The reverse advent calendar…

While scrolling through Instagram on Monday, in my lunchbreak from copy-editing (more on that later), I spotted a post from a book blogger who I follow about a ‘Reverse Advent Calendar’. It’s something I haven’t heard of before, but I think it’s a brilliant idea, particularly this year. For the month of November, you add one non-perishable food item to a box each day then at the end of the month you take it to your local food bank for them to distribute pre-Christmas. So far, my box has: baked beans, jam, pasta, tinned tomatoes, coffee and biscuits. I’m sure you could play catch-up if you wanted to join in – I only started on the 3rd with three items going straight in. As you can see, Wilfie wanted to join in too, so I’ll have to check the box carefully before sending off to the food bank or someone might get more than they bargained for! Thanks to Kaisha for her post alerting me to this and to those who’ve already said on my social media that they are going to do it too – it can make such a difference.

Talking of Wilfie, it was lovely to do a Charlie Bears show yesterday, my first show back after my regular five-day break. Will and Charlie guested via video link and, for those of you who don’t know, Will’s nickname is Wilfy… hence the connection! We had a fun two hours together and isn’t it amazing who you can train to operate the cameras these days.

That’s Malibu, who I think sold out along with lots of the other bears, but you can check out who is still available on our website if you missed the show. Big thanks to Ben and Liv, our studio staff for the show, who spent ages ‘dressing’ the set!

So, most of the previous five days had been spent working on the copy edit for my next book, My Mother’s Secret. I received the file last Thursday, but was too busy with work at QVC to open it until Saturday… so how had I managed to finish the copy edit by 3 p.m. Wednesday, a full week ahead of schedule? This has never happened with my previous books, so I’ve decided to hang on to it and have a third read-through, as I keep thinking I must have missed something. I also need to write my ‘acknowledgements page’ where you thank people for their input to your book; cover designer, editor, copy editor etc. This one will include a mention for ‘Teddy’, Chloe Everton’s gorgeous dog, as I borrowed his name for a cavapoo puppy who features in the book. Maybe I should also thank my ‘roomie’, Katy Pullinger, for the use of her surname for one of my characters, Ray. It’s funny how you draw on people and things you know for inspiration when writing, even if you don’t realise it at the time.

I’m sure it can’t have escaped your notice this is the Elemis Christmas Today’s Special Value weekend – seriously, I’m hoping there will still be some stock left to talk about for my 11 a.m. show on Sunday morning. It’s a beautiful gift-boxed collection comprising of five facial skincare products and three body products. There are three fragrances to choose from in the body products and also the cleansing balm, although the Warm Tonka & Vanilla option has the Original cleansing balm rather than a fragranced one. The other two options are Modern English Rose and Neroli Blossom, which is the option I selected as you can see in this short video, because it’s the ‘new kid on the block’ and I like to be able to talk about things from experience:

The collection has a 30ml size of Pro-Collagen Marine Cream, which is usually £55 on its own, so the £51.96 price tag is excellent – in effect you’re not paying for seven of the eight products. The ‘freebies’ are: 50g Cleansing Balm, 200ml Balancing Ginseng Toner, 30 ml Papaya Enzyme Peel, 4ml trial-size Pro-Collagen Eye Revive Mask, 300ml Bath & Shower Milk, 100ml Body Cream and 20ml Hand & Nail Balm. I heard someone say on-air yesterday that over one hundred thousand units have already sold, so please don’t leave it too late and miss out on this offer.

Fragrance-wise, the Neroli Blossom is a zesty, fruity floral, which is quite fresh and uplifting with more fruitiness in the base notes of dates, fig and vine leaves. I like it, but if I’m honest my personal favourite is the Warm Tonka & Vanilla – it’s like a hug from someone special, which a lot of us are sadly missing at the moment.

Speaking of gorgeous aromas, I have already ordered my Yankee Candle Today’s Special Value, in Snow in Love, my absolute favourite fragrance of theirs, which went on pre-sale this morning. Considering they were going to discontinue this fragrance, it’s amazing that it was chosen as one of our Today’s Special Value options. There are seven in total, five single fragrance options and two mixed – check for full details on our website, where you’ll see that it’s also on Easy Pay if you want to take advantage of our interest-free instalments and get more than one set, perhaps for Christmas presents?

Also, just to mention that we are celebrating having Ruth Langsford on QVC for three years by offering you the code RUTH3Z to use at checkout throughout the month of November for all items from Ruth’s own brand. And on the subject of fashion, these Skechers boots are launching as the Today’s Special Value on-air tonight at 9 p.m. – they are very comfy and have the instep support insole, which I really like.

Well, as usual on a Friday morning, time is running away with me. I’ll see you on-air for some Mr Max fashion at 3 p.m. today and Artscapes at 5 p.m., plus an hour on the Style channel at 6 p.m., which you can now find on Freeview 37.

Do join me at 8 p.m. on my juliagroberts Instagram and JuliaRobertsTV Facebook page when I’ll be asking for chapter numbers to read out from my first ever book, One Hundred Lengths of the Pool, which some of you may well have purchased from QVC back in 2013.

Much love and stay safe,
Julia xx