I know that I have not been around much folks but I've have been so busy that it has not been true.
The not smoking bit is becoming a normal thing in my life and the post from Joe (Golferman) about punctuation was a great piece of work. It reminded me that the early days were not great.........in fact, the things that got me through were knowledge about the demon that I was fighting, understanding of what was happening to me during withdrawal and the support and encouragement from you horrible and ugly lot!
I do still get the odd moment when I think about smoking, but funnily enough........I don't seem to have craves.
The normal trigger for these thoughts is seeing other people smoke, and the thoughts are very varied.
I always feel sad when I see very young people smoking. They can have no real conception about the damage that they will cause themselves and still seem to find it cool to be seen smoking.
Then we have the attractive women that a red blooded (if old and knackered!) bloke like me still likes to look at.............and then they go and ruin it by sticking a lighted tube of rubbish in their mouths.
And then you see the old pensioners lining up at the supermarket checkout for their cartons at a knock-dowm price. they cough all the way back to the bus stop and then probably have to turn the heating down to save money when they get home.
A then there was the guy in the convertable today..............and I had to laugh. He was the stereotypical guy having the mid-life crisis in his flashy soft-top sports car. Open necked shirt and medallion, designer sunglasses and cigar sticking out of his mouth at the traffic lights. Some loud music from the stereo boomed out from the speakers in his bling mobile. He saw me looking at him and he winked. You could tell that he was under the impression that he looked the business.
I looked at his tyres and noticed that they were rated as VR.........for those of you who are not sad enough to look at tyres at the traffic lights, this is a speed rating. the faster your car...the higher rated your tyres must be if they are not to burst at speed and under high loads.
A wonderful business idea came into my head in a flash..........as I glanced back at his badly fitting hairpiece, the concept of a gl