I burned my toast this morning. Now that may seem a trivial thing, but the issue is more: how did I burn my toast? 

The bakers I normally get my bread from are on holiday for a couple of weeks so I’ve had to get my mid-life crisis hipster sourdough from another place. It apparently doesn’t need as long in the toaster and so, instead of being lovely golden brown, it was charcoal. I only noticed when the toaster began thinking it was taking part in the selection of a new pope. 

Why didn’t I notice the toast was burning before the appearance of tendrils of smoke? Surely I should have been able to smell the early signs of singeing – but, alas, no. My nose was not working. There are days when my nose knows nowt. 

It’s five years since the whole Covid thing and, as weird and destabilising as it was for everyone, it was certainly a good time to be a wine merchant. Hectic, uncertain and exhausting, but very profitable, and we’re still seeing the benefit now. 

But at some point I must have got Covid. I never tested positive, and we tested a lot. In the autumn of 2020, I noticed that I couldn’t smell anything. I wandered round the kitchen opening jars of spices and sniffing furiously in a vain hope of reawakening my olfactory bulb. It didn’t stop me drinking but it certainly removed a major part of the enjoyment from it. 

Then one evening in February 2021 I put my nose in my glass and suddenly sat bolt upright. I could smell! I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a jar of ground cinnamon. Wowzers! What a smell. I was overjoyed, giddy and, most of all, relieved. My nose is my secret weapon, my superpower: it’s had years of training, allowing me to be a moderately mediocre wine peddler. The sense of relief was palpable; I may well have opened a few more bottles, just to be sure.

My joy wasn’t to last, though, because my body has decided to play a trick on me. My sense of smell comes and it goes. I don’t know when I wake up in the morning whether today will be a good day or a bad day and it’s rather frustrating, to say the least. 

In this trade we rely heavily on our sense of smell. But the wider public don’t seem to attach quite so much importance to it. 

Imagine if you occasionally woke up completely blind. I’m sure if you went to the doctor they would start to run a barrage of tests to work out the cause. I’ve asked them about my predicament and been told that this does sometimes happen: “You could try a regular smelling regime to try and get it back.” This is the equivalent of telling a blind person to “look a bit harder” or suggesting to a deaf person that they “try listening a little more”.

It’s a tough thing to admit, particularly to your peers, but there are times when I am not capable of doing a very important part of the job. I’ve had plenty of long thoughts about whether I should pursue a different career. I could go back to my previous job, making maps of sewers – my predicament would become a benefit there. My wife, however, has told me that I am not allowed to stop doing this job. Luckily Bridget has a terrific palate so I guess I’m not really that important in the scheme of things anyway. It’s good to know your place. 

I have felt rather Proustian while this has all been going on. Overthinking my relationship with the smell of things and the emotions it creates. Yes, I have cried whilst eating: it was a cake baked by my sister-in-law to a recipe my late mother used to make, even though said cake was heavier than an elephant and quite stodgy, but it was a perfect recreation of a Sunday afternoon classic and it just shows how important our sense memory is. 

My problem has increased my appreciation of how important so many seemingly mundane smells are, and I think that’s a good thing. Crikey – these days, when my sense of smell is in gear, I actually get giddy when the dog farts. 

On a less stomach-turning note, as an inquisitive so-and-so with access to the internet, I have obviously Googled this issue and pretty much been given the same advice as noted previously, and even the purchase of a full Le Nez du Vin set hasn’t helped. 

The only thing I have found that seems to work is exercise. A tough hour with my PT in the gym, a solid 10-mile run or a HIT class on Peloton seems to flick the switch back to full smell-o-vision. So maybe it’s not all bad; maybe it’s my body figuring out a way to balance out the rather excessive drinking I do. If I really want to enjoy wine, then I’m going to need to earn that enjoyment through good old-fashioned sweat and hard work. Darwinism at its finest.