What Grandma does to keep a five year old occupied

On Thursday last week I had Miss Em so first we did the project on the CeeBeebees comic

and then we did some baking.

We made special sugar free sultana cake and sugar free chocolate cake for Grandpa and then we made blueberry muffins.

There was a momentary imitation of a headless chicken when I opened the cupboard and discovered that DD had taken all the muffin cases.

I then found the role of greaseproof paper and cut out circles to line the tins. This gave us some interesting shaped muffins but did not detract from the flavour at all - so I am told.

I suddenly realised last week that I have no sense of smell. I did have a good sense of smell until the really bad cold we all had a month or two ago. I think I can smell some things but I am not sure. I couldn't smell the bacon frying when I made bacon butties for lunch and I couldn't smell the "Good country air" that made Mr M's eyes water on Saturday and meant that we had to have all the car windows open for ten miles to get rid of it. I can taste sweet, I can taste salty but flavour totally passes me by.

This is a problem because I automatically sniff the milk before pouring it into the tea and coffee but if it is off I can't smell it and when I drink it I can't taste it I could be in trouble.

As milk doesn't go sour any more it only goes bad I suspect that at some point I am going to get caught and suffer the consequences. I also cannot smell the eggs. Now this is something that I have always done ever since I first was introduced to cookery, probably because we had free range chickens and could not guarantee that the eggs we found under the hedge weren't more than a week or two old. So we learnt to crack the egg and sniff, the rule being that if you could smell it it was off.

Fresh eggs have very little smell, just like fresh milk. Give them a few hours and you begin to smell them but if you get a strong whiff then don't consume.

I hope I get these senses back really soon because I feel quite restricted by their loss. I suppose there is hope as long as I have sweet and salty but isn't it strange that the cold should have done what a lifetime (until 7 years ago) of smoking couldn't stop.