I mentioned a little while ago about how difficult I am (apparently) to buy presents for. Essentially it’s because I’m just not that bothered about stuff. 

Sometimes though I fall in love with something totally random, something that no one that knows me would ever have thought to buy me. My new bangle from Infinity & Co is one of those things. I’m sure that if my mum or sister for example walked past this in a shop, they wouldn’t in a million years choose it for me, and yet…

See how sparkly it is?!

Infinity & Co competition View Post

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I hope you’ve been enjoying all of my Christmas-tastic competitions over the last few weeks? There are more to come, so do keep coming back! Today’s competition is a cracker, (Christmas pun intended), plus I have a cool tool to tell you about that might help you find a bit of extra work in the run up to Christmas.

Have a read, and then I’ll tell you how to enter for your chance to win £100 of John Lewis vouchers.

Coople is Europe’s number one flexible work platform, offering job opportunities direct to your mobile. It’s free to join, and it only takes a few minutes to sign up.  Coople connects people looking for work  – known as ‘Cooplers’ – with companies looking for help to cover shifts lasting from just a day to up to a month. Both parties can use the app to rate each other, meaning you have a clear idea of who you’re taking on or the job you’re applying for. For employers, it’s very handy, as Coople takes care of all right-to-work checks, admin, and payroll, and fills 98% of roles within four hours.

How does Coople work?

It’s pretty simple. You sign up, and pick out the sort of jobs you’re interested in, as well as your level of expertise. You’ll then need to upload some ID as proof of your eligibility to work in the UK.

Coople flexible work View Post

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Come into my house at any point and you can normally have a good guess at what time of the year it is based on how many boxes of books from The Book People I have under my bed:

  • 0 boxes = January – June
  • 1 box = July – September
  • 3 boxes = October – November
  • 47 boxes = December

It’s approximate, but fairly accurate.

If you’ve never shopped with the Book People before, let me give you a quick overview – it’s books, but they are really cheap. Not in a bargain basement way either – no knocked off Jordan autobiographies – it’s proper decent books, just at low prices. They’re well known too for their sets of books, which are even better value. Normally I spend around £40 in any transaction, and get what would be over £100 of books.

It’s fair to say then that this is a FLAME GRILLED WHOPPER of a prize. With extra cheese. £100 at The Book People will take you straight to November on my Book People timeline, starting from zero.

There are thousands and thousands of books for sale, but here are a few things to whet your reading appetite:

The ENTIRE Man Booker Prize shortlist is currently available for £30 (RRP £85.94)

Book People competition View Post

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win Christmas competition HiHouse

When I say ‘Christmas survival kit’, I’m not talking here about Kendal mint cake, stout boots or water purification tablets, I’m talking about the things you need to survive Christmas, like foil, ibuprofen, and emergency gifts for the people you’d forgotten were coming over.

(Not that that ever happens to me.)

This particular survival kit has been generously put together for us by a retailer called HiHouse. HiHouse sells all of those non-glamorous but nonetheless essential things like bin liners and kitchen cleaners – the kind of thing you try to remember to go to a town centre discount shop for, but never quite get round to because you can’t be bothered to lug it all home.

HiHouse offers an alternative – great value prices on essentials, but delivered to your door, so that you don’t have to drag a nine pack of toilet paper around town with you.

(Not a sexy look.)

HiHouse has written some fun product descriptions too, which goes a long way to making boring shopping more fun. It’s worth having a browse just for those. View Post

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You’d be pretty popular if you gave someone a Fire tablet for Christmas wouldn’t you? Well read on, and I’ll let you know how you could win it.

First up though, I need to tell you a little bit about the company who have very generously donated the prize. They are called Poki, and they offer masses of different online games, including educational ones. I’m always up for doing anything at work that isn’t actually work, so I thought I’d have a play. Geography is not a strong point for me, so I had a look first at the geography games. There’s a USA game, where you have to figure out which states go where, and a European one.

Europe – well I live in that don’t I? (Just about.) I should really know my own continent shouldn’t I?

You’d think.

poki logo

Europe is HARD. A little plane flies across the screen with the name of a country and you have to click to show where it is. As you can see, I managed Italy, Germany and Iceland. But Slovakia?? Honestly, who knows where that is? Well, most people apart from me probably. As you can see from my score I am not a natural geographer. All the more reasons to play.

win a tablet View Post

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Last week I was sent the rarest bar of chocolate in the world.

That’s a claim isn’t it?

It was made by Ritter Sport and only 50 were made, sent to a select group of super special people. (i.e. ME!)

How cool is that?

Temptation was just to scoff it immediately, obviously, but I restrained myself. This chocolate was special. Instead I decided to do something uncharacteristically maternal – I decided to set up a treasure her for Belle and her friends. If you want to find a real unicorn, you would have to hunt for it after all.

