Smells, Odours, Scents

 Hi there

I was sitting in a bus during covid.  I started to cough.  And cough.  And cough.

"I have an intolerance to perfume," I hastily informed everyone sitting around me. This  was actually a fib.  My doctor called it an Old Person's Cough (how dare he?) But I wasn't going to reveal that.   Cough, cough.  "Sorry."

A young lady had got on the bus at the previous stop.  She reddened.  "Oh, that's my fault...  I'm wearing perfume."  She was so contrite...

"Um ... No, no, it's not you.  I was, um,  coughing before you got on the bus."

"Oh, right.  Good..."  The young lady was extremely relieved...

And it got me thinking about smells.  For instance, the smell that flows out of every New Zealand Subway store is horrible to my nose.  I can smell it, and identify the origin from a block away, without even knowing the location of any particular store.   

A few years back, I was on the Isle of Wight, off the English coast, and I had hardly stepped ashore more than a few minutes when I smelt that awful Subway odour.  (Again, I stress that the horrendous smell from Subway annoys me, but to other people it might be a delightful aroma.  Nothing so queer as folk, right?") 

 I had turned a corner and walked a little further along the road on the Isle of Wight when, bam!, I was standing right in front of a Subway store.  I couldn't believe that the identical Subway smell from New Zealand was also here on a small island off the coast of England.