On a scale of 1-10…

Firstly, many apologies for the lack of blog posts for the past two months but reading on might explain if not excuse the situation. There was no actual winner of the competition on my October blog as no-one precisely guessed the year that the photo of my dad was taken however, as it’s the season of goodwill, I will be sending the prize to Linda whose guess of 1950 was one of the two nearest and she was randomly selected. The photo was taken in December 1949, so I think that is near enough. So sorry that I’ve taken a while to announce this but hopefully the voucher can be used in the January sales and the book can be read at your leisure, Linda.

So, another year over and, on a scale of 1 – 10, I would personally rate 2023 a 6!!! I’ve had some huge highs during the year but an underlying situation in my life has negated some of the happiness I’ve experienced, and I’m probably not alone in this as the world in general seems so angry and dissatisfied at present. I am hoping for a better 2024 for all of us.

My year didn’t start too well with the devastating news that my sister’s husband, Geoff had passed away on January 3^rd. Geoff had been living with Parkinson’s Disease for many years which was particularly cruel for him as he’d always been very active and a lover of the great outdoors. I love this photograph of him with his youngest daughter, Rachel who now has children older than she was in the photograph.

Geoff’s funeral was held in Ayr at the end of January and despite the obvious sadness of the occasion much good came from it as we were able to properly reconnect with family members. Most of my sister’s family live in Scotland so we rarely get the chance to see them with work and family commitments particularly my eldest nephew, Deryk who lives on the remote FairIsle. Seeing him, his wife and three of their four children brought some joy to a sad occasion as did hearing the wonderful things people had to say about Geoff. 

February saw Chris and I take our first holiday of 2023. I say holiday, but the idea was to try and re-ignite my writing mojo which had sadly gone awol since finishing The Dilemma. We decided on a week away in Cornwall staying in a beautiful cottage in Port Isaac owned by one of our QVC guest presenters, Anouska Lancaster. It is a truly beautiful place but unfortunately not ideal for me as it is full of steep hills which the ankle on which I had my operation in 2020 didn’t appreciate. 

So, instead of staying in and around Port Isaac, we took the opportunity to explore the beautiful county of Cornwall. We went almost everywhere I think… St Ives, Looe, Fowey, Truro, St Austell, St Mawes, Bodmin moor (specifically Jamaica Inn, one of my favourite books), the list goes on and on! We also enjoyed rather too many delicious Cornish pasties, the veggie version of course. It was a great few days away and we were very lucky with blue skies and sunshine most of the time even if the temperature left something to be desired.

We headed for warmer climes at the end of March and into April as I used up the remainder of my annual leave from QVC. Chris had found a very affordable ‘deal’ to Antigua to a resort called, Ocean Point in the north of the island. Again, there was no actual sitting at a computer writing, but I did sit on the beach making copious notes for a couple of books that are in the pipeline. 

While we were there, The Woman on the Beach went on a Kindle Monthly Dealso we took some photographs of both that and recreated the cover of The Dilemma (sort of!)

I gave the copy of The Woman on the Beach to Fiona who was staying at our resort on honeymoon with her husband, Tom and who we’d become friendly with and are still in touch with. I also signed the copy of One Hundred Lengths of the Pool that I’d discovered in the hotel’s library (what are the chances?) for one of the receptionists.

In April, I went back to see my ankle surgeon because my ankle hadn’t settled after the trip to Cornwall and was causing me a lot of pain. He recommended two things to try and ease the discomfort, custom orthotics and physiotherapy. I set the wheels in motion for both suggestions and checking back through my diary, I realise that once again I’ve had a huge number of ‘medical’ appointments this past year, over sixty to be precise! That’s more than five a month and yet I think of myself as a reasonably healthy person!

May started in a much more positive fashion with a trip to Richmond Theatre with my friend, Sunita to watch The Beekeeper of Aleppo in which her friend, Daphne Kouma was appearing. I’d gone because Daphne is the narrator of my book, The Dilemma and she was just as impressive in the production as she was narrating my book. Just to mention at this point that The Dilemma was enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited scheme whereby for a monthly subscription which I believe is now £8.99, avid readers can download books for free. She has now reached over four MILLION KU pages which is quite mind blowing and has surpassed The Woman on the Beach in terms of the number of Amazon ratings/reviews, currently around 2,200 as I write this. Thank you so much if you’ve reviewed any of my books, it is truly appreciated.

