Booze Cruise, Belgium and Bargains Galore.

Wow! How busy have the last four days been?! I'm still absolutely shattered now. I'm sat waiting for our new mattresses to be delivered, they are due any minute......up until 1.30.

Friday I was up at 6.30am, bathed, dressed, had breakfast, prepared flasks of coffee, snacks, washed up, packed an overnight bag, and ready to leave at 8am. We popped in to Tesco on our way to stock up on sandwiches, and we were off down the motorways heading towards the Eurotunnel.

I have to admit, to me it's not natural to travel underwater in a train, so I wasn't looking forward to the journey. We pulled up in plenty of time in the car park, and had chance to have a good wander round the duty free shopping centre. I managed to get my first bargain! My MP3 player with voice recorder (for the research for my book). I checked that hubby hadn't already bought it as it was on my xmas list, and saved myself twenty pounds in the process. Well chuffed!

Off to the car, and into the long dark train. Before we knew it we were off. We sat and ate our sandwiches, drank our coffee, had a little chat, and that was it we were in France! The smoothest trip ever, and I will definately do it again.

We headed straight accross the border to Belgium, hit a lovely traffic jam, but managed to get to our shop pretty quickly. Stocked up on our cigarettes, plus Mum's, plus Dad's pipe tobacco, plus Sis In Laws supplies....whew, how many carrier bags!

Sorry to interrupt, but the mattresses have just arrived!! I was told between 11.30am and 1.00pm.....it's now 11.34 how's that for service :)

Anyway, having brought a spare suitcase with us, hubby packed all of the cigarettes and tobacco into the suitcase, so that when we arrived at the hotel for our overnight stay, we could take it up with us for security.

Back down the motorway, straight to the hotel and checked in. Lovely room, nice bed, wonderful pillows, with a choice of ones to exchange for, super big bathroom, and satelite tv!

I settled down for a snooze and hubby went for a swim.

Once awoken, we headed downstairs to the restaurant. Hmmm well. My opinions here may offend some people, and I may be construed as "uneducated". But I wanted Food!.

The choices that I can remember were. Pike in dill sauce, Roast boar, Monkfish in Fennel sauce with a jue, and entricote of beef in roquefort sauce. Seing as I'm not the adventurous sort, I opted for the entricote of beef minus the sauce. Hubby went for the roast boar. Food arrived, mine WITH the sauce, but I couldn't be bothered to complain, they wouldn't have understood my english! I scraped the sauce off, and tucked in. Lovely (not) tough steak, artichoke heart stuffed with broccoli in a sickly cheese sauce, spinach (eeuugh), and chestnuts and mushrooms. What no potatoes?!

I ate what I could, and we ordered our desserts as we were both still hungry. Hubby ordered a strawberry and hazelnut ice, and me a creme brulee. We ended up with a chocolate ice, and nothing for me. So, of course I mentioned it was incorrect. After much disagreement from the waiter they finally gave us our correct desserts. Thankfully the creme brulee was nice and filling!

Up to bed, hubby crashed straight away, and I lay there for an hour trying to listen to the tv as he snored. I gave up trying to get him to roll over, as each time I did he just snored louder! All of a sudden he rolled over of his own accord........silence. Quickly I drank my whisky, turned off the tv and drifted off to sleep.

Awake at 8am, breakfast, checked out and hit the super shopping centre. I had a lovely french manicure, while hubby lugged cases of wine around, I got my priorities right :) We met back up, had a lovely lunch, and went to find our favourite shop.

It's a small gadget type shop. I got four lovely hair bands, pink, purple, pink and purple, and beige, and a lovely glass angel that stands on a base and lights up and changes colour. We went into Carrefour for one final stock up of hubby's favourite steak hache, and happened to see the jewellery counter. For about three years now I have been looking for a gold ring with a charm hanging from it. They had a choice of four! I chose one that has six tiny gold hearts hanging from it, white gold, yellow gold, and rose gold. I tried it on and it fitted a treat! Hubby asked if I would like it as my Christmas present, I of course said yes. He asked how much it was, just to confirm it was the 60 euro's on the price tag. The lady said it was a special 50% off day, so we got it for 30 euros!!! Bargain. It fit's perfectly between my engagement and wedding ring......so I think I will wear it as an eternity ring :)

We drove off to the tunnel, and got stopped by customs!! Hubby of course panicked. It was because we said we stopped over for a night and went to Belgium. Receipts for purchases were shown. He asked if we had our hotel booking form, I said I had a Holiday Inn pen if that counted D'oh!! He had a look in the boot, then opened the suitcase full of cigarettes and tobacco. He asked me why it was in a suitcase. I replied "because they are all flat"....then added we took them up to our hotel room for security. He even admitted that that was a good idea. Checked with his supervisor and wished us a good afternoon and sent us on our way.

Hubby took a while to recover bless him. But we had done nothing wrong :)

Soon home back to our warm cosy house and Snoopy our bird. Soon exhausted and up to bed. The hallway blocked with boxes and boxes of wine. The kitchen piled high with packets of crisps, onion soup and chocolate waffle biscuits.

Yesterday we went to my Parents for dinner, me and Ma went and picked up hubby's Christmas present :), and I went and collected my Avon orders. This month is another good one :) Then I took a turn for the worse. This cold is still with me.....but now it's really hurting my sinuses. My head aches constantly, and under my eyes throbs. Poor me! LOL.

This morning I'm not much better. Sore bright red nose, and a thumping headache. I've bloged, the matresses have arrived, and I think I may well just crawl back to bed and try and get some more sleep.

Hopefully today's blog wasn't too "Sugar coated" (wink wink @ IT2M). I could always go into detail about my nasal excretions?

Love and hugs

Whisky

xxxxxx