Love and hate

Things I love:

1. Being a mother; love like you couldn't have imagined before they came along.
2. Being a teacher; best job in the world. Everything they say in those ads? It's all true.

3. Seeing friends greet each other on the street; smiles are infectious, and it always makes me feel that's all is right with the world when people are pleased to see one another.
4. Plain digestives with Philadelphia and strawberry jam. Mini cheesecake - yum.
5. Dark evenings and lights on mean Christmas is on its way.
6. Nights out with friends - laughing til I cry.
7. When the writing goes well and seems to flow from my fingers before I've thought it....
8. Winter clothes - no one looks better in summer clothes except supermodels.
9. My Dorothy shoes; red, high heels, platform soles, sequins, bows - what's not to love?
10. A night in with a bottle of wine, a DVD and Martin.
11. Historical fiction that sends me scurrying to the reference books.

12. Silence. So difficult to find.

Things I hate

1. Chewing gum. Why?

2. Anybody texting when they are in my immediate company.

3. The fact that this country allows poverty and brutality to pass from generation to generation so that children either die at the hands of their families or grow up to brutalise others.

4. Stupid or venal politicians.

5. The Rich List. Why?

6. The prison fashion of doing up your trousers under your arse. It makes you walk like a duck and you can't run for a bus.

7. Spitting. Not sexy.

8. People who say proudly stupid smug git things like "Charity begins at home" or "too clever by half".

9. All of my family being engaged on different electronic media and not talking to each other.

10. Petty officials who think they have power because they have a uniform.

11. Guantanamo Bay.

12. Mud. The dogwalker's nemesis.