Is it still only Monday? Feels like Thursday.

AB told me that since giving up smoking he finds himself frequently dreaming of cigarettes.

The chemist who is overseeing my treatment told me that one of the side-effects of twenty-four hour nicotine patches is vivid dreaming. I am not sure whether the contents of the hamper or the nicotine patch caused it but I woke exhausted up from a dream of which I have only the haziest recollection.

Whatever caused the dream, and whatever the dream involved, I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling imagining I could feel the carbon monoxide in my lungs slowly stirring. Then off to work.

It wasn’t at all bad. I felt noticeably less strained than yesterday. The choice of a date in spring was paying dividends with beautiful sunshine pouring down on me as I walked into work.

I tried to create a substitute fag-break by moving myself off to the tea area at work for a few minutes to write a few ideas for this blog. It kind of helped.

By the mid-afternoon the strain started to set in again and my brain became increasingly full of cotton wool. Productivity ground to a halt and I skulked off early to home.

I still haven’t smoked a cigarette. Neither have I eaten a monkey nut. Nor given either of my feet a WaterMelon and BalmMint scrub.