I AM enjoying the new TV series, Grumpy Old Men, in which forty and fifty-somethings like Bob Geldof and Rick Wakeman moan about all the things that bug them in modern life.

But it's not just men who get annoyed by double glazing salesmen who phone you in the evening and people who talk incessantly on mobile phones. There are plenty of grumpy old women out there - I know, because I'm one of them.

Here's a list of my top ten gripes:

1. People over 30 who use words like "cool" and "chill". Almost as embarrassing as the ageing mother using her teenage children in an attempt to cling onto her youth: "We're more like best friends than mother and daughter," she claims, unconvincingly.

2. The increasing amount of fundraising we parents have to do. If we're not helping out at the playgroup car boot sale, we're manning a cake stall or running the school's bring-and-buy. Sometimes we only make a few pounds for a morning's work. Why not just write out a cheque at the beginning of term and reclaim our weekends?

3. All those loyalty card schemes stores run now. I have too many cards, not enough wallet room and, even if I could work out how to claim them, I've lost track of what points I've got where. Life is complicated enough. Why not scrap the cards and reduce the prices?

4. Car parking spaces getting smaller as cars get bigger. If you don't inadvertently bash someone's door when yanking children out of a people carrier in a cramped multi-storey, you return to your vehicle to find a dent where someone else has done it to you.

5. The "buy one get one free" supermarket offer for something you don't need but can't resist. Since you can't eat it all before the use-by date anyway, it's more like "buy one, throw one away".

6. People who say "whatever" when you disagree. I wouldn't mind if they argued, not engaging with you at all is worse. You don't get the chance to answer back.

7. When you unpack your e-mail supermarket shop to discover everything has to be used by tomorrow. At least at the supermarket you can reach to the back of the shelf to get stuff that lasts until next week.

8. Isn't it time restaurants thought of something more adventurous than chicken nuggets and chips for their children's menus?

9. The Christmas toy every child in the country wants but no parent can lay their hands on. And it happens every year. Santa Claus never had this problem in my day.

10. Even worse than the automated phone message with a sequence of options is when after 20 minutes you finally get a real person on the line and wish you could get back to the automated voice because it spoke far more sense.

And I almost forgot - those infuriating lists of top ten likes/dislikes that litter our TV screens, magazines and newspapers nowadays.

* If you're a grumpy old woman too, why not drop me a line with your pet hate at The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DLI INF. The best two will win a copy of Favourite Jokes - Share a Laugh With 100 Celebrities. (£4.99 Great Northern Books 01943 604027).

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/ features/