Thank you guys, much appreciated..
Martin...no gum, no patches, and no good woman (well, she's still in Canada, so all I get are emailed threats of all the nasty things she will do to me if I fail....)
I bought one of those Tornado electronic cigarettes...you get all the sensations of smoking, but all you are smoking is an oil based vapour. I have a suck on it every now and again when the need overcomes me, and today I've managed to do without that so far.
The main reason I decided to give up properly this time was my doctor's latest verdict on the state of my lungs, and his comment that if I didn't quit now (as in NOW) then I needn't contemplate booking a summer holiday, as I wouldn't make it. Fifty three years of (a) smoking (b) 40 years of diesel fumes and (c) the dust and cr*p that I'd inhaled over the years I spent driving a sweeper had all come together. I was also reminded that my brother died last Xmas Eve of smoking and welding fumes, my sister died a few years back of lung cancer, my father died of a heart attack brought on by smoking for fifty odd years, and then last week my fellow sweeper driver workmate died of a heart attack....sort of wakes you up, know what I mean?
Rich