Like most things, I wish I'd started this a while ago. After almost 8 months without even touching a cigarette, let alone smoking one, I thought it was worthwhile documenting.
So, let's go back to January 2018. The 17th January 2018 to be precise. A normal Wednesday evening by anybody's description. The kids had just gone to sleep, Katharine was working late and I came back downstairs. Flicked the kettle on to make a cup of tea and thought "Ah, I can nip outside for a cigarette". For years, I'd been kidding myself that my smoking habit was a secret from my children. Must not be a bad influence. Must keep it hidden. Sneaky fag whilst putting the bins out etc...
I filled the kettle and switched it on. Dropped my teabag into my mug and opened the back door ready for my usual evening saunter around the garden. Not just one thing struck me, but several. Many. Much rain. In polite terms, the weather could have been described as "persistent heavy rain showers". In local terms, it was pissing down. Anyway, after shielding myself from the weather, I lit my cigarette, and shut the door behind me. The weather was worse than I was expecting and I found myself crouched between the kitchen door and the conservatory which was shortly to become the new extension.
This was where I had my revelation. This is fucking stupid, I thought.
My dad had just just let me know it had been 6 months since he had had a cigarette. Doesn't sound like much, but when he'd gone from 30 a day to none just by switching to vaping, I thought there must be something in it. "I'll do it tomorrow" I always said. This time, I thought that tomorrow was probably actually the right time to do something about it.
Fast forward a few hours to the following day. Lunchtime in fact. I phoned the Totally Wicked shop in St Annes and explained that I wanted to pack the fags in. They told me to come to the shop that day (and to ignore their usual opening hours). I checked my fag packet in my pocket - 3 fags left. one at the end of lunch, one at the end of core time and one before I left work. That last one was the last cigarette I smoked.
I'll fill in the gaps at some point, but suffice to say, it's been almost 8 months without a cigarette and I've gone from a cigarette smoker to a vaper who is making his own liquid!
