Four weeks and counting

I mentioned the other day that I am hopeless at remembering anniversaries. Well, not so much remembering the dates as realising that the dates are approaching. Anyway, I missed another one yesterday. Not an important one, indeed, one might even describe it as trivial. Yesterday was four weeks to the day since I last smoked a cigarette. As I said, not a particularly memorable anniversary, not even an anniversary, in fact, but it nonetheless a significant marker for me.

It is as yet too soon for me to claim to be a non-smoker. Indeed, I think - like a recovering alcoholic - I will always be a smoker, just a smoker who has chosen not to smoke for a while. So far it has proved a lot easier than I would have expected. Yes, there have been times when I have been tempted to smoke "just the one" but I have resisted the temptation, sometimes by eating a dry biscuit. I would have expected the temptation to come hardest after meals or when drinking a mid-morning or mid-evening coffee, but oddly enough that has not been the case. It has been harder for me to resist after I have been sitting at the computer for an hour or so. Not that I have ever smoked while working at the computer. My "office" is upstairs and for several years now we have smoked only in the kitchen. Yes, the Old Bat smokes as well and she has not given up. To give her her due, though, she does refrain from smoking when I am around. Not that it would bother me overmuch.

I think that what has made it easy for me so far - relatively easy, that is - is that I still have a bad cough and a tightness across the chest which has meant that I really have not wanted to smoke. Not often, anyway. The difficult time is still ahead of me. When we are in France I will be tempted far more unless I can find something else to distract me. Oh well, there's no point in trying to cross that bridge until I come to it.

Four weeks, one day, and counting.