I really loved doing treasure hunts as a child. I still love them now to be honest. As a teenager, there was a bit of a trend in our town for car treasure hunts – the sort where you meet in a supermarket car park and get sent off at five minute intervals to scour the countryside for clues on phone boxes and obscure road signs and end up in the garden of a second rate pub for a cheap barbecue.

I loved those. 

I started by getting myself some pretty coloured card and stickers, and coming up with some riddles.

ritter sport unicorn chocolate bar

(That’s a towel in case you’re wondering.) View Post

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Just before we start – and bear with me because I know you’re excited – I just want to say that I have LOADS of competitions coming up in the run up to Christmas. Good ones too, not ‘win a box of teabags’ or anything like that. I’ve got a Fire tablet, a MASSIVE Christmas essentials pack – all sorts. To make sure you don’t miss them, you may want to sign up for my updates, if you haven’t already.

Just saying. I don’t want you to get left behind or anything. Pop your email address in here and don’t forget to confirm your subscription when you get the email:



All done?

Good, let’s crack on. View Post

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But be quick! You’ve only got four days to enter, starting now, so go! Here’s the competition in case you’re just so excited that you can’t bear it and have to go and enter right away. Or read the post first. You know, whatever.

*awkward pause while some people leave*

Okay, thanks for staying!

So, blogging. It’s a funny old game. Often I find myself wondering just how it happened that I came to get paid for doing things like videoing myself ironing and visiting chocolate factories. Surely someone at some point will cotton on to the fact that I’m actually just having loads of fun, and shut me down?! Not so far though, so fingers crossed!

This post is a prime example of what I mean.

I got an email a couple of weeks ago that went something like this:

‘Hi Jo! We’d really like to send you a new Slumberdown duvet and a box of treats so that you can have a duvet day!’

Let me think about it for a minute…

YES PLEASE. View Post

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Fact.

And yes, you’re right, I’ve never run a Thunderbirds themed competition before, but even if I had, this one would be better.

Look at the prize!

thunderbird competition

Don’t tell me that’s not ACE. If you won this, you’d basically have Christmas (for Thunderbird fans) sorted.

There is a reason behind it too. The iconic children’s TV series Thunderbirds Are Go is set to blast back onto our screens this autumn, with favourites including Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John Tracy coming face to face with a new nemesis, The Mechanic. The first episode of the new series will launch on ITV on 22nd October at 3.30pm, followed by a second showing on CITV on 23rd October at 8.30am. View Post

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Unless you live literally under a rock, you’ll know that last week marked the start of this year’s Great British Bake Off – one hour every week of pure loveliness, all drizzled in lemony syrup and dusted with icing sugar. (This year I plan to be prepared, and buy appropriate snacks in advance, so that I’m not left in that awful situation of watching 128 cup cakes being made, and only having rice cakes and bananas to eat.)

Renshaw great bake off competition
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Belle, bless her cotton socks, has always maintained a dream of having an elegantly co-ordinated bedroom, with furniture that matches, and accessories in beautifully soft pinks and greens. What she actually has is an old trunk that we’ve reupholstered about four times, a dressing table I bought on eBay, which Belle then painted white, and some old tin cans that she has painted with pink wood paint, to keep her make-up brushes in.

I call it vintage chic.

Belle calls it Mummy not caring enough to buy her proper furniture.

Life is subjective.

If you’re the kind of parent who really does want to do more than just shut the door on your kid’s bedroom and pretend it’s not there, then this is the competition for you my friends – step on up!

I’m giving away £150 of your finest British pounds to spend with Ollie & Leila, a rather lovely online store specialising in children’s beds, mattresses, bedroom furniture and accessories. They sell the sort of thing that Belle is probably coming to realise, now aged 14, will never appear in her room, because instead I have spent all my money on house plants and mini-breaks.  View Post

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As a blogger, I get to do lots of interesting things, but I can’t say I ever expected anyone to ask me if I wanted to learn how to throw an axe. To be honest, I’m not even sure why you throw an axe, unless you’re a Viking or something. I imagine them chucking axes about and roaring ferociously.

I have been challenged by the National Trust though, to do something outdoorsy – something that I might not normally think to do, and you get to choose what that is.

NT SWOF Jo Middleton Adventures 1

It’s to celebrate the South West Outdoor Festival, a totally new kind of festival, being held in Devon from September 23 – 25. It’s being hosted by The National Trust, together with Cotswold Outdoor, Panasonic, Exmoor National Park and lots of local outdoor experts. It’s a festival for people who prefer rafting to raving, and who’d rather been foraging for wild food than queuing for a burger. View Post

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