(photo: fuyanyu at flickr)

Here's a picture of something from the dim and distant past. Well 13 days ago.

I woke up again with a bad feeling in my lung...though its hard to tell it might be heartburn or something.

The other day before I went to work I saw my freshly made coffee and I saw the door to the balcony and a large part of my brain thought I'd be picking the coffee up and walking outside and lighting up a cigarette. Even though the front of my brain knows full well that I have given up the background processes are still in smoker mode.

I am becoming impatient for more normalisation in my life when the fact that I'm not smoking will hardly occur to me. And if it does occur to me it will be as a weird reminder that yes, once upon a time, I used to smoke. It seems a long way off at the moment.

Preparing to go off to Hendon to watch AFC Wimbledon's mad dash to make the play-offs. The thought of all that gum-chewing I'm going to have to do is making me feel a bit sick. At least this morning I remembered to put my patch on.

I was advised to carry a spare just before I quit. I decided not to as I only had 7 patches to last 7 days and was worried I would lose or damage one when carrying them around. Then I forgot to put one on and learned my lesson putting a spare in my wallet as soon as I got back. Then later in the week I forget the patch again and had a panic on the way to work (I almost decided to phone work and take the morning off so I could get to my patch). I went in to work and immediately emailed R who, unlike me, remembered that I had a spare in my wallet. There was much rejoicing when she reminded me. I immediately flew off to the gents toilet to sort myself out returning some time later with a competely changed demeanour. I don't know what my colleagues thought I had been up to.

Todays quit-ometer reading is :

---1w 6d 04:21 smoke-free, 331 cigs not smoked, £38.40 saved, 1d 03:35 life saved