McFly in the ointment

The other day I caught the Panther dithering at the bottom of the stairs a look of anguish on his face.
“What’s up?”
“Oooh, it’s something I vowed I’d never do.”
“What is?”
“Yelling up the stairs at the kids: ‘turn that music down, it’s too loud!’.”
Sure Boy One’s appreciation of McFly was a bit enthusiastic. But it was more to do with a promise the Panther made to himself years ago along the lines of “I’ll never be the kind of dad who bellows at children to turn their music down – I’ll be too cool for that”.
Similar thing happened to me this New Year in Prague.
We had a fabulous six-day break during which we admired the beautiful city, ate heaps, walked a long way and spent considerable amounts of time watching the crowd while warming our hands over a hot wine.
But everyone in the Czech Republic seems to smoke and they do it everywhere. There are billows of stinky smoke in pubs, restaurants, hotel corridors, the street and shopping centres. And it’s horrid.
I used to smoke and I vowed I wouldn’t become one of those smug and intolerant reformed types. Admittedly our wonderful smoking ban makes that fairly easy.
Prague reminded me of how awful the sore lungs, scratchy eyes and smelly clothes which followed a night in the company of addicts were.
So here goes: “My name is Ellen and I’m a reformed smoker. I fully admit I was blind to the evils of the weed for the years I was smoking. Now I want to share my revelation with the world – this makes me smug and preachy. Sorry.”