LONDON — Almost 40 years without being able to taste or smell is nothing to sniff at – and June Blythe was in shock when her senses returned. Keen cook June, 65, can finally smell again thanks to extensive surgery at a pioneering clinic. After previous ops had failed, she did not hold much hope that the latest one would be a success. But 10 days after the surgery she suddenly realized she could smell the lemon she was zesting to make scones – and she broke down in tears of joy, according to MirrorOnilne. The gran said: “It's like I'm living in a different world. I never thought this would happen after 37 years of no sense of smell at all. I'm taking advantage. I went into John Lewis and had a brilliant time trying on all sorts of different perfumes." June lost the senses of taste and smell due to a condition called chronic rhinosinusitis in 1975. Amazingly, she still won prizes for her cooking — and became an aromatherapist, using fragrant plant oils to improve her clients' mood and health. Her condition meant she was unable to breathe through her nose and it made her asthma worse. But June, of Taverham, Norfolk, had her smell restored after a three-hour operation to clear polyps from her sinus cavities. She could hardly believe it when the surgery at Britain's only NHS smell and taste clinic – at the James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk – proved to have worked so spectacularly. — Agencies