This blog owes its very existence to normal life, however dull that may be. Normal life is going on around me, but 5 weeks after getting a really nasty virus, that constantly tested negative for Covid, I am just about back to normal. But without any sense of taste or smell. Possibly a sign that I did actually have Covid but never actually trapped it on a Lateral Flow Test.  Curiously this really does impact my life. Yesterday I spent ages at a food market with not a glimmer of greed for anything that was on offer. Who actually knew that taste and smell are such a huge part of how we judge our surroundings. I suppose this is a warning to you all that I may mention this subject more than once in these blogs. It looms larger in my life than you might imagine.The early weeks of my impediment were spent bullying my taste buds back into action with chilli, mustard and horseradish. It didnt really work on the taste buds, but my blocked sinuses are wonderfully clear now, beautiful echo chambers in my face. My sense of taste and smell can fleetingly return, but only for a few seconds,it isn’t always an accurate flavour of what I am eating either,but after thirty seconds of the same stimulation and all my sensors switch off and I am left enjoying, or not, the texture of what I am eating with nothing else going on. I have two main flavour sensations, everything else is hit or miss. The first called ‘Burning Galleon’ and illustrated by the drawing above of a wooden ship. Burning Galleon happens whenever there is smoke in the air. I love the smell of Burning Galleon, a gorgeous mix of woodsmoke and tar, but it is hugely indiscriminate and can cover a bonfire, barbeque, cigarette or spliff but for a few, brief, seconds my nose lifts into the breeze to capture the passing sensation. The other flavour sensation is “Lemon Disgusting’, so called because I use the flavours below at such intense levels that normal people would wince just having a tiny taste.

I am superbly fortunate that I only get one horrific flavour and that is the ripest manure imaginable. It occurs only where vegan cheese puts in an appearance anywhere near me.

5 weeks on I’m in an eating and drinking no mans land. Living for the first few seconds of food and drink, desperate for clashing textures. Aware that only the first few mouthfuls have any credibility or true value. Constantly leaving mugs of tea undrunk.

Monday moaning done…