Day-to-day things, the mundane, are what keeps the motor running. How extraordinary the ordinary really is, a tool we all use to keep going, a template for sanity.

We said we would meet again but we made no arrangements. Not out of any bad feeling between us, but because I felt it had all been said, or not said but understood, and she probably did too. To know she was there was enough, and for her to know I was around was probably too. Sometimes that's all people ever really need. Just to know.

She wanted to be irresponsible, she wanted to be looked after, to be told that she didn't have to worry about a thing and that someone else would take care of everything. How easy life would be without having grown-up problems to worry about. And then she could grow up all over again.

But with your life you make a few bad decisions, get unlucky a few times, whatever, but you have to keep going, right?

It’s not easy remembering the good times.

It's not about finding Mr Right, or that sort of conventional ending, but I do want my characters to have hope - and that's what I do with all my stories.

As long as you're around, your life is too. So just as you shower love and affection and attention on the husbands, wives, parents, children and forever friends who sorround you, you have to do so equally with your life, because it's yours, it's you, and it's always there rooting for you, cheering you on, even when you feel like you can't do it. I gave up on my life for a while, but what I've learned is that even when that happens and especially when that happens, life never gives up on you.