Oh! Quick! The Sun's Come Out! Write to Josephine!

It is cold and rainy this morning, but I'm typing in the conservatory with the radiator radiating and the wash steaming away. You hear about wives who, having traipsed across the planet after their husbands, and, with nothing to occupy them, take up illicit habits, like gin and baccarat and human rights activism. My illicit habit is turning on the heat and taking off my coat while I type. I've turned it off now, though, so it's OK.

Meanwhile, I've shut myself into the conservatory with the laundry and it's like the Amazon in here. Outside, the rain is clattering down out of the broken gutter, and, inside in the steam, the basil and the rosemary cuttings are sprouting and thriving and you can hear the spiders bursting out of their last, now-too-small exoskeletons.
Now the sun's come out, so I've rushed out to take a picture of the event.


Just as illicit as running the heater, I''m also drinking a D 'n' B soda. D 'n' B soda is a masterpiece of marketing. The bottle is black and glossy and bullet-shaped. The font and print are punches of gold. "D! B!" it snarls, with a bikini'd babe on each arm swaggering frosty out of the refrigerator.
However.
If you read the label, you notice that the "D" is written really big in swaggering solid gold block Sans Serif, but then you see, that beside the 'D' is 'Dandelion' written small and apologetically. And the "B", then they break it to you means "Burdock" for crying out-loud. Then they scrawl on the corner of the label in edgy, graffiti written by either a kidnapper or a three year old the D 'n' B slogan: taLL, daRk,&DriNkSoMe.
Actually, it's pretty good stuff. (I have to admit, I was a Dr. Pepper girl even after I discovered spicy elixir's main ingredient was, I'm pretty sure, something like pressed prune squeezing, and the tidy "10 2 and 4" logo and sophisticated art deco stream-lined clock on the glamorous, sleek glass bottle, took on an embarrassing new meaning. Even when everyone laughed and said, "Ew, that's prunes". I liked it and had an instant affinity of others who chose The Doctor. Although, I've got to say, I they were thin on the ground. I've recently discoved Brian liked Dr. Pepper. :) )

So D 'n' B is pretty good. If, when you hear "pretty good", you think of Vick's Formula 44, which is exactly what it tastes like. It cost 59p, so they're not giving it away. It's also, I read, the Official Soft Drink of the Great Britain Rugby League. An angry bunch. The label goes on to say that the black plastic bottle (very few soft drink bottles are actually black) contains "sparkling dandelion and burdock flavour" and the warning: "If spilt, this product may stain." Who can be surprised?
It's made in Glasgow.