Great Things About Life This Week #18

• Hair cuts: a liberating feeling to know that you have just cut off months of damaged and split ends so that if only for a few weeks, your hair will be healthy for a while.
• Discovering something you love: I took some photos of my friends band this week and it just instilled in me a definite love for photography. It's a great feeling to have something to feel passionate about.
• Greenbelt festival: my boyfriend and I got back on Tuesday from a great weekend in Cheltenham, we worked at the festival in the hospitality lounge (that's backstage teas and coffees to you and me) and got free food and a free ticket to the festival for the privilege of doing so. Hard work, but a great weekend. http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/
  

Great Things About Life This Week #17

• A week with my favourite ginger: say hello to Sarah Ashworth. She is what is known as a ginger winner and I spent lots of time with her this week. We went to Starbucks and other coffee establishments, talked alot and ate too many eggs and drank too much gin and tonic. Standard times.
• Grace: astounds me, always.
  
• Greenbelt: Lee and I are currently at Greenbelt and having a wonderful time despite the turbulent night temperatures and the fact that we are working! Home tomorrow.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #16

• Northern Ireland! I'm in Bangor in Northern Ireland this week and today me and my boyfriend, his dad and his brother are off on an adventure across the border to Ireland for some camping and some traditional Irish music!
• Meeting new people is wicked.
• The sun is shining!
  

Great Things About Life This Week #15

• Weddings: I went to a lovely lovely wedding on Saturday! My friends Si and Jo from University got married and they both looked wonderful and celebrated the best day of their lives in style complete with all things Cath Kidston, Laura Ashley and with plenty of sunshine.
• Books: I have received 2 amazing books in the post this week, one is called Jesus For President by Shane Clairborne, and another is called Drop Like Stars: Some Thoughts on Creativity and Suffering by Rob Bell. Both have some amazing photography in and feature some wise words on how God and Jesus are oh so relevant to today's society, and the economic and social suffering going on all around us.
• My new camera lens: I got a 50mm lens (known online as the nifty fifty) and it's a massive winner so far. I can't wait to use it when I go on holiday to Northern Ireland on Saturday. Win.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #14

• My mum: Yesterday we had a BBQ for my mum's birthday which was on Saturday. My mum is a great mum. It's hard living with her after 4 years of independence at University but she is such a wonderful person. Giving, loving and everything a mum should be and more. So I'm glad she had a lovely day, she's a winner.
• Holga: My new Holga camera arrived this week! It's brilliant and I have had lots of fun taking photos with it today. The problem I have is that after years of using digital cameras, I need to work on my patience. My 4 year old niece didn't understand why she couldn't see the photo after I took it!
• Watersports: On Saturday I went to my friends hen party and we did loads of watersports like water skiing and banana boating (not quite sure that counts as a sport but still). It was so much fun, I ached all weekend from it and have some impressive war wounds but great times!
  

Great Things About Life This Week #13

• My weekend was spent in 2 of my favourite places: Winchester and Weymouth. In Winchester I searched for a new house with a best friend, in Weymouth I slobbed out in an old house with a best friend.
• Holga cameras: I'm sure you will be hearing much more about this, but I ordered a Holga camera this week, and I'm very excited about receiving it and messing around with it! They are 80s toy cameras that produce amazing light distortion effects and I have loved looking at Holga images on flickr for ages now, so am eager to get started with mine soon, exciting.
  
• New babies: my friend Abi had a beautiful beautiful little girl very early this morning. Her name is Amelie Victoria and I'm very excited about meeting her soon.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #12

• Longleat Safari Park! My friend Massimo came to visit, and we went to Longleat with my mum, and it was amazing! We held a tarantula called Rosie and I also held a snake called... wait for it... Orville. Amazing.
• Tarantulas are proper amazing creatures. I don't like spiders, don't get me wrong, but this tarantula was just beautiful. I'm sure 90% of you disagree with me, but it was just incredible to see it up close and realise that it wasn't going to hurt me. It just sat there all light and furry chillin' out. Amazing.
• Today I get to see lots of my favourite people, including my lovely boyfriend, my wonderful nieces and sister, my wicked friends Laura and Vicky, and I also get to top all this off with a Chinese. Excellent.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #11

• My new lumberjack shirt. Cost too much than I want to say, but it's really wonderful and I love it. (NB: Note the completely shattered/retarded look I manage to pull off in this photo. Not everyone can do that with such ease.)
  
• I also bought a t-shirt with Madonna on. And I'm not talking about leotard Madonna who adopts Africans. I'm talking about super rad goth/eighties Madonna in the Like A Virgin video.
• This lead to my Saturday night dancing around my room in leggings and said Madonna top to eighties classics and singing very loudly whilst tidying out my cupboards. Therapeutic and satisfying.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #10

THE BIG TENTH EDITION! But don't get excited it's the same as every week.

