear.

Some people are afraid of heights. This fear is called “acrophobia”. (Pronunciation:ˌakrəˈfōbēə)  These people don’t have a head for heights.

A while ago, I went to Tokyo Tower. It is 333m tall. Luckily, I have a head for heights, so I wasn’t afraid. However, it was a very stormy day, and the tower was swaying in the wind. That was a little scary!

It was raining and cloudy, so I couldn’t see very far into the distance, but the views were still amazing!

(H)

Well it’s a lovely day today. Sunny, and the weather forecast predicts a maximum temperature of 19 degrees.

 

Of course we will get some cooler days, but spring is almost here. Time to start thinking about spring and summer clothes.

I don’t have much space in my room to store clothes, so I put the clothes I’m not wearing away in boxes.

Then when the seasons change I have to take out the boxes and swap the clothes over. This is a good time to throw away old clothes and think about new ones.

Spring and summer are seasons for bright colours, aren’t they?  The fashion sites on the web predict lemon yellows, orange (a colour I never wear), greens and grey-blues.

Spring and summer are the time to have fun with clothes. T-shirts are quite cheap, and one in the latest colour will brighten up last year’s jeans and sandals.

I started to think about my favourite summer colours. Not many of them appear on the fashion sites for this summer. I don’t care. I put my favourite colours together in the picture below. What would I call them?

Maybe aqua, sky blue, turquoise, cobalt blue, teal, scarlet, bright pink and coral.

What colours do you like to wear in summer?

(P)