Ciggies and Grog and photography

[Praktica]

Some years ago, late 1980's, I gave up smoking and drinking so as to be able to take up photography where I setup an outside shed into a darkroom lab where I practiced B+W photography and later, a rudimentary colour processing system using tubes and a warm water bath. Temperature was extremely critical with colour printing. I spent a fair bit on my hobby so didn't weaken with the above-mentioned evils again. Cost me heaps but have loved the hobby ever since.

Up until a month ago after moving into a retirement village just before Christmas!!



PS didn't find any ciggies thank God! Couldn't afford them now!

Aw, c'mon Kenj. You don't need a darkroom now. With a digital camera (or just a mobile phone) and a laptop you can still do great things. That way you can reward yourself with the odd tipple or three when your piccies come out as you want them.

It isn't the same - I still develop my own monochrome films, but I scan them. That is nothing like printing in a darkroom.

[R2x1]

It arrived in the driveway one afternoon, ready for me as I rode my Honda in after work. There had been ongoing discussion around my reluctance to get off the bike and into a car, my driving lessons experience with first my father then various other males having been less than enjoyable. So I had foolishly agreed to reattempt the process if and when a nice red E type was the vehicle offered...

But we couldn't afford that, so he who I adored found this candy apple red sporty thing and decided that it might be enough. I did give it a decent try, even managed a couple of road trips behind the wheel, with the top off. The Spitties, not mine. But driving a car was never the same as riding a road bike for me, and while I was happy to pilot the landrover along firebreaks while he wandered through the trees, or take over during long trips for a while, cars just never really were my thing.

So the Spitfire went on to a new owner, and our bank account felt the relief of no more regular mechanic accounts for 'computerised tuning' whatever that was. Mind you, keeping the old rover on the road wasn't a cheap exercise either.

Bikes were so much more economical to run.

Bikes were economical for me too, as long as they weren't spawned from poverty rock as those did not age at all gracefully. If any Triumph I owned did not leak oil I knew it had run out of the stuff. If the lights worked, that was an unfailing precursor to luminary catastrophe of the electrical kind. Batteries on bikes could be used as surface plates, they were the flattest things around. But, the tricks pulled by other road users were a bit of a decider as I aged and my flight or flee reflexes lost their zip. Cold and wet long trips went out of fashion if often conducted in the dark. Nortons educated me into being a bit helpless if road works appeared unexpectedly.

[allblack]

I think one ciggie to me would be like a drop of Scotch to an alcoholic. I was so addicted to the rotten things

Likewise....just one and I'd be all over them again. Even 2nd hand smoke has me pining for more.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

It arrived in the driveway one afternoon, ready for me as I rode my Honda in after work. There had been ongoing discussion around my reluctance to get off the bike and into a car, my driving lessons experience with first my father then various other males having been less than enjoyable. So I had foolishly agreed to reattempt the process if and when a nice red E type was the vehicle offered...

But we couldn't afford that, so he who I adored found this candy apple red sporty thing and decided that it might be enough. I did give it a decent try, even managed a couple of road trips behind the wheel, with the top off. The Spitties, not mine. But driving a car was never the same as riding a road bike for me, and while I was happy to pilot the landrover along firebreaks while he wandered through the trees, or take over during long trips for a while, cars just never really were my thing.

So the Spitfire went on to a new owner, and our bank account felt the relief of no more regular mechanic accounts for 'computerised tuning' whatever that was. Mind you, keeping the old rover on the road wasn't a cheap exercise either.

Bikes were so much more economical to run.

Bikes were economical for me too, as long as they weren't spawned from poverty rock as those did not age at all gracefully. If any Triumph I owned did not leak oil I knew it had run out of the stuff. If the lights worked, that was an unfailing precursor to luminary catastrophe of the electrical kind. Batteries on bikes could be used as surface plates, they were the flattest things around. But, the tricks pulled by other road users were a bit of a decider as I aged and my flight or flee reflexes lost their zip. Cold and wet long trips went out of fashion if often conducted in the dark. Nortons educated me into being a bit helpless if road works appeared unexpectedly.

Pretty things, the Bears, but I was more a plastic fantastic rider. I just loved the freedom of them. And the challenge of being a female rider when there weren't a lot of us.

[piroska]

I vape.

Really? And there was me thinking you were quite sensible... 

Some people can quit just like that, others not. It's far better than cigarettes.

[Olive]

Have you tried the Allan Carr method ? I had smoked for many decades and when I decided to quit I got out of the library his book "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking". I was pretty sceptical, but worked my way through the book, followed the instructions to the letter, and it worked. It's a form of NLP and I know several ex-smokers who have quit by reading it. After about a week of transition I no longer had any interest in smoking and I have never relapsed or even wanted to. That was 12 years ago.

Give it a try. You need to follow the process set out in the book.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Really? And there was me thinking you were quite sensible... 

Some people can quit just like that, others not. It's far better than cigarettes.

Actually, no, some of them are worse - even for the user. And all of them are worse for everyone else.

And I say that as someone who was a heavy smoker, who made over nine attempts to give up before finally managing it back in 1995. And who frankly, would love a ciggie if anyone is offering...

I am an addict, and I know it.

[R2x1]

Giving up smoking is one of the easiest things in the world to do.
I can claim some expertise in this, having given up at least 753 times before I stopped counting. Last time alas, abstention became addictive and I just can't shake it. I did try one about 12 years ago, but I think I may have inadvertently lit up a very senior sock of the non-addictive kind.  Sorry, no photographs.