Ten things

• Leyton, where I live, is not picturesque, and does not often feature as a literary setting. So I've always perversely loved the opening line of Meera Syal's Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee: "Not even the snow could make Leyton look lovely". I think that even Meera Syal would have been impressed with the massive rainbow that appeared in the thundery skies over Leyton last weekend though.
• I took O to the National Gallery on Saturday. We sat in front of the Impressionists and tried to copy their pictures. It did not take us long to decide that being an Impressionist was too much like hard work. Both of us are more into great sweeps of colour than lots of delicately balanced blobs of colour.
• A deep chuckle and then a cry of "whoops-a-daisy!" from the nurse is top of my list of Things I Don't Want To Hear When I'm Having a Smear Test. And then she asked me why I looked so tense.
• All week at work the harmonious colours of my diary, my iPod case and my little tin of tinted Vaseline have given me much pleasure.
• The Vaseline Rosy Lips is the nicest lip balm I have ever had. Ever. I'm sorry to say that it has even knocked my homemade cocoa butter and coconut oil version off the top spot. The Vaseline one has rose and almond oil in it and smells and tastes as lovely as the tin looks.
• Anna sent me a Be-Ro recipe booklet, which is enchanting. It even has a recipe for little biscuits called 'Sticky Blobs' - how cool!
• I bought some embroidery transfers from Sublime Stitching. I have started on some designs from her Camp Out range and I hope that they will shortly become bunting for when we go camping.
• We've just finished the last jar of jam from 2008. O wants to add raspberry jam to our repertoire this year so I am keeping an eye on the progress of the crops at the PYO.
• I have bought some glow sticks from here to take camping with us this weekend. At Orchard Campsite, where we went last month, they threw handfuls of them out to all the children once the sun had set. This was such fun.
• This is my 199th post, and it is almost exactly two years since I started this blog; that Camping Masterlist is still very much in use. I think this merits a giveaway. Come back next week to find out more!