Self gifting

Hi there. It has been an emotional few days. In less than a week one friend dead from Covid, another friend in hospital with it and yesterday I found out a long-standing colleague also in hospital with it very poorly. Today thankfully there was no more bad news, as last night I was getting a bit overwhelmed with it all. Of course there was the bad news of another 600+ deaths on the news. I now register these as real people with families and friends rather than merely numbers and feel sad for their passing, although as far as I know they are not connected to me personally, but I’m not assuming anything any more.

On a happier note, I have a confession to make. Sometimes I buy myself a little Christmas present in the run up to Christmas. I don’t wrap it up and address it with a little gift tag “To Gail, with love from Gail xxx”, as that would just be weird. This year, after the horrible year we’ve had, I’ve bought my most generous self gift yet and treated myself to this beauty advent calendar from Bare Minerals. I don’t usually have an advent calendar but I always buy David a Lindt one with chocolates in. He mumbles about sharing a few windows with me, but in reality each little chocolate is unwrapped and gobbled up in the blink of an eye first thing in the morning. I am glad he enjoys it so much. I asked him if he would like a posher advent calendar this year too.. they do one for men with exciting tools such as spanners and drill bits in 😂 but he said he’s happy with the usual chocolate one.

So this is my one.. so exciting. I’m trying not to look at the back of it as it lists everything included and I want a nice surprise each day. Obviously the 1-24 windows are not visible yet, they will be underneath the pretty wrapping.

The two bits on the top are two free samples that came with it (you had a choice of these)…I chose a Wishful moisturiser and a facial scrub. Usually these products are way more expensive that I would normally spend on anything beauty related. I have tried the little moisturiser and I quite like it, it has a pleasant lavender smell, which surprises me as I didn’t use to like lavender. It also came with the gorgeous red make up bag as a freebie, I love this! I have loads of make up bags already (and not much make up!) but I do love this jolly red one… and check out the Christmas lining, so cute!

Each window will contain make up or another beauty product. Seeing as I’ve been wearing the same shade of lipstick for about the last 10 years, some foundation but hardly ever any other make up, this will shake things up a bit! The usual retail price for this advent calendar is £89. with products valued at £192. but that’s a little irrelevant as I would never buy this stuff at full price. Being a true bargain hunter I didn’t pay £89. either. I used a promo code for 15% off feelunique.com as a new customer. I also clicked through topcashback which I do whenever I shop online and got another £6.+ off so in total it cost me £69. It was well worth doing the promo code and topcashback to get £20. off. Quite chuffed with that. I’ll keep you posted on my little window treats from 1 December onwards. I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s inside and filling up the cheery red bag, as well as trying out the products and being super beautiful for Christmas 🎄😂 (maybe!).

So, it’s chicken kiev (shop bought) and petits pois tonight… quick supper as I have a Zoom chat with friends. I’ll leave you with the gorgeous sunset in Windsor this evening. And relax 😊Xx