Smoked Again

I smoked on a weekend workshop run by my old friend in the middle of August. It's a trigger I spotted coming and did nothing about.

Now, 38 days later with no cigarettes smoked in the interim, I'm back to being secure with my quit. The temptation is to think I can do the "casual" smoke. The reality is that those few cigarettes took me straight back to day one, and hell week is STILL not a fun place.

I'm tempted to write it off as a "slip" and switch my "not smoked since" timer back to the begining of March. However, the mantra of truth and fact above slippy thought means it sticks to where it is.

Ill

I've spent the last week in bed blowing my nose for Iceland. I don't recall ever being this ill from the 'flu before. The first night was an intense, delirous and sweaty time-loop.

I feel like the goodness has been sapped from me, but I'm back, at work, and alive.

I was very sad most of the weekend. Even more tired & emotional than could be explained by the illness and the isolation of living on my own. My sister sent me a text message on Sunday night saying she'd been thinking about me all weekend. I called, and it turns out that she had remembered that this was the weekend I'd got married on five years ago.

That would explain the unexplained sadness then.

Storm

Storm - Sep. 5, 2004, originally uploaded by hartley.

Another fantastic photo of the weekend storm.

After the storm

Sydney after the hailstorm, originally uploaded by incitatus.

N & S are two friends of mine from London who have also just moved to Sydney. I worked with N when I started my career, and as she's now working round the corner from me, we regularly meet up for lunch. I didn't know her partner S too well in London, but we're getting on very well now.

Sunday we went for a walk around Watsons Bay, which is where Port Jackson meets the ocean. Standing on the South Head, and looking at the city in the distance, I turned to N and said: "This really is the best city in the world." She nodded silently.

N & S gave me a lift to Darling Harbour to meet my friend R who is back in Sydney for the rest of his visa. Just at that moment a massive hailstorm broke over the city. Nice to have real weather again.