This smell reminds me of Christmas. Oranges, clementines, satsuma mandarins and tangerines always filled my family’s fruit bowls over the festive season.
And I always had some satsuma mandarins in the heel and toe of my stocking.
No stocking fillers were ever the correct shape to fill the heel or the toe of a Christmas stocking. Other stockings flap around at the foot while the leg is bursting out at the seams.
But not mine.
I had a satsuma mandarin in the heel and the toe of my Christmas stocking.
Christmas morning we would all open our stockings together upstairs. I being the only child always had plenty left when everyone else had emptied their stockings. Before going down stairs to open our main presents Granny would make us all breakfast leaving the rest of us to admire our miniature gifts, and fill the air with an orangey aroma as we ate the satsuma mandarins from the heels and toes of our Christmas stockings.
Everyone always had a cooked English breakfast as a Christmas morning treat, except me. I only ever wanted porridge with honey.
And the satsuma mandarins from the heel and the toe of my Christmas stocking.
