As some of you may or may not have noticed, I didn’t write a column last week.

It was my first week off since I started this column last December.

What possible reason could he have for taking a week off?

What earth-shattering reason was there that disabled you from being able to have a gander at your favourite weekly column?

What tragedy befell my writing hand? Calm down everyone, it was far more banal than that.

I was unfortunately, after over a year of avoiding it, struck down with the horrid Covid.

The Johnson variant I think it was dubbed? It took me away from an opportunity to go abroad (the day before in fact), it also stopped me from attending my aunt's funeral. Was a difficult week.

A boring, thoroughly depressing ten days. There’s only so much television you can watch.

The only exciting thing, once I got my appetite back, was eating.

Looking forward to the one meal I could muster enough energy to have that day. But of course, as expected, round about the fourth day, I lost my sense of taste and smell.

Now, people have asked me in the past those ‘what if’ kind of questions that you would throw out at a party, a question that has no real sense of ever being possible yet we all react to the answers as though it was about to happen right that moment.

The ‘what if’ question that comes to mind, is of course, “Would you rather lose your smell or taste?” to which I now have a definitive answer.

Smell. I would lose my sense of smell. I would beg you leave my taste untouched.

Losing my sense of smell was disorientating at first as I didn’t know if my flat smelt, if I smelt - everything was just…scentless (duh).

And I realised I can live with that. It was losing my sense of taste which was cruel.

The only time of the day I looked forward to, mealtime, was made into a bland, texture-trying session. I still don’t have taste, something that a lot of my friends have been saying for years.

It made me realise that taste is the only thing that makes eating a fun activity.

You can feed me through a straw these days, I don’t care.

I ordered myself a vindaloo just so I could feel something, turns out it doesn’t stop you from feeling spice.