Around the middle of May, Chris and I had another short trip away, this time to Guernsey in the Channel Islands where I did my first summer season as a dancer fifty years ago in a show starring a little-known comedy double-act, Cannon and Ball. It was a lovely trip down memory lane for me but also research for one of the writing projects I’m working on.

On the May Bank Holiday Monday, Chris and my first grandchild was born.

June is my birthday month and as a treat we went to see the stage show of Hamilton which I had been hankering after since seeing it on the Disney channel a couple of Christmas’s ago. I absolutely LOVED it. Slick choreography, clever lyrics, comedy, and tragedy all in one show. I think my favourite characters were King George and Alexander Hamilton’s wife. No spoilers from me but I did shed quite a few tears in the second half!

I had my first physiotherapy appointment with Jarek who is a genius – my ankle was so much more comfortable after just one session and I also had my MRI brain scan (I told you I had lots of medical appointments this year). The good news is that there is still no sign of regrowth of the pituitary gland tumour I had resected in October 2022 – I feel so lucky to have had the brilliant Simon Cudlip as my surgeon.

June also saw my first Bookouture book, Little Girl Missing become free to download. This resulted in an early birthday present as she hit the top of the Amazon free chart on June 9^th. She’s now been free to download for six months and almost 220,000 readers have done just that which has led to a significant increase in sales of books 2 and 3, in the DCI Rachel Hart series, What He Did and Why She Died. It’s lovely to think that readers liked Rachel Hart sufficiently to want to read more of her story.  

Little Girl Missing was still riding high in the free charts when I attended the Bookouture Summer party. It was a little strange to be there amongst fellow authors without a recent or imminent book release and without an ongoing work in progress. My writer’s block was still very much in evidence but I think the renewed interest and positive feedback for the Rachel Hart series, (Little Girl Missing now has almost five and a half thousand ratings/reviews on Amazon)was starting to give me my confidence back.

In early August I met with my editor, Ruth pictured above with me at the Bookouture party and I agreed to:

A) Write the first two chapters of the book I was contracted to write for them (book seven for Bookouture and book eleven overall)

B) Write a synopsis of a three book saga about three women spanning from the 1920s to present day

C) Write synopses for two new Rachel Hart books

All to be completed by the end of August – I’m good with a firm deadline, and it helped that I still had plenty of annual leave to take from QVC. We went to Javea in Spain, (my happy place) for a week’s holiday with our daughter, Sophie and her family. We stayed in a villa we haven’t previously rented, and it was perfect for the six of us. There were amazing views over the whole of Javeawith the Montgo mountain as its backdrop. This time I was very disciplined, doing a couple of hours of writing a day which meant I completed all the above tasks on time. The only downside of our holiday was being in Spain when their team beat England in the Women’s World Cup Final!

We were back in time to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary and Sophie had organised a lovely surprise for us. Tom, a chef and his wife, Fiona who I mentioned we met on our Antigua holiday in March, arrived at our house to cook a fabulous five course dinner for our family and my special friends Denise and Steve. I can highly recommend it as an unusual surprise gift to celebrate a special event.

Thus far in this blog, I haven’t mentioned that October 1^st, 2023, was QVC’s 30^th Birthday, but I actually starts working for them in September 1993 as we did almost a month’s training before the channel went live. The above photo was taken on my very first day ‘on the job’.

We have been celebrating the 30^th year with lots of special things but there were a couple that I particularly enjoyed. One was being asked, alongside three fellow presenters to design a piece of fashion. I chose to design a dress in a floral jersey viscose fabric in a choice of black or burgundy. It took me back to years ago when I used to make all my own clothes and some of my mum’s after my dad had been made redundant from his job and we were short of money. I also used to make clothes for a small boutique in Bridge of Allan, Scotland when I stayed with my sister for several months after leaving school so I had a very clear idea of what I wanted in terms of the cut of the dress. I’m pleased to say it was popular and I’ve since had some photos of customers wearing it out and about. It’s a similar feeling to the reviews readers leave for my books… a mix of relief and delight.

