Apparently, nostalgia is an acquired smell

While I was walking to work this morning I got an unmistakable whiff of the ocean.

The smell of the ocean means many things to many people. In Australia where many of us spend long childhood summers at the beach it often conjures a happy nostalgia for sandcastles, body-boarding, summer romance and - perhaps not so happily - getting to/past third base in the sand dunes. Chaffing is a bitch, I've heard.

In me it invokes the memory of fearless sun bathing, the carnivorous gaze of young men and long afternoons playing beach cricket with family and friends.

These days I no longer have the patience for organised sports; the majority of the male population prefers their blondes thinner and with fewer opinions; and just 15 minutes in the sun will wilt me faster than a puppy in a parked car.

Despite myself, I still enjoy the nostalgia.

However.

This morning I was struck not by golden memories of happier times. I was struck by the utter wrongness of the constitution of the odour itself.

I was nowhere near the ocean but there it was: seaweed, dead things, salt and soggy sand.

Not so romantic when it's wafting from the other side of a tall brick fence in suburban Melbourne.