I subscribe to the email newsletter from Martin Money Saving Expert and recently the newsletter said you could get free tickets for the Ideal Home Show which was also combined with the Eat & Drink Festival. It is not far away from us at Event City and we visited the Christmas Ideal Home Show last year which was great, so we decided to visit again.
I applied for free tickets on-line (should cost £12.50 per person) and they were emailed instantly to me. Today was the day for visiting and we were there as the doors opened. I love looking around these shows but only for a couple of hours tops. Any more than that and I'm bored so we were home for lunch time complete with bags of freebies. We managed to not spend a penny and were full from eating our way around all the foodie samples. Our favourite was the Bonne Maman stand that was giving away free pots of their desserts and loads of £1.50 money offer vouchers. We visited the stall twice and ate salted caramel, chocolate and creme caramel desserts. They were scrummy.
We both got free goody bags from the two shows and even the cat got 4 packs of cat treats which were inside them. Cereal, crisps, Baileys chocolate, chocolate cake, Orangina drink and body lotion samples were in the bags. Great snacking for us, a treat for the cat and the body lotion samples will be sold on eBay along with a load of other ones when I manage to get about 50 together.
We got a couple of cloth bags given to us from different stalls and one had a fabulous craft book inside complete with pull out patterns worth £14.99. I think this will be given to my mum as it is more her sort of thing than mine. There were also lots of other freebies such as Magazines, pens, a decent sized tape measure for David, packets of mints etc.
We enjoyed looking around the stalls and I really coveted one of these cabanas as they looked so exotic. While they looked lovely in the show I imagine that they would not look quite so good in a soggy back garden in South Manchester and would need a fair amount of upkeep in our weather so the day dream was over.
The food and drinks on offer were plentiful with fabulous stalls, just look at the Captain Morgan pirate ship selling Mojitos.
There were a few "ladies who lunch" in the champagne bar sipping chilled flutes of bubbles with dinky bags tied with ribbons containing jewellry and toiletries bought from some of the many stalls. I love people watching so it was good to amble around and see others enjoying the show.
It was back home by late lunchtime to start packing for our next holiday. Posts to follow over the next couple of weeks on the forthcoming break.
We got a couple of cloth bags given to us from different stalls and one had a fabulous craft book inside complete with pull out patterns worth £14.99. I think this will be given to my mum as it is more her sort of thing than mine. There were also lots of other freebies such as Magazines, pens, a decent sized tape measure for David, packets of mints etc.
We enjoyed looking around the stalls and I really coveted one of these cabanas as they looked so exotic. While they looked lovely in the show I imagine that they would not look quite so good in a soggy back garden in South Manchester and would need a fair amount of upkeep in our weather so the day dream was over.
The food and drinks on offer were plentiful with fabulous stalls, just look at the Captain Morgan pirate ship selling Mojitos.
There were a few "ladies who lunch" in the champagne bar sipping chilled flutes of bubbles with dinky bags tied with ribbons containing jewellry and toiletries bought from some of the many stalls. I love people watching so it was good to amble around and see others enjoying the show.
It was back home by late lunchtime to start packing for our next holiday. Posts to follow over the next couple of weeks on the forthcoming break.
No comments:
Post a Comment