Don't sniff at my training

You may recall - but it's unlikely - that a few years ago I began grumbling about strange smells in my nose. I saw the doctor and was reassured but although the strange smells are more infrequent my sense of smell has definitely changed for the worse.

I used to pride myself on having an excellent sense of smell; now I have to stick my nose right into an open rose and still I'm lucky if I can get any whiff. And we chose all the roses in our garden for their scent.

Apparently it can be put down to . . . ageing. Of course. A change in hormone levels, you know the sort of thing.

Anyway I was grumbling about it to Daughter-in-law the other day and she told me about smell training. 

Unlike eyes which can't be trained to work properly again noses can be retrained to remember smells. That's the theory. It's come to the fore more recently because of the after effects of Covid and I thought it was worth trying. Daughter-in-law has lent me four pots of essential oils with which to start relearning. 

I have to sniff each one, one nostril at a time, several times a day. on my first attempt I began with eucalyptus. That was a mistake as I couldn't smell anything else afterwards. 

Today I began with lemon and could smell it. Then lavender then cloves. Cloves has a strong scent that everyone else has been grimacing about but which barely registers on my sniff scale. 

So cloves will be a good test. If I can start recognising that as well as retaining all the others I may be on my way to enjoying aromas again.