Funky Town and road rage

This blog is meant to be about smoking, and the giving up of.
So how are we doing?
Well, at the moment, the Angel and the Devil have sort of shaken hands and are on a truce.
I have cut down - halved in fact. I no longer smoke in the house or in the car. I took the ashtray out of the car, to curb temptation, and usually don't take cigarettes with me when I go out. This is fine - I'm actually surprised that I'm not shooting off at the first opportunity to delve into my handbag.
I do smoke in the conservatory - and this time of year it's beginning to get pretty cold out there. It will get colder.

So this morning - well late morning actually, as it's Saturday and the alarm is not set, I succumbed to Hannah's pleadings to go "into town" as we say, and set off for another shopping spree, leaving cigarettes at home.

I paid for three hours in the car park (the price doubles for longer, and anyway that's about my shopping stress level limit!)

It was very busy in West Quay. Not pre-Christmas loony shopping busy, or January sales busy, but still very crowded. It was fine for a while - we bought some clothes for each of us. But I really really wanted a coffee and a cigarette. It really bugged me. I was surprised by that. Must be the stress. The shops were overheated, and so many people in the way. So many bags to carry. Long queues at the tills.

Anyway, we finished up in Ikea. I intended to go to Ikea all along, but to be honest it isn't really the sort of place you can just nip into quickly, with less than an hour on the clock. For a start it takes forever to to reach the entrance, on the top, up all those travelators, or whatever they are called. Then you have to find your way through the showroom. (I have my eye on a sofa though - we both sat on it and didn't want to get up!)

Escaping from there we made our way to the restaurant - a place of devious complexity where everyone else seems to know the system. We only wanted drinks - the queue for the food was horrendous. So we end up with a tray with my coffee, Hannah's lemonade, and two muffins. (Hey, if I'm not puffin', let's muffin!). Finding a table I went to set the tray down and my bag slipped off my shoulder and sent the whole lot crashing. no harm done - the muffins were safe, the cups easily refilled, and only my right trouser leg took a soaking.

Finally got back to the car with just five minutes to spare. They are playing Funky Town on the radio. LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!!

On the way home I could mentally see that packet of Sterling and lighter on the little table in the conservatory. and all the lights were green. Ah. Fifteen minutes max.

There's a place where I join the main road via a slip road. No problem, normally it all goes smoothly and everyone filters in nicely. I speed up to pull in ahead of a blue car a fair way back. It accelerates. Fast. I have to slow again to let it it by, and pull out behind. It was a BMW. It had to be. Why is it always a BMW? The car who tailgates, or cuts you up? They are good cars - is there something written in the franchise that dealers may only sell them to complete pillocks? Of course the speed limit drops to 50 shortly after on that road, and traffic was fairly heavy, so I followed that blue BMW nearly all the way home. I was so mad at him (I'm assuming it was a him) and that's not like me. I don't get road rage. Sometimes someone does something silly or annoying and i just think "twit" and that's it. I make mistakes myself, and call myself a twit quite often too. But I was fuming then.

So mulling all this over - the unexpected craving for a smoke in the middle of town, and the unaccustomed road rage - I can only conclude that if I really want to quit smoking I must give something else up too.

Shopping. At least on a Saturday.