Resolutions and resolve

A new year always sees us load up with good intentions and Robin Scott is determined, as ever, to give the 12 months ahead both barrels

- Robin Scott

Another year. Really? Where did the old one go? It seems only yesterday I was drawing up a list of resolutions for 2019 and here I am slipping quietly into 2020 with most of that old list still in place. Out of six well-intentioned resolutions made a year ago I’ve managed to keep only one – to stop smoking. A single cheroot hasn’t touched my lips since the second week of January.

I can’t say I feel massively better for having kicked the habit but I suppose it must’ve done some good. The obvious (and instant) benefit has been to my finances. You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve saved. Breathing fresh air for a year covered the cost of three modest driven days and much of my salmon fishing in 2019. And that, I suppose, was my real incentive to stop. Banking the saving on cigars every month helped no end in driving me on to succeed.

Cool fug

No, it wasn’t easy at the start but (touch wood) I’m now well past the craving. The only time I miss drawing on a Corona and letting its deliciously cool fug swirl about the tubes is after a shoot, pint in hand. Or lying in the bankside grass looking back on the pool I’ve just waded, wondering if a different type of line or fly might have tempted a fish.