Learning to relax

Hi everyone,

I hope this message finds you safe and sound. What a bizarre world we find ourselves in at the moment, I must admit I’m finding that I’m waking up everyday with that Groundhog Day feeling, but thank goodness the weather has been nice, so we can enjoy our gardens and balconies and obviously our walks.

I think our dog Bailey is ‘living her best life’ at the moment. She is overjoyed at having us all around all the time and I don’t think she has ever been walked so much in her life!

We had a lovely Easter weekend, enjoying the sunshine and getting the garden shipshape, we have been eating in the garden too even though it’s been a little chilly at times at least we feel like we have been out somewhere !

My Easter afternoon tea went down a treat and I even made an egg hunt for the kids, which initially they sighed about (admittedly they are a bit old for the Easter bunny), but my clues were very cryptic, and they got quite into it – let’s face it, you’re never too old for a hoard of chocolate!

Meanwhile, in the kitchen I’ve been having great fun with my Ninja Foodi Health Grill Air Fryer. Having the time to experiment with it has been great, and will save me so much time in the future and also not having the whole oven on full blast is a bonus too.

If any of you have any cooking tips with it too, do let me know!

My two top potato tips are my home-made, skin-on chips, which are delicious. Just wash the potatoes, cut into chips (leaving the skin on), toss in cooking oil (I actually use a garlic infused oil), sprinkle a little paprika on and cook in the Ninja in the basket on the air fry function for 20-30 mins. I usually turn them every 10 mins and they are the best chips ever.

Now for roast potatoes: I prepare and par boil the potatoes as usual, then place in the Ninja bowl, but I don’t use the basket. I know this is not the healthiest option but the roasties taste amazing! Use the bake function on the highest temperature for 30-40 mins ( depending on how crispy you like them) and again I turned them every 10 minutes to get them evenly coated and crispy, they are gorgeous!

Honestly, everything I’ve cooked in the Ninja has tasted wonderful, it seems to just lock  in the flavours. We have even used the the dehydration function and made our own dried mango, which took a long time but it was yummy!

So although all the madness has got us all a little stir crazy, I’m trying to embrace the little things in life a bit more. I think it’s not until you are forced to stop like this do you suddenly realise how much of our everyday lives we take for granted, even down to the point of walking in to the supermarket and buying a tin of beans or a loaf of bread and some loo roll!

Hopefully though, QVC staying with us has enabled us all to have a little bit of normality in our day. I must admit even though the studios are so strange at the moment and we have strict safety procedures in place, just being able to go to work and bring everyone a sense of community is really helping to get me through.

I also think it’s also lovely to be able to have future things to focus on and projects like the garden, that we can work on now, while we have the time, and we will reap the rewards of our labour in the coming months. I think just having the extra half hour to have my morning coffee in the garden or a lengthy hours-long group chat to friends online, while enjoying the sunshine, is making me appreciate my outdoor space even more.

Have a look at our gardening section online, there’s everything you will ever need to get your garden looking fabulous and all of course delivered straight to your door – even compost! We have garden lighting, furniture, ornaments, tools, a whole host of plants and bulbs and of course don’t even consider planting anything without the iconic Richard Jackson’s Flower Power, now in a limited edition gold tub at an incredible feature price. I wouldn’t be without it!

My other must-haves are Richard Jackson’s Weed Killer and Richard’s Lawn Magic, in fact I’d basically recommend anything of Richards’s – the man is a gardening genius!

Also invest in The Original Garden Broom, it is seriously the last broom you will ever buy, and if it’s plants you need, take your pick from some of the biggest names like Thompson & Morgan, Hayloft Plants, de Jager and Plants2Gardens to name but a few.

My favourite plant at the moment is from Hayloft Plants, called Amethyst Falls. It’s a type of wisteria that will come ready to pot and will flower this summer!

Don’t forget that everything, including all our gardening products, now come with a 60 day money back guarantee! So sit back and enjoy the extra time at home, if you possibly can and don’t forget QVC are always with you!

Stay safe, Jilly x