SO. I have not had a cigarette for five days.

Hmmm. How am I feeling?

Grrrrr.

I have spent the past two years stopping and starting, stopping and starting and before then I hadn't gone a day without a fag for a decade.

I have tried the patches over the years but I ended up pretending not to smoke all day and then counted the hours unil I could peel it off at night and smoke ten, one after the other.

Over the years, pious individuals would point out the perils, as if I was unaware of my blackening lungs or my thickening arteries.

All this made me do was want to light up and blow smoke into their smug faces. Finger pointing has never helped anyone.

I never wanted to give up, or so I thought. I was a proper smoker, not the bob a job sort.

The truth is I was (am) addicted to nicotine.

But I have never been a gambler and smoking is akin to playing Russian Roulette. The stakes are high.

So on Wednesday, after a particularly stressful and smoke filled day, I lay in bed panicking about my burning breath and ravaged throat. Enough was enough and I decided to quit.

Since then I have been living on nicotine lozenges and counting to ten every time I want to snap someone's head off.

Oh and eating of course. In just five days I reckon I have increased by a dress size, my small frame is bulging at the seams.

Little wonder when stopping smoking lowers your metabolism and makes you hungry.

Anyway, I don't care. Dawn French is beautiful.

And besides, the whites of my eyes are once again white, my yellow finger is almost pink again, I don't reek of stale smoke and when I am not beside myself with rage, my heart rate is definitely lower.