Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

then mosey on down to Gatwick and do a bit of shopping at South Terminal, as they have Fat Face and Joules there, which is a bit more me, though based on yesterday's spending, it may not be as expensive an exercise as it sounds!

Er, ooops :o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o

The good news is that I didn't buy anything at Joules and everything I bought at Fat Face was at their lower airport pricing (and one dress/tunic was in the sale) - still managed to tot up a bill of just over £71 though.

Today has been the really expensive one though. When I looked at the Spanish Riding School's website a couple of weeks ago, they only had 2nd gallery and standing tickets available for sale for the performance we wanted to go to (tomorrow's Gala performance, which is slightly more expensive because it's the one featuring the stallions with the highest levels of training and showing all the school jumps) at, from memory, €60 for the gallery and €35 for standing. When we got to the ticket office today, the returns had started coming back in and I ended up having a '**** it, when am I ever likely to be able to do this again?' moment and bought two seats in the front row of the 1st gallery for €146 each - though you'll be pleased to hear I resisted the two front row seats in the Royal Box, i.e. the absolute best seats in the house, at €210 each

Given I managed to burst into tears in the ticket queue at being so close to seeing something I've wanted to see since I was a very small child, I dread to think what I'm going to be like when I actually take my seat in the hall tomorrow :rotfl:

The hotel is fab. When I managed to book this suite for €145 a night using the corporate rate for the place Mr Minx has been working at all week, I was expecting it to be a 'suite', i.e. a slightly larger bedroom with a balcony, an ensuite and a separate sort of lobby thing with a sofa and a telly. Nope. It's huge. It's actually bigger than my old flat in Croydon :eek: Entrance lobby, bathroom, separate loo, big living room (with sofa and telly, Nespresso machine, mini bar and a gift from the hotel in the form of a giant fruit platter) and a large bedroom (also with telly).

Currently curled up on the sofa in a fluffy white hotel bathrobe, watching the football with Mr Minx and feeling very content with life

Verbatim

How wonderful! Enjoy it all. Very much deserved!

brizzledfw

What an amazing day! Totally agree you've made the right decision....a childhood dream achieved..priceless

Xx

sugarcube84

Enjoy, I'm insanely jealous!! One for my list I think!

cazmanian_minx

They were wonderful, and yes, I cried! Not too much, but the sight of eight white stallions passaging out nose-to-tail in perfect time to the Radetzky March with several hundred people clapping along was just a bit overwhelming

More shopping this morning - I wasn't going to, but I did need some new underwear and we found an enormous H&M, so for the grand total of about £40, I have three new bras, new knickers, a pair of leggings and a long-sleeved cotton top. Also went and photographed some amazing graffiti I'd seen when we were walking down to the hotel on Saturday. It's raining now, so we're hanging out in our suite (I like saying that ), watching the BBC News and just generally chilling out before our travel day tomorrow. Mr Minx has been idly wondering how much it would cost to buy a place in Vienna, as he thinks it might be a nice city to retire to, with the cost of living being pretty low (we've found a great chain of Italian restaurants called Vapiano, where you can get an enormous pizza for about €8) - the answer seems to be surprisingly reasonable compared with the UK! Better start improving my German :rotfl:

cazmanian_minx

Ooh, I think I may be on the way to my first blog-related earnings! I installed Google Adsense a couple of weeks ago and the 'estimated earnings' figure has now gone from £0.00 to £0.45 Not a fortune and it'll obviously take me years to reach the minimum pay-out at that rate, but it's a start!

cazmanian_minx

Back home and shattered - my flight was delayed by an hour, so I didn't get home until 2am. On the plus side, I didn't like anything I tried on in Fat Face on the way back Well, I did, but there were things that weren't *quite* right - the leggings were a couple of inches too long, the jeans needed to be bootcut rather than straight, the zip on the knitted cardigan didn't run smoothly etc. etc.

In other clothes-related news, the mis-delivered Dorothy Perkins parcel has arrived here rather than being returned to DP for a refund, which I was initially quite chuffed about, because although it's too late for the dresses to be of any use, I was wanting the boots. Unfortunately they're a little too narrow at the toe and much, much too wide around the ankle, so they're going to have to go back as well. Thank goodness for free returns! At least that will be £51 refunded to my credit card, which will be grateful

The cheque for £680 for the flute has turned up so I'll pay that in at the Post Office tomorrow. I need to chase up some outstanding transcription invoices as well; I think I have about £300 overdue from various people. Good news on that front though, NEL has sent me five files to be done by the end of the month, other agency lady offered me a file which I had to turn down (it was needed by tomorrow morning and I'm so tired that I couldn't type the lyrics to Three Blind Mice correctly at the moment!), and remember the company I did the schools-related project for back in June? They've been back in touch to ask if I'd do another 15 half hour interviews for them over a two-week period in October

I had an email from the agency while I was at the airport yesterday, asking if I was cazmanian_minx on here - turns out that the thread I started a year ago on Up Your Income has been picked up on by the MSE team and the agency's been added to the MSE article on great ways to boost your income, causing a big uplift in traffic to their applications process website!

cazmanian_minx

PS: I haven't dared to log into my bank account and find out what the Spanish Riding School tickets cost yet! Am going to be brave and have a look now.....

cazmanian_minx

About what I thought - with the overseas purchase fee added, it came to £219.26. Totally worth it for me, but quite glad I didn't go totally mad and buy the two seats in the Royal Box! The train ticket from the airport came to £14.88 and the H&M shopping spree £42.21, so my guesstimate of about £40 wasn't far off.

My YNAB catch-up tomorrow is not going to be pretty!!!!

maddiemay

De-lurking to say I too would have been overwhelmed to see those beautiful animals working. A few years ago while on holiday in Croatia OH and I took part in an excursion into Slovenia and visited the Lipika Stud, we saw a small display, but were allowed to wander freely in the stables and around the paddocks amongst the breeding stock and see the foals, it was a magical day:D