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Category Archives: retail therapy

gibraltar, here I come?

12 Wednesday Dec 2007

Posted by azahar in christmas, clothing, holidays, life stuff, retail therapy, trips

≈ 3 Comments

gibraltar.jpg

Will it be third time lucky???

As I mentioned on the travelling plans post, my friend Carmen has very generously offered to drive me to Gibraltar to buy underwear at Marks & Spencer, but the date has been moved up to this Saturday instead of the 22nd. And really, not a moment too soon given the very sad and sorry state of my knickers. Of course given my bad luck with having tried to get to this place twice in the past (mentioned here and here) I probably won’t believe it until I’m actually through passport control and walking through the M&S front doors on Saturday morning.

Anyhow, I’m getting quite excited and also plan to stock up on mince pies if they have any. And maybe a sweater or two. Oooh, and some socks. . .

f_cracker.gif

o christmas tree

09 Sunday Dec 2007

Posted by azahar in christmas, holidays, retail therapy

≈ 10 Comments

tree-002.jpg

It’s our new little wicker Christmas tree!

I also have a little cardboard cutout Victorian tree, but this new tree is quite a bit bigger and perhaps with some eensy lights and a bit of tinsel (though it does have silver sparkles all over it already) it could end up looking rather festive.

You see, for years I’ve never been able to have a proper Christmas tree because of the cats. Instead I’ve put little white fairy lights around the balcony doors, put out my cardboard tree on the table and hung up a few bobbles here and there. But this year Nog & I decided we would look for some sort of Christmas tree that would be ‘cat proof’ and I think this one might work out quite nicely. It’s about 50cm tall and there is space on the wee table to put a gifty or two on Christmas eve, yet there is nothing dangly and tempting to interest the cats. I actually like it as it is, but Nog thinks it needs a bit of tarting up, so we’ll see what we can find.

So … just back from the first Sunday Shopping Sunday in December (in Spain Sunday shopping is only allowed in December and one Sunday each when winter and summer sales begin) . AND IT WERE HELL. All the stores had their heating turned up to maximum even though it was a balmy 18ºC outside, and then there were multitudes of screaming kidlets everywhere . . . gaaaaaaah!!! So after finding the tree and doing a bit of other basic shopping we stopped in at Ay Maricrú! for some much needed refreshment before heading home.

For those of you who don’t know about the issues concerning cats and Christmas trees, check out CUTE with Christmas.

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the new camera

05 Wednesday Dec 2007

Posted by azahar in christmas, gadgets, home, life stuff, photos, retail therapy

≈ 9 Comments

casio_exilim.jpg

f_holly.gifChristmas came early today at casa azf_holly.gif

After looking at several different cameras within a certain price range we stumbled upon this one last night and then went back this morning for a better look. And frankly, it has everything we want and need and the discounted price included a leather case and a 1 giga memory card, so what the heck. We bought it.

On our way home we stopped at Ay Maricrú! for a pre-lunch drink, and also to start playing with our new toy. Nog was in charge of reading the instructions, I was in charge of pressing all the buttons and going – “oh this is so cool!”. And when Carlos showed up with another round of drinks I said – “Look at our new camera! It’s our Christmas present for each other”, and Carlos winked at Nog and said – “So when do you get to enjoy it?”. Well ha. He gets to enjoy all the photos, doesn’t he???

Anyhow, just charging up the battery now and looking forward to taking our new gorgeous baby out for a trial run this evening. And we’re also looking for a name … thought about using one of the muses but they don’t really seem to fit. Any ideas?

Here are the specs.

[update: new camera name is Holly]

more temptation…

01 Saturday Dec 2007

Posted by azahar in christmas, gizmos, home, photos, retail therapy

≈ 8 Comments

fuji-z10-front-view.jpg fuji-z10-back-view.jpg

The other day I talked about seeing this gorgeous Sony camera with a 3″ viewing screen, blah blah blah. And so today Nog & I went to have a closer look at one. I asked the salesclerk if I could actually see one ‘in action’ but she said none of the cameras on display were charged up. It was only when we said ‘okay, we’ll take it’ that she got one out of stock, opened it up, put in the battery and showed us how the 3″ touchpad screen worked. And guess what??? It was what I’d suspected … the menu icons run up both sides of the screen so the image you actually see is 2.5″. What a scam! Especially as all the promotional stuff I’ve come across shows a full 3″ screen with just an image. Pah! f_cross.gif

Then on the way out of the shop I saw these cute Fuji cameras I’d noticed at another place. And I thought … hmmm, it has almost the same specs, it also doesn’t have an inny-outy zoom lens, it’s darn cute and about 2/3 the price of the Sony one. Which right now means something to us, having just spent 150 euros on special catfood and meds. So spending 175 euros instead of 300 almost cancels out the vet bill (if you think about it that way), and we’ll still get a new camera that should work much better than the one we have now.

So the next question is … which colour? Just look at ’em all. There isn’t a silver option and so I’m leaning towards either the metallic red or lime green. What do you think?

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temptation . . .

28 Wednesday Nov 2007

Posted by azahar in christmas, nablopomo, photos, retail therapy, trips

≈ 5 Comments

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Gorgeous, innit?

And here are the specs.

I have to admit that a couple of the features (face detection, smile shutter) seem both silly and insulting, but the thing I love best about this baby is the 3″ viewing screen. And another big difference is that the one I have now has a lens that goes in and out, which I’ve been having trouble with for the past year or so. Unless the batteries are almost fully charged the camera keeps shutting itself off when I try to take a photo, though I can still view the pics on the memory card. So I thought having a camera with fewer moving parts might be a good idea. But mostly I’d like a bigger viewing screen as the one I have now is only a measly 1.5″ (about 4 months after Nog & I bought it the new models came out, all with standard 2 or 2.5″ screens. Grrr… )

I mentioned over here that I was hoping Santa would bring me a new digital camera with a 3″ screen, but after checking out prices Nog & I decided that it’s too expensive for a Christmas pressy, so we’re going to go halfers on it and maybe also give each other a weekend in Granada over the holidays (we’d be getting a ride there & back so we would only have to pay for the hotel and meals).

Last time we went to Granada I was still using my crappy old snapshot camera, so the photos should be much better next time. 🙂

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