Losing ability to smell just makes no sense

Wake up and smell the coffee, they say. But what if you can’t?

My nose engine stopped working sometime in the early 1990s along with an attack of temporary deafness.

Mrs Nurden maintains my hearing has never fully recovered.

I had been touring the UK during the summer holidays as a publicist with the crew of the ITV Saturday morning programme Motormouth when I caught a bit of a cold.

I woke up one morning in a hotel and discovered I couldn’t hear. That was a bit strange. I gently banged my ears a bit, hoping it would dislodge any blockage, but the following days were spent in a weird world of no sound.

I watched presenters

Gaby Roslin, Andy

Crane, Neil Buchanan and gunge-master Steve

Johnson chatting but had no idea what they were saying. No change there, you might think.

Slowly, the hearing returned but the attack had also left me unable to smell.

You hear a lot about the problems of being blind or deaf but few talk about the lack of smell.

It’s not exactly lifechanging but there are times when I miss it: new-mown grass in the garden; passing a lilac bush, freshly baked bread or visiting a beach and breathing in the distinctive ozone are all just distant memories of childhood.

I thought nothing about this disability until coronavirus victims began complaining about loss of smell being one of the symptoms. I suppose the biggest drawback is not being able to spot milk which is off before finding out the hard way.

And there are advantages of a sort. Not for nothing does Mrs Nurden delegate the dubious pleasure of clearing blocked drains to me. Although sometimes a particularly difficult clearance will send me retching to the bathroom.

I wonder if catching Covid might lead to the return of my missing sense?

I suppose the biggest drawback is not being able to spot milk which is off before finding out the hard way