I think hate is a really strong word and not one that features often in my vocabulary, well aside from "I hate my hair today" or I hate how my bum looks in this" but you get the picture? When I was younger, I decided that if I held onto disdain, dislike or indeed hate, it would eat me up and do me no good, so one day a good friend and I decided on the "hate basket". It was a place to throw things that annoyed us, upset us or indeed those things that we hated.

It is obviously metaphorical as I dont have a basket big enough to put a whole human being in but it always made us feel better to "throw" someone or something in the basket. For a while I had people "sitting" on the edge of the basket, knowing I could push them in there if they pushed me too far but for a long time the basket has been empty.

So during this past week, there have been a catalogue of things that have happened to people very close to me and it would be insensitive of me to share their pain, as they are not my stories to tell, but we have had to say goodbye to people we have loved. So the hate basket that has been empty for so long, now has the "long black hooded cloak" and I am putting the lid on it tightly.

There are no more words.