The Pleasure Lists Q&A: Emily Ash Powell

We’re back with another installment of The Pleasure Lists: Pleasures, Curated.

I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy getting to know members of the Pleasure Lists community and what makes their Pleasures tick.

Follow @thepleasurelists

Emily Ash Powell is a Welsh writer who lives in London and misses the sea. She is the author of Hurdling, the newsletter that looks at how we get over the things that get in our way. Emily spent 10 years building brands and helping them to find (and keep) their personalities. She has worked for brands like Bumble, Tony’s Chocolonely, Freddie’s Flowers, Skin + Me, tails.com and various advertising agencies, and has written for places like Stylist, Condé Nast Traveller, Cosmopolitan, Refinery 29, the iPaper, HuffPost, Metro and many others.

Location: Physically in North London. Emotionally in South Wales.

Social: @Substack / Instagram / LinkedIn

1. ‘French caravan rain smell’

Every year of my life, (unless a pandemic got in the way), I have spent several weeks at my grandparents’ caravan in the South of France. It is my favourite place in the world, full of childhood nostalgia, family memories and reminders of every version of myself that I’ve ever been. It’s a tiny, humble place on a campsite that’s home to other owners who’ve known me my whole life. And although my grandparents no longer go there, it’s the place where I feel closest to them. Just like they are, the caravan is my constant and I feel more like myself there than anywhere.

People flock to the Côte d’Azur because of its guaranteed sunshine. But the other weather guarantee that this part of the world will give you is these out-of-nowhere, get-inside-now downpours of rain, too. They’re always so intense and dramatic – it can feel like the roof is about to come down and the world is about to end. But the storm always passes, the clouds always part and the blue skies always return. And once the rains pass, you step back outside and you’re met with this glorious smell of all that summer rain having hit the earth and the pine needles on the floor. It wafts its way around and it is divine. The smell is so specific and I wish I could bottle it. Apparently, scientists call it ‘petrichor’ but I call it ‘French caravan rain smell’.