Armpits, barbecues, flowers: Why is summer in Scotland so smelly? - Gaby Soutar

It happens because of a chemical reaction between geosmin – an earthy note produced by a type of bacteria in the ground – and the aerosol effect of the water.

This results in a loamy scent that is universally considered pleasant.

Humans are exceptionally sensitive to its presence and science folk think that, perhaps, we’ve evolved to enjoy it, since it signals the end of an arid period. Forsooth! Our crops shall not fail.

Baby smelling the roses Pic: EVERST/Adobe

Unless, of course, it’s been unseasonably thundering down for three days straight, a la Scotland, then that pleasure gets a bit tiresome.

Not all of this season’s pongs are quite as appealing. Good and bad smells get much stronger in warmer weather. It’s something to do with the amount of energy available for odour-causing molecules, but I won’t bore you with too much more of that boffin waffle. We’re not training to go on an episode of QI.

However, it can be quite intense.

I’ve become like Grenouille in the Patrick Süskind book, Perfume, or one of the baddies in Roald Dahl’s book, The Witches, with their twitching oversized nostrils. And, yes, I can smell all the children and their grown-ups too, with their aromatic armpits and sodden wool jerkins.

I will turn them all into mice. Mind you, I am not innocent. I’ve been known to get a dozen wears out of one T-shirt, before it makes it into the washing machine. You always notice other people’s personal hygiene fails, before you’re bothered by your own.

Blame my addled constitution, but I’ve also developed a habit of applying deodorant to one pit – the left – and forgetting about the other side. So, if you see a woman with a right-sided sweat patch, it’s probably me.

I’ve found the bus is the worst place for intense summer pongs.

If I had synaesthesia, I imagine the air would look funky brown or green. It’d be like going into the library in Ghostbusters. I can smell passengers, from their stinky trainers to their brand of hairspray. The mating season Lynx and the Joop! Homme, layered with sun-lotion and cocoa butter.

My exercise classes, too, at this time of year, have the odour of salty miso soup, sometimes with onions added to the mix. We shall not talk of the changing rooms.

The dogs! I patted a pair of wire-haired dachshunds in a cafe the other day, and they smelled like rancid oysters and musky otter poo. They were like out-of-date chipolatas that have been rolled across a kitchen floor, then matured beneath the fridge for three days.

I think it was time for their summer shearing. Mind you, I wonder what they must think of us? I doubt I’m the only one who notices the all-encompassing stinkyness.

Most of us will, apart from my sister, who remains blissfully ignorant to this season’s most pungent odours, as she got hit by a car when she was about 12. There were no long-term ill-effects, except for losing her sense of smell, but only when it comes to bad things.

Strangely, too, I was absolutely hooked on the smell of eucalyptus oil for a few years and kept a bottle by my bed, until they found out I was anaemic. Apparently, desiderosmia, or olfactory cravings, can be a symptom.

After the iron tablets, I don’t need my daily whiff.

In the same way this season’s gift of hayfever blindsides me every year, so does the intense pong from June onwards.

There is the fetid tang, as you pass the full bins in the park, and, whenever there’s a feeble glimmer of sunshine, the smell of sausages and burgers burning on a barbecue from six gardens along. There’s the eau de cut grass, and the hedgerows emanate something lush and heavy, but there’s always a tinge of indolent rot in there.

I worry about the baby birds. Is this a sign that fledglings didn’t manage their virgin flight? I Google it. The survival rate is just 30 to 40 per cent. Oh dear. It’s not looking good for the beaky babies.

On a more positive note, the smell of ripe strawberries right now is magnificent. Is this an especially good vintage? I sniff them in the local shop, until the staff give me the side eye. Not trying before buying must apply to smells, too.

We have a pink clematis at its peak, outside our flat, and its scent is like sugared almonds. Later in the season, I look forward to the honeysuckle doing its thing. That’s an August pleasure. We’ll get back late from an Edinburgh Festival Fringe show and the air will be thick and syrupy.

It’s like being in the old Jenners perfume hall.

Just round the corner, there’s an unexpected orange blossom on a public patch of ground that’s otherwise only populated by nettles and ivy. For something with such minuscule white flowers, its scent is big and bouncy. With one deep inhale, I’m transported to Venice or somewhere else lovely.

After all, this is the sense they say is most linked to memory.

All my summers are strung together, with the same smells and stinks. Armpits and flowers across decades, as well as bins and barbecues.

Bring me them all, stinky old summer. I’ve missed you.