I have congenital anosmia – it means that I was born without a sense of smell. As far as I know it isn’t connected to anything else – it’s just one of those things.

People are endlessly fascinated by this and I am happy to talk about it. It affects my life in very small ways – I have no idea what I smell like so sometimes I worry about being stinky! I couldn’t smell when my children had used their nappies, so I probably looked a bit strange checking their nappies every 5 minutes! I once walked into an empty classroom and wondered where everyone was – it turned out some strong smelling chemicals had been leaking and everyone had left the building.

But really, as far as unusual things go, not being able to smell is absolutely fine and it’s not something that has ever upset me. When I wrote this poem I imagined what else my nose might be able to do – it can’t smell but what if it had other powers? What would they look like?

The things that make us different make us unique and interesting. What special and awesome thing about you makes you, you? Write a poem about something unique to you.