We welcomed some QVC customers into the studios for some special Fashion on Friday shows one of who was my ‘bestie’ from my Price is Right days, Denise who happens to be a massive QVC fan and customer.

September was also the month I met the surgeon who performed my most recent operation. I’ve had ‘women’s issues’ for a while and following a 360 health check decided I really should get it sorted. The surgeon was recommended to me by former QVC guest, Michele Hope and once again I feel very fortunate to have been in such capable hands. The operation date was set for December 5^th, a little close to Christmas but as my mum wasn’t going to be visiting we decided it was workable.

October 1^st was QVC’s 30^th Anniversary and as I was one of the first two faces on air when the channel launched (the other being Jon Briggs of Voice of Siri fame), I was asked to present the live show at 2pm, the time we originally started broadcasting in 1993. I don’t often get nervous in my job these days but I must admit to a few butterflies. If you want a trip down that particular memory lane check out my previous blog to this as it has pictures and reminiscences from across the years.

October was also the month when Chris and I finally met our granddaughter for the first time. Without going into detail, our son is no longer with his former girlfriend so becoming grandparents for the first time hasn’t been quite the joyous occasion it might have been. However, she is a happy, healthy, smiley baby and we are hopeful that we will be able to have a good relationship with her in the future.

I think working a few extra days over the birthday weekend took their toll as a few days later I started with ‘the cough’ which some have described as the ‘100 day cough’ and was really unwell for a few days. Fortunately, I’d recovered sufficiently by the middle of October to meet up with my sister, Lynda when she drove down from her home in south-west Scotland to spend a few days with our mum.

The next day, Chris and I flew out to Javea again for me to get some serious writing done on my new book. It wasn’t quite as productive as it might have been for several reasons, not least of which were a couple of computer issues, which meant that I had a mountain to climb in terms of ‘writing words’ to meet my December 1^st deadline.

So, November was mostly about sitting at my writing desk when I wasn’t working at QVC. I’ve never taken part in NaNoWriMo previously which is where writers get a 50,000 word rough first draft of a new book written but I actually exceeded that word count in order to get my latest book ready to send to my new editor at Bookouture who also happens to be a Ruth.

I did take a couple of days away from my writing desk; one to help our son with his move into his new home and the other for his birthday celebrations. For the latter, we went up to London to ‘Swingers’ and before your imagination runs riot, I should explain that it’s an indoor ‘crazy golf’ bar. 

It was great fun although in this picture my husband looks more like he is playing snooker than golf!

The birthday boy was the winner, with myself and Sophie’s partner, Reece in a very close second. 

I also took time out to dust off my crochet hook to start making a ‘granny squares’ blanket for our granddaughter’s first Christmas.

December for me has been mostly about recovering from my operation on the 5^th. As someone who loves keeping busy and going in the gym at the bottom of my garden, being told I couldn’t ‘do much’ could have proved particularly tricky if I hadn’t had the blanket to keep me occupied. It’s not an understatement to say the blanket was a labour of love. There were forty squares to make in total, twenty plain and twenty different animals and there were moments when I seriously doubted my ability with a crochet hook and my patience to be honest. But, I was working towards the deadline of having it ready for a second visit with my granddaughter on December 23^rd and I’ve already mentioned that I’m good with a deadline! 

The last stitch in the border was finally completed at 10pm on December 22^ndand I have to say I’m delighted with the result. I hope it will be treasured and might become a family heirloom in the future. Our granddaughter seemed to appreciate it particularly when we sang a somewhat unusual version of Old MacDonald’s farm to her. What sound does a jellyfish make? Dan came up with the rather inventive, wibble wobble here, wibble wobble there etc.!

All in all, 2023 has had its moments, both good and bad. I’m hoping 2024 will have fewer extremes of joy and sadness for us all. 

I don’t make resolutions but instead have goals I would like to achieve. One of them is already well underway with my next book due for publication in May. The title should be decided upon and the cover ready to reveal in the next month or so and of course I’ll keep you posted when it goes on presale.

So, apologies for the lack of monthly blog for the past two months – I will endeavour to do better in 2024.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and successful New Year

Much love

Julia xx