Dear Mr Marlboro: goodbye forever! MWAhahaha

G'day all. So, I'm back from a month pissing about in Sydney and Thailand. Every moment of it was fantastic, and in due course I shall write a lengthy and rather boring post about everything I got up to, including a mock OK! magazine style write up of my wedding, which Katie made me promise to do on my return. All in good time though - at present I'm still getting over jetlag and am pretty shagged out, so we'll save that gem for the weekend.

Besides, at present I am trying to get my head round something else which is happening tomorrow. It's finally time to bite the bullet and quit the fags.

I've been smoking for ten years, and in that time have managed to quit once, when I was 21 and unemployed. Then I got a job in the City two months later and embarked on an unfortunate lifestyle of doing not very much work all day and then pissing it up big style in the evenings, and suddenly found myself with a fag in the hand again. Disgraceful.

I tried to quit again last year, and even went so far as to sign up to an online program where my progress would be 'encouraged' by supportive emails every couple of days. Baaaah. The emails were so smug and self righteous that I became irrationally angered by them on Day 3 and had to go outside to have a cigarette in order to calm down. Nice display of willpower there, Miss H.

The thing is, I LOVE smoking. Which is disgusting, obviously. But when I'm sat with a pint in one hand, it feels right that there should be a little stick of burning leaves in the other. This is where the problem lies. I hardly smoke at work; and I smoke very little at home. But if I've got a beaker of booze in one hand, which, it has to be said, is not uncommon; then I will want a fag in the other. What an idiot. However, The Hubbo (newly upgraded from The Fiance) reckons it's not the actual smoking I like, it's the feeling of just having something in the other hand. This stems from my habit of waving an unlit cigarette about for up to an hour if I'm talking to someone, along with the lighter, and failing to light it. I hadn't noticed it before, but he's quite right - the amount of times he has hunted about the pub table for his lighter in vain before realising I've got it grasped in my boozy paw and failing to do anything with it is quite astounding. So, here is at least part of the solution.

The thing is, I don't want to buy one of those comedy Nicorette sticks that one draws upon as if it were an actual cigarette. A past manager had one, and used to inhale on it in meetings before making a smug point, and it used to send me into hysterics every damn time. So I've decided that when I'm in the pub I'll get a pen, or a fake cigarette, or something else along a similar line, and wave that about instead to see if that helps. Of course, I could always stop going to the pub, but I'm taking this one step at a time and don't want to distress the system too much.

I've got a load of lozenges too, which colleagues and friends have recommended. Much rather that than the horrible nicotine gum, which always makes my tongue go numb within about five minutes and causes much distress to those trying to understand what on earth I am saying.

Tomorrow is the first day of the plan. Tonight, after dinner, I will don the metaphorical smoking jacket for what will hopefully be the last time. Please wish me luck.