The nature of nostalgia

There is this little old-fashioned shop nearby that sells the aniseed sweets my grandmother used to hand out, way back in my long-vanished childhood.

What is it with nostalgia? I didn't even LIKE the sweets when I was little. Nor now, in fact. But the packets with their pretty drawing and their faint aniseed-y smell take me right back.

Blip idea brazenly stolen from my colleague Rossmackenzie.