Day 22.

So it's now more than a week since I last smoked. To get to this stage the Champix must have pulled off some sort of herculean effort because I'm still married, most of my friends still talk to me and some people haven't even realised that I'm not smoking. Either well done Champix or I was always so strung out that no-one has even noticed the difference.

There's always got to be something though. I've always believed in being fashionably late. I don't know if there is a dictionary definition for fashionably late but I take it to mean within fifteen minutes of when your due. I see it as amateurish to be on time and downright unprofessional to be early. As a trainer and smoker (who is fashionably late) there is nothing worse than turning up to find a room full of amateurs looking expectantly as if you may actually start now that you have turned up just because it's time. For god sakes people. Don't you drink coffee? If you don't smoke couldn't you at least try striking up a conversation with someone else on the course? To be honest I don't care what you do but do it somewhere else and stop interfering with what little prep time I've left myself. Why am I telling you this? Because late people rush. Because I need to be somewhere quick and because whether you realise it or not you're holding me back.

Yep I'm suffering from road rage. I'm late and you're dawdling about at 25 miles an hour when the limit is 30. Your stopping at an amber and I'm desperately trying to make sure I don't ram you across the lights as I do an emergency stop. Please also be aware that you only have to slow for speed cameras if you're actually speeding.

The one result of giving up smoking seems to be a complete impatience with other road users which is unlike my usual temperament. I'm driving up thinking, I know these lights and if the car in front doesn't at least do 33mph we're all going to miss them. A red light used to be an opportunity to roll a cigarette and a second red was an opportunity to smoke it. Suddenly I'm not looking for red lights. Suddenly journeys should be fast where previously I was quite calm about them being slow.

What do I do if non smoking me is an entirely less pleasant version of smoking me? I'm not talking withdrawal here. What if I've always been an impatient git but hid it because I smoked. What if the real me is just plain unpleasant?

Very few people mention the potential pitfalls of giving up but this may be a very real one.

On the Champix side I have to say that the cravings are getting less but aren't completely gone. I've decided that at some point between week two and week three I will smoke one single roll up. Why? I have to know if it lives up to what my brain's craving. Trust me it's not an excuse to start again. That's why I don't want to do it at the end of the treatment but want to try whilst I'm still on the pills.

Watch this space. At some point over the next ten days a cigarette will be smoked in public. Extreme quittin or what????