Right then. This is the year I finally do it . . . give up smoking!

It’s been my New Year resolution for each of the last 16 years, since I took up the dreaded weed again after 11 years off it.

But this time I really, really do mean it – and I’m hoping Lou’s Women and our followers will hold me to task on it.

The mistake in the past is to have a scatter gun approach – vowing to kick the fags, lose weight, get fitter, be more organised et cetera et cetera -all at once.

And, within a day or two, all those good intentions have gone to Hades.

My GP practice appointment is made to get a prescription for Champix – friends have had success with this, so it’s worth a try – to wean myself off the habit.

It will be such a relief to Mum and Dad, my chums and The Glentist (my chap, who gave up himself four years ago and now hates the habit), all of whom keep saying they don’t want to bury me.

Joining me in the pledge to quit smoking at New Year is 69-year-old Sheena Hamilton, from Wombourne.

As for the rest of Lou’s Women, how impressive is our zumba guru Lou Thomas, who teaches at Haybridge Sports Centre in Hagley and Brindley Primary School, Kinver?

She makes a list of resolutions on January 1, having analysed what went well and what didn’t in the previous 12 months and then checks them off through the year.

And she says she’s achieved five out of her 10 resolutions of this last year - getting her zumba “gold” qualification, passing ballroom dancing exams, planning a new career as a counsellor, allowing her daughter to make her own decisions and spending more time with friends.

Read more of Lou’s Women’s comments – and add your own views – below.

Zumba teacher Lou Thomas, who has just celebrated her 60^th birthday, says: “New Year’s resolutions are really important to me. The New Year is an important milestone. I reflect on what went well – and what didn’t – in the previous 12 months and then plan what I would like to achieve going forward.  I’ve just checked last year’s list and I can tick about five of the 10 – so not bad! New Year is also great for my zumba classes – so many women resolve to get fit and lose weight – it’s great for business!”

Willenhall Carnival Queen Stacey Senior says:  “I tend to make a New Year’s resolution when somebody asks me if I have one. I’m not self motivated when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, and you’ve probably guessed, I’m not very motivated at keeping them either. Rather than trying to change a bad habit I try to think of something new I want to try, so this year I want to get better at keeping a nice garden or growing my own veg. Obviously a summer time activity, so I have plenty of time for the idea to sink in.”

Chess supremo Julie Wilson says: “I think the next one will be to be more organised and sort out all the stuff I have in my house. This year’s was to go through all my cookery books and cook one new recipe out of each. I started off doing this but it sort of petered out mid summer. At least it got me doing more cooking and trying out new things.”

Student Holly Dodd says: “Rarely a week goes by without my resolving to do something better and never quite getting there, and ‘the New Year’s Resolution’ is my biggest manifestation of annual self-delusion; give up chocolate, take up exercise, be more motivated. They’ve all loomed on the horizon and inevitably fallen by the wayside. So if I’m honest, I probably won’t be making a New Year’s Resolution this time. I know a lot of women who, rather than setting themselves further restrictions, deserve to have some relaxation in 2012! So I guess what I have for the New Year is ‘wishes’ rather than ‘resolutions’ – I wish to make my family proud of me, to stop keeping chocolate biscuits in my room (-fatally close to hand!) and I wish you all a happy and healthy 2012!”

“Llama Lady” Chris Armstrong says: “I think I am pretty much the same as most women and threaten to diet every New Year but I don’t start until the second week. I regularly lose one or two stones then three months later it’s all back on! I also stop drinking alcohol for a month to prove to myself I am not an alcoholic – I usually get bored of tonic water after two weeks and go back to my red wine feeling quite righteous! Well, for once, the New Year really is going to bring a new, fagless me.

Language coordinator Irina James says: “I never have special New Year’s resolutions. Every time I wonder what the new year will bring . On this New Year’s eve it won’t be anticipation that I feel, but a trifle of trepidation. Fasten seatbelts, hold your loved ones tight, it promises to be a rough ride!”

Midwife Ellie Wright says: “My New Year’s resolution! OMG. It’s just got to be the usual one, yes you’ve guessed it haven’t you? to go on that slimming diet yet again to try and get down to a slender size 10 (like 90% of the female population). Well after a week or so you are longing for that slab of milk chocolate, or the naughty bickie with the cup of tea, (the apple just doesn’t appeal) and yes it just goes out the window along with the thought of the size 10. So what’s the matter with being a size ** anyway? nothing, except the jeans just don’t fit. Maybe, forget the new year’s resolution, and my poor husband will have to put up with the same old question ‘does my bum look big in this?’.”

Conservationist Sheena Hamilton, aged 69, vows: “I’m going to give up smoking for my New Year’s resolution this time – and I’m determined to do it because I’m killing myself. I’m a Roman Catholic but haven’t been going to church as often as I should.  So I’m also resolving to go to St Bernadette’s Church in Wombourne regularly from now on.”