SMOKED OUT

My children are hounding me and they have every right to. It all started in the summer, as it does most summers, on holiday. I have no excuse: we get to the wind-blown beach or the balmy taverna, little matter where, and I have this overpowering urge to smoke. Somewhere in my brain there is a small compartment shouting, “It’s holiday time and girl you should be smoking.” I usually resist for a couple of days but if I get even a whiff of opportunity I’m down at the shop buying tobacco.

This horrifies the children: they have been justifiably brainwashed to believe that cigarette smoking heralds instant death. School may have failed them in their command of their nine times table but it certainly gets an ‘A’ for imparting the dangers of smoking. Flo peers at me in ghoulish terror, waiting for me to expire as I inhale the smoke. Of course I don’t drop dead in front of them and somehow over the holidays they forgive me my off-duty foible.

The problem comes when the summer is over; obviously I’m delighted that we have had a bit of an ‘Indian’ one, thus lengthening my outdoor roll-up opportunities. They are not going to let me get away with it but unfortunately the evil weed has taken its grip. It’s no longer just the odd one before a meal with a glass of rosé and a bowl of olives; it’s a constant nag throughout the day. At weekends they are alert and three small faces plead with me to stop.

I know I should, and I will. I smoke in the summer and give up for the winter. But giving up is a nightmare when you are in the grip of that early romance of the false sense of relaxation it provides.

Max, who knows a thing or two, says…

“Mum, if you want me to smoke, you’re going the right way about it. You make it look so nice.”

“Please don’t smoke, it makes you smell,” says Bobby.

“How do you blow it out through your nose?” asks Flo. “You look like a dragon.”

I’ve got to stop. Good Lord, I’m teaching them how to smoke, I’m polluting their minds; no matter that I try and convince myself I’m only a part-time smoker, what an earth can I be thinking of? Also, I can’t be hanging out of the window when the winter comes, a secret smoker, for goodness sake - I’m a grown up. Besides, the nicotine police this end have excellent senses of smell and they’ll sniff me out. The tables have been turned. No longer is it them stealing Penguin biscuits from the larder and me finding the wrappers under the bed. The children are hunting around looking for telltale signs of Rizla papers and lighters. They are certainly a force to contend with and could go several rounds in the ring with anyone who agrees with the habit.

Finally, I promise them I will stop, but add, “Come on kids, I could be doing something worse than smoke, surely?” They look at each other.

Nope, smoking is just about as bad as it gets.

Life in the Slow Lane is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is nearly eleven, Flo is nearly eight and Bobby is six and a half - and lives in Wiltshire.

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