Ups and downs

Hi folks

Another quick update.I've got a long weekend this weekend so you may wonder what's happened when there is no update on either Saturday or Sunday until Sunday night.

Now that the snow has finally stopped falling, the threat of major flood has diminished and sea tides have calmed to a suitable level I can get into what I call 'the season'. What is 'the season'? Well, this will make me sound older than the hills, the season is the time of year when I escape the city every weekend and go to a caravan in the far south of Scotland for some R&R. Don't worry, even close friends can't figure it out. You have to be 70+ to own a caravan don't you?

Well here's the deal: When you go to the caravan you forget about what you should be doing. At the caravan there's no decorating or monthly shop. There's no pressure to fill the day. If it's calm you could swim or fish. If it's not looking so good you could head for the pub. Ireland's only a couple of hours away if you fancy the ferry (you can see it from the coast at Port Patrick, Ireland that is not the ferry).

The only stress with the caravan was that it was a confined space that I wanted to smoke in. My wife hated me smoking, I hated the argument because if it was wild outside then I wanted to smoke out the window whilst she wanted me to go outside. This year I don't smoke. (Still feel I had a moral high ground that I lost). It makes me realise how many things in life change when you properly stop.

Lots of people limit where they smoke in the house. Weirdly a lot settle on the Kitchen as being the only room to smoke. Wrong! If there is one single room that you must never smoke in it's the kitchen.

People will marry a smoker thinking that they will change. Good luck with that...

Cigarettes are perceived to be dirty (ash etc). It's hard to imagine something more scientifically clean than cigarette ash. Any nastiness has been incinerated.

On the other hand: There was a thin (Pompeii like) film of ash over everything in my office always.

The office still smells of smoke and there were nights when I still smoked that it stank the whole house out. I like the smell and even I noticed it.

As a smoker I had got to the point where I wouldn't even consider leaving the house without having had two cigarettes. I reasoned that the benefit wasn't just mine but also who ever I was meeting. I'm not the brightest in the morning but without cigs I can actually mobilise faster.

When anything needs done you wont have to wait 'two minutes' till I have a cig.

I can go to meetings and training courses without stopping to smoke first. (More important than you think)

Yep being a non smoker has more benefits than you think. Retaining your smoking roots also endears you to smokers who, thinking about quitting or not, want to know the secret so they can use it at some future point.

Even my spot problem is clearing up and my skin is beginning to recover. When you've done this much self harm you probably don't deserve the benefits that come with stopping, but they come along anyway.

Don't quit quitting folks