If your nose runs and your feet smell you may be upside down.

Ah, the smell of smoke. 23% (guesstimate) of Australian women smoke, and the rest aren't all cold either.

I love Ogden Nash's ditties on smells.
But this one by Chrisopher Morley - reminds
me of the innocence of childhood...

"My daddy smells like tobacco and books
Mother, like lavender and listerine
Uncle John carries a whiff of cigars
Nanny smells starchy and soapy and clean.

Shandy, my dog, has a smell of his own
(When he's been out in the rain, he smells most)
But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all -
She smells exactly like hot buttered toast."

When I was a little boy I became very afraid of losing my grandmother. I didn’t want her or my grandfather to die. I can remember the odour of liniment that she used on her aching body. I recall her scent of clean clothes, garden and liniment. I still have her bottle of Sloan’s liniment.

Her legs were shapeless and thick with the oedema that afflicts some old people when they retain fluids. Sloan’s helped to ease her aching body.

I asked, “Ma, why are your legs so thick?” I called her ‘Ma.’ Her children did so why shouldn’t I?

She looked at me and held me close. In a dreamy voice she said, “When I was a young and beautiful woman in Eishyshok on a starry night I went swimming in the river. The smell of cedar and the reflections in the water so took me that I was not aware of the nearby water mill until I was drawn into the water wheel. I was so battered that my legs were no longer shapely when I got out. That’s why my legs are like this.”

Of course, I believed my grandmother. She was rigidly honest and would not lie to me. It was only years later that I realised that she did not want me to think of the infirmities of age. However, I did think of age. I heard that eating eggs promoted longevity so I advised my grandmother to eat eggs. Somehow, I knew this good time would not last.