Early morning Dodgeball training today ahead of the Nationals and the International v Saudi Arabia for the Boy Wonder, so I braved the rain and popped in a nice 5.5km around the sports complex.
Well, I say “nice”, but it wasn’t. I don’t mind the rain, the wind and the cold. I’ve never minded them, as long as I know that they’re coming, and I was well-prepared this morning with fresh clothes, a towel and some coffee.
But the smell…
Not me, I hasten to add. I’m all good.
But this whole area STINKS. Is it the nearby oil refinery, or the local sewage works? I don’t know, but the sickening, nauseating stench of what seemed to be human faeces lingered across the whole area for the duration of my run.
And beyond.
The good news is that I’m now in my car, in my car park, and I feel pretty much protected from it. But what was it, why did I have to breathe it in, and how on earth do people live here*?!? I have worked with poo in laboratories for many years (how else do you diagnose someone with Salmonella spp.?), so I figure that I’m fairly immune to the smell. But at least when you put the cap back on the the specimen jar in the laboratory, the whiff goes away.
This is constant. Pervasive. Offensive.
I am very much looking forward to a long, hot shower to remove any and all traces of… whatever it is… from myself ahead of an afternoon of football in front of the fire.
* a reasonable question about Milnerton at any time.