I got this from my good friend Hil , whose blog I recommend to the discerning reader.

1. My kids, most especially when we're all together. I used to love it when they all came home at the same time (as adults). When they were all tucked up asleep in their beds I could feel the release of a semi-permanent, tiny knot of inner tension I hadn't even noticed. All safe.

2. Babies and little 'uns in general. I'm an inveterate maker of faces at babies, wherever I happen to be next to them - on the bus, in a queue - and a player of peek-a-boo. Babies laughing - best thing ever.

3. Writing - man I missed it so much when I wasn't smoking and couldn't do it at all. I made an appointment today to see a 'health trainer' (who turn out to be employed by the council) for six free sessions helping me to stop again. The first session is planning - I must remember to talk about the effect on writing.

4. My gang of stoner-grannies. No further explication necessary, I feel.

5. Travelling. My heart lifts as I leave 'my' patch and lurch forward into the unknown. Unless I'm in the middle of an anxiety number, of course. Best of all is to visit a friend in a far-off place and hang out with them. I don't really give a fuck about the sights

6. Gardening - though as I may have mentioned, my current plot is definitely special needs, as is the allotment (which I have abandoned this year, but SC is valiantly keeping it going). My favourite advice on garden planning is to first work out where you're going to sit and carry on from there, creating beauty for all the senses, just from a few packets of seeds. Blissful.

7. Reading novels.

8. Teaching. I can't discover any new information without wanting to share it at once.

9. Teenagers - aw man, how I used to love working with teenagers. Even the arsiest of them aren't yet fixed - they can still go either way at that age and often all they need is a bit of relentless acceptance to have them grinning at you and yelling, "All right, Miss?" when they see you across the dining hall.

10. Living on the coast - walking down the steps onto the pavement and being able to see the sea at the bottom of the road, always a different combination of colour, texture, height. Always reminding me what a small speck of humanity I am in the scheme of things.

11. Being in an audience at a Shakespeare play when either there's that silence of rapt attention or gales of laughter. He wrote that shit four hundred years ago and it still speaks to us - how fucking cool is that? Mind you, I've also been at some dire, endless, awful productions - I remember when Julius Caesar was the play for the Year 9 SATS and we took a coachload of fourteen year olds to the flattest, dreariest thing you ever did see, but even then most of them loved it and talked about it animatedly all the way home, but that's teenagers.

12. Cooking for people I love (or even just like), in the kitchen with the radio on, peeling and chopping.

13. Learning something new.

14. Yoga - the older I get the more I love it. It will do me well as I totter into old age.

15. Dancing when good and stoned, especially at festivals and weddings - and gigs if the rest of the crowd are good and old - which they are if the performer is. Patti Smith and the Alabama 3.

16. Playing wordscraper (scrabble) with LA on facebook. We have played 742 games (we run three at a time) and I am currently in the lead by 51% to her 49%. It's a steady, soothing pulse in the fabric of my life.

There, that was easy. And as Hil says, it makes you feel good.

Grateful for: friends; ideas; the internet; the council; my bed

Sweet dreams xxx