Ann Cleeves

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

Lucky, busy, varied, exciting, globe-trotting, eavesdropping, sociable, solitary, occasionally frustrating.

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

A long table covered with a waxed cloth, a cork board with family photos and grandkids’ drawings, the scrubbed pine table we bought from a bakery when we were first married, cook books and shelves of translated crime fiction, bird books and field guides, a washing rack hanging over the stove, a wintry garden.

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Cheese on toast. A proper Cheddar, dry and granular with the texture of good fudge and a thick slice of homemade bread, toasted until the cheese is brown and bubbling.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

My husband Tim, our good friends Martin and Paul, Sue from North Devon, Kate from Somerset and Ingirid and Jim from Shetland.

Six things you can't live without ...

Radio 4, a deep bath, a book to read before I go to sleep, my family, silence, the sea.

Five favourite words ...

Serendipity, wanderlust, curiosity, friendship, champagne

Four places you'd run away to ...

Holy Island, Shetland, Skokholm, Tanzania.

Three books you've bought recently ...

Bryant and May and the Invisible Code by Christopher Fowler
A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre
The Fishing Fleet by Anne de Courcy

Two things that make you rant ...

Rich people who think that their wealth is all down to their own efforts. Unkindness.

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

It’ll all work out beautifully in the end.