Walked up the Trail this morning. It was like walking through a cloud forest. The trees were gathering the fog and forming it into drips – occasionally one would plop down, a little wet surprise.
At one point, when the visibility seemed to get better for a minute, I thought I smelt NOxes – but not quite like driving down into the bowl of Pietermaritzburg, or when there’s a gentle southeast wind here off the mainland, in the photochemical-y sunshine – it was more like chemistry lessons at school, fuming nitric acid maybe. Then there was a smell of damp hardboard. And then it was back to the smell of mould and trees, mercifully unpunctuated by dogsh*t.
Similar, but not identical…
I thank you God
for the world of smells,
for sweet peas, steel works,
farriers and the seaside.
I thank you for Jesus
who left this lovely world
for the sake of love –
– of friends and enemies.
I pray for those with anosmia,
who can smell neither delight nor danger.
God bless all people,
in waking and sleeping,
in going out and coming in.