My wife's extraordinarily sensitive nose comes to a neighbour's rescue!

The lady in the picture is my wife. (The chap taking the double-selfie is our son - they were in Paris at the time.)  For some odd reason, she's always been dissatisfied with her nose. I've never known why - I've always been extremely fond of it. Anyway today the proboscis in question saved an enormous amount of potential damage to a neighbour's house. It happened like this...

We had just finished lunch and, as is currently our wont, were watching the latest instalment of Australian Masterchef  (it's the most gripping programme on TV at the moment) when Sara asked me if I could smell paper burning. I couldn't, but I've learned over the years to pay attention to my wife's olfactory suspicions - there has never been any point in pretending not have been outside for a crafty smoke or that one hasn't inadvertently (albeit silently) broken wind in the next room, and if she suspects that our cat has left a murdered mouse somewhere about the house or that a neighbour two streets away has decided to hold a barbecue, you can bet she's right every time.

So when she asked if I could smell something burning, I didn't try to brush aside the suggestion. And when, a few seconds later, standing in front of the house two doors down, she told me that it was on fire, I believed her - even thought I couldn't see or smell any evidence for the assertion. She then directed my gaze to a top-floor window - and I could just see smoke behind it. By the time she'd run back to our house, got our phone, and had rung 999, the smoke had given way to big flames. I banged on the front door to make sure there was nobody inside.

The fire engines arrived within a few minutes, another neighbour whom Sara had alerted handed them next door's key, and it was all under control within a few minutes. The owner of the house which had been on fire turned up about 20 minutes later, and, after a quick inspection, told us that one bedroom was burned, another smoke-blackened, and that the loft had been affected. It might have been started by something going wrong with their tortoise's vivarium. Unfortunately, the poor little blighter hadn't survived.

It could, of course, have been a lot worse - but luckily my wife's extraordinarily sensitive hooter was on hand to save the day. Well done, that woman!