{"id":114606,"date":"2022-03-25T14:50:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T14:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/?p=114606"},"modified":"2022-03-25T14:50:42","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T14:50:42","slug":"an-emotional-attachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/presenters\/julia-roberts\/an-emotional-attachment\/","title":{"rendered":"An emotional attachment\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
It feels like forever since I wrote my last blog and in fact it is a whole month because I\u2019ve been away on holiday to a very special place with which I have an emotional attachment, but more on that later.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t been completely absent from the website as last week the Inside QVC podcast<\/a> I recorded with Will Gowing before I went away was uploaded. It\u2019s the third time I\u2019ve been asked to chat with Will on the podcast and this time it was as a part of QVC\u2019s Inspirational Women’s month. If you haven\u2019t listened to it yet and would like to, it\u2019s still available along with all previous episodes and it will give you a small insight into some of the QVC guests who have inspired me over the years. By the way, thank you if you\u2019ve left a comment, I\u2019ll get around to replying once I\u2019ve finished the endless holiday washing!!!<\/p>\n\n Speaking about the podcast, you may also want to listen to a previously recorded episode with Tova Borgnine<\/a> who sadly passed away recently. I\u2019m sure you will have read many tributes from QVC Presenters already, but I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own about this truly thoughtful and generous lady who I have known through QVC for over twenty-five years.<\/p>\n She was so kind to both me and my mum when mum was undergoing radiotherapy for breast cancer. Tova sent mum some Cactine balm to help the skin better tolerate the treatment and mum swore that it had a beneficial effect. Mum never forgot her kindness and neither did I. Tova also had her husband, Ernest Borgnine sign a photo for my husband, Chris, as he was a big fan. Personally, I never forgave him for his treatment of Prewitt in the film From Here to Eternity\u2026 but that\u2019s another story. And she was always interested and read my books from my first, Life\u2019s a Beach and Then to my most recent, The Woman on the Beach. I will miss her, as will so many of us, but she is now re-united with her beloved Ernie.<\/p>\n Talking of Life\u2019s a Beach and Then brings me neatly to one of the emotional attachments I have with Mauritius from where we have just returned. We\u2019ve all had a pretty dreadful two years due to the pandemic, but the past two years has been fairly packed with health issues for me\u2026 my major ankle surgery in 2020, two cataract operations and the removal of the benign brain tumour that I didn\u2019t know I had five months ago.<\/p>\n\n Our first visit to Mauritius was exactly nine years ago after I\u2019d undergone a year of oral chemotherapy treatment for my Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia, and I felt drawn to go back to the place that had worked its miracle previously. We returned to the Sugarbeach resort for the first four days of our holiday. It was while sitting in the shade of the palm trees on that very beach that inspiration struck for my first novel and I\u2019m currently working on my tenth, due for publication later this year, so it really was quite life-changing for me.<\/p>\n\n Obviously, there had been a few changes but this beautiful walk from the main restaurant to the beach is exactly how I remembered it. Recognise the dress anyone? It\u2019s a recent Kim & Co<\/a> purchase. In fact, I had several QVC brands with me as you can imagine\u2026 Frank Usher<\/a> beach cover-ups, Skechers<\/a> footwear, and of course Ultrasun<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n I\u2019m not going to lie, we weren\u2019t blessed with wall-to-wall sunshine, in fact we had quite a few heavy downpours, but we still applied our Ultrasun religiously every morning. I\u2019m a big fan of the factor 30 Tan Accelerator (both the face and the body one) and Chris loves the factor 50 spray. We did have a few people ask us what we were doing as we photographed our line-up of products on the beach of the Maritim Resort and Spa hotel where we moved on to for the remainder of our holiday. It\u2019s the hotel where Chris and I were married in August 2019 so once again has a huge emotional connection for us both.<\/p>\n\n