fag break

When I was really young (5 or 6) I remember being most impressed at my mother's ability to speak and smile at the same time. I thought the difference between kids and adults were that adults could multitask (though of course the concept was still a twinkle in someone's future blue sky thinking) while children could not. I decided that one day, I too would be able to hold a conversation while smiling simultaneously. Of course I realise now that chances are Mum was actually grimacing, or at the very least putting on a brave face and talking through it. Which of course, we're all very good at now that we're all very grown up.
I also used to think that if you cut off your arm, or finger or other appendage, rather than blood and gore, you'd spout tobacco - that we were in fact made up pretty much like cigarettes. Obviously the result of growing up in a hard-core smoker's house. My earliest memories are of being woken up to the sound of a lighter being flicked and the flint-lit shadow of my mum being thrown onto her bedroom wall (until the age of 10 I went and got into my mum and dad's bed – slap bang between them). I also remember always having to sit at the back of the cinema so mum could smoke.
My lovely mum also tabbed her way through both of her pregnancies. And it never did us any harm.