Sense of smell – Tuesday 23rd December 2025

Sense of smell

Whatever else is wrong with me, there is nothing wrong with my sense of smell. I proved that the other day when mum left a small bag of sprats on the bed. She had only gone to the bathroom and was in the middle of getting changed. She would have put them in the pocket of the trousers she’d put on, but I had other ideas. In the couple of minutes she was out of the room, I’d been up onto the bed and opened the bag. I did not mean to leave sprat ends in Mum’s bed, she just didn’t give me time to finish the job.

Anyway, that wasn’t what I was going to tell you about. Today is hydrotherapy day. “Do you want to come for a run in the car and run some errands with me, Wilma?” That was what Mum asked. Of course I said ‘yes’. I love being with her. It turns out those errands are almost all connected with food and the food is not for me.

The errands

We will call at the bakery near where my hydrotherapy is, because they sell really nice bread – according to Mum. She usually comes back with a bag of cakes, but apparently it is the bread she goes for. Then we’re collecting a turkey from a local farm and a cake from a nearby town. One errand is apparently for me – not cake, not turkey, no – I get to pick up my worming tablet. Oh the fun. I am beside myself with excitement. Apparently mum will also be ordering some more medication for me. I get all the best jobs.

Christmas poem

Mum has been going through some papers and found this Christmas poem that she’d forgotten she’d written. I hope you enjoy it.

The goose is getting fat
For eighteen months they’d fattened her,
she knew the rhymes by heart.
She really must lose all this weight.
Her problem, where to start?

Throughout the days she’d preen and strut,
she walked the farmyard’s length,
but every time they filled her bowl,
she didn’t have the strength
to leave a single morsel there.
She knew she’d rue the day
when she ate all there was to eat,
wolfed down, without delay.

“She’s looking fit, she’s quite a bird.
She’ll look good when she’s stuffed.”
She patted all her feathers down.
She didn’t need them fluffed

December came, she waited for
the farmer’s wife to come.
To ready her for Christmas feast,
served up with thyme and plum.

On Christmas Eve the gate was left
a little way ajar.
She might have just a small bird brain,
no access to a car,
her wings were clipped, but she could walk,
and waddle down the road.
She quickly left the farm behind,
and down the road she strode.

She’d only gone a mile or two
when houses came in sight.
She knocked upon the inn’s oak door.
“Are there any rooms tonight?”

She pictured in her pretty head,
a stable with some straw,
a manger filled with corn and scraps,
some matting on the floor.
She thought there might be ox and ass,
some sheep to fleece at cards.
The sorts of things you found most days
in all the best farmyards.

“Well, come right in,” the landlord said.
“A pretty girl like you
should not be out at dead of night.
I’ll boil a pot or two.”

She thought at last her luck was in,
in warmth she’d spend the night,
but little did our poor bird know,
her goose was cooked all right.

©  Rosemary J Kind

Love and licks

Wilma

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