Today I had a strange experience while walking home. I walked over the grid of a car park and was hit by a familiar smell. It was not an unpleasant smell, a mix of rubber, ventilation and old sweaty walls. That smell that I am sure goes unoticed by everybody else sent me straight back to my childhood.

Suddenly I was not this 30 something woman hurrying home with a bag of shopping on one side and a list of “to do” things on the other hand.

I was a 7 year old with gruby hands, frazzled hair and gaping smile. I was entering the bike shed belonging to our flat…it was dark and musty but exciting always as it meant we were heading to the Buttes Chaumont with my mum and brother.

It meant carefree, casual happiness…

Crossing the zebra I thought about that child I once was and wanted to start hopping…

Today I had a strange experience while walking home. I walked over the grid of a car park and was hit by a familiar smell. It was not an unpleasant smell, a mix of rubber, ventilation and old sweaty walls. That smell that I am sure goes unoticed by everybody else sent me straight back to my childhood.

Suddenly I was not this 30 something woman hurrying home with a bag of shopping on one side and a list of “to do” things on the other hand.

I was a 7 year old with gruby hands, frazzled hair and gaping smile. I was entering the bike shed belonging to our flat…it was dark and musty but exciting always as it meant we were heading to the Buttes Chaumont with my mum and brother.

It meant carefree, casual happiness…

Crossing the zebra I thought about that child I once was and wanted to start hopping…