A month before I leave China, I decide to write everything I love and hate about it. One thing a day.
I thumb through my notebook and find an older instruction:
Write everything you love and hate about Liverpool, one thing everyday.
1.
Love: This notebook, gifted through a ditch dug under the fence
Hate: Being surprised from behind
2.
Love: The glass walls at work
Hate: The glass walls at work
3.
Love: Keith’s Wine Bar still open at 1.30am on a Tuesday
Hate: Keith, the greyed-out pervert
4.
Love: Writing acrostic poems with Isabel on cheap Sauvignon Blanc
Hate: Everyone wants to be seen
5.
Love: Aldi down the road, organic eggs £2
Hate: The sound of my neighbour’s crying babies
6.
Love: Storm Floris
Hate: Obesity inversely correlated with class
7.
Love: Lark Lane’s ‘fuck the Tories’ earrings
Hate: Polarising politics
8.
Love: The 86A
Hate: That it takes an hour by train to Manchester
9.
Love: Scouse girls in make-up shops
Hate: Uncoupling hands for cars parked on pavements, as if wing mirrors are more important than romance
10.
Love: Free tampons in the girls’ toilet at work
Hate: Scouse beggars opening with ‘hi guys’
11.
Love: Toxteth Cemetery
Hate: Singers outside Primark
12.
Love: RIDE and cycle paths
Hate: Speed bumps on Hartington Road
13.
Love: ‘See it, say it, snort it’
Hate: Revenue enforcement officers in pairs
14.
Love: Sober Scousers
Hate: Cosmic Scousers
15.
Love: Tuesdays
Hate: Mondays
16.
Love: Sunday morning upside down faces
Hate: Bumping into everyone you don’t want to see
17.
Love: Pier Head, finding tall sail boats from Argentina
Hate: Palm House weddings
18.
Love: Kaz Garden
Hate: Kaz Garden toilets
19.
Love: Drunk, husky-voiced old Scouse men saying ‘shine a light’
Hate: My doctor’s receptionist
20.
Love: Crown Street, the world’s first passenger station (Western Terminus)
Hate: Watching pigeons eating puke
21.
Love: Merseyrail and the Wirral Way
Hate: Irish pubs
22.
Love: Never being overdressed
Hate: Leggings
23.
Love: Raves in butty shops
Hate: Talking on the dancefloor
24.
Love: My local post office
Hate: Polite beggar outside Aldi who calls me sister
25.
Love: My sturdy bed
Hate: My squeaking joists
26.
Love: The central library on a rainy day
Hate: Leaf blowers on Bank Holidays
27.
Love: A PA on an ironing board in Sefton Park
Hate: Leaf blowers in summer
28.
Love: Dolls’ House Hospital on Smithdown Road
Hate: Leaf blowers, always
29.
Love: Free pool in Kelly’s Dispensary
Hate: –
30.
Love: Thornycroft Road Hydrangeas
Hate: –
majorloveme 