• Idlewild! I saw them on Saturday night at a free festival in Coventry (http://www.godivafestival.co.uk/) and they were really amazing. They played some new songs which sound great, and I hope that they do a tour so that I can see them again in an environment that doesn't involve loads of drunk screaming chavs.
• Cow vintage shop in Birmingham. I bought a lovely vintage denim skirt for £6ish today and my boyfriend bought some amazing brogues. Great value.
• Thunderstorms. There hasn't been a good enough one to satisfy my longing for one, but I think that there might be a big one on the way this week. I fully intend to watch it from my bedroom window thinking about how amazing creation is and how I am but a mere insignificant blip in the grand scheme of things.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #9

image from myspace.com/brandnew

• BRAND FRICKIN' NEW: I saw them live on Friday night for the third time. Third time lucky, third time amazing, third time so ridiculously tension ridden and atmospheric that I can't even consider putting the experience into coherent words.
• Thunderstorms: Saw a couple this weekend and last week, I want more. More, more, more. Captivating. And they usually leave behind a lovely musty damp smell from the rain and humidity.
• Train journeys still do it for me, and lucky me I've got a few long ones coming up. Namely to Coventry and back, but we'll see where my wages take me this month.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #8

image from the absolute winner that is tim jones

• Spotify: I'm still riding high on this craze, fo real.
• The fact that even though I'm not on holiday anymore, it is only 4 days of work till 4 days of win. That could be made into some kind of fraction, or ratio, or any other mathematical equation.
• The facebook tagging explosion of my holiday photos. Amazing.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #7

• I am on HOLIDAY! I am in Sennan in Cornwall and it is so beautiful that I can't even begin to describe the scene I see outside the big windows in this house. I can and have however given you a lovely photo of the beach today from in between a little tree area that we cowered in after it started to rain.
• Not only am I on holiday in a beautiful location, I am also surrounded by 13 beautiful people. I have met 4 new lovely faces this week and got to know a few more.
  
• The sunshine has topped off this lovely week and I hope that the next few days are as good if not better than the previous 3!
  

Great Things About Life This Week #6

• London: I love London. It's lovely in the sunshine too, when you can sit in parks eating food and just enjoying peoples company. And so many free things to do that are great and stimulate the mind. Well, they stimulate the mind if you read things for information rather than just go to the Science museum to play with things, but still.
• Summer: Hello summer, welcome to 2009, please make yourself at home and please stick around for a bit longer than you did last year.
• Cybercandy: wicked shop. I bought my boyfriend (and myself) some Mountain Dew from there on Saturday. Expensive, but wicked. Reeces cups were also bought and consumed in high quantities.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #5

• Bank Holiday Weekends: Most people get an extra bit of the weekend. This is clearly a winner. Mine was spent watching Jerry Maguire and eating the best crisps ever.
• Eggs. Eggs for breakfast, clearly a champion start to the day. Fried, boiled, poached, scrambled... the ways are endless as are the possibilities when you start your day with eggs. Sure you aren't supposed to eat more than about 3 a week, probably not even that many, but still. CHAMPION.
• Sunshine: makes everything better.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #4

• The Natural History Museum. What a wicked time I had there on Saturday! Dinosaurs, a massive fetus, lots of shiny rocks and looking at all of these things with one of your favourite people. What more could you want for your Saturday afternoon?
• My Sunday. Which was spent with a massive bunch of super awesome people and families and there was BBQ food. All in all, a pretty epic weekend.
  
• This week is speeding by, which means that a fun weekend awaits.

Great Things About Life This Week #3

I should have done this on Monday but Monday was not a good day. It has destroyed my positive streak and my glass is now well and truly half empty again. I'm really looking forward to this weekend though, so perhaps the liquid formation in my cup will drastically improve and I will see life in a whole new light. Who knows. Let's wait and see. I for one am excited.

• New glasses: These are my favourites. I got 2 pairs at Specsavers, I also got contact lenses. Hello great times, goodbye bank balance.
• My niece. She is great and on said bad day of Monday, she cheered me up and came out with this really helpful comment: 'Why can't cars drive themselves anyway!' MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.
• James Yuill. Go and listen to him.
  

Great Things About Life This Week #1

New feature! Great things about life this week. Because life is great?

• Grace. This is the best thing about life every week, but this week it is just apparent to me even more so. Buy this book - What's So Amazing About Grace? but make sure it's the visual edition. It's just wicked.
• New music: Lots of people have been recommending me lots of good music this week, and this means there are lots of new artists/bands to get excited about. Foy Vance still ultimatley owns my heart, and I have been telling anyone and everyone about that, but there are lots of other exciting people I need to write about in the next few installments of Massively Great Bands. (Love the fact that it's called bands yet all the people I talk about are solo.)
• The massive rainbow storm that's just happened outside. Massive rain drops, mental showers and then the sunshine just appears and makes everything okay. Somewhat of a (albeit slightly lame) metaphor for some stuff going on in life at the moment. Reminds me of Lord of The Rings when Sam gives his amazing speech at the end of Two Towers when he says 'And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.' Oh, Sam. You chubby bundle of joy.
• People. Specifically new, great, lovely people. Getting to know people is exciting.
• Yesterday. My friend Massimo came to visit me and we walked up this really massive hill just out of the town where I live. We stopped at the bottom and chatted for ages and then got a bit lost trying to get up the other side. My niece called him Mandy and my mum gave him a wicked haircut. Him and my dad even had a long conversation about how we are becoming a nanny state. Intense stuff. I mainly just moaned a lot, but it was a really great day.
  
• Brownies. I made Nigella Lawson's brownies on Saturday for a family party and they were so lush, I have stuck to Jamie Olivers recipe in previous brownie-making escapades, but Nigella ftw now.I have gone on and on about them this weekend but they really were the best batch ever: Exhibit A:

LUSH TIMES.

Anyway, that's it. Hope the 11 people who read this are really well and happy.