Because I like hearing more about you...

[dolorous_ett]

Tell me about the most luxurious or extravagent thing you've done, or that someone's done for you. It doesn't have to be stupidly expensive if that's not your way - just stupidly pleasurable.

No worthy cause; no fic to write; just a hope for vicarious pleasures on an afternoon when I'm feeling miserable and downtrodden, and the sun still isn't shining. I bet there are some stories to tell on my flist.

Comments

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

For my 35th birthday, I decided to fly out to the Grand Canyon. It was a silly, last-minute decision; I'd always been anxious about traveling, and had never done such an excursion by myself. The logistics fell together in no time; I fell asleep on the plane, and before I knew it, I was driving a rental car out through the pre-dawn desert (cold!), to a land of light and color and space.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

That sounds fantastic - especially if you're not the travel-on-impulse type in the first place.

What a place! Deserts and canyons!

And above all, space. If you live in a city I sometimes think it's possible to get no use at all out of your long-distance vision - and then wonder vaguely what you're missing.

I saw your post just now - I hope you get a chance to do something similar soon.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

Last November my Mum took me on the Orient Express to Venice. And back again. Utterly amazing. Hideously extravagent. A trip of a lifetime. Photos on my facebook page! A close friend of Mum's had recently died and I think Mum was realising that life was short. I don't think I've ever eaten so well, or so often...

On a lower budget note, when I was horribly homesick a week into my internship in Vancouver I found a phonebox at the station and I phoned my Mum, my Dad, and my boyfriend, one after the other. Then I went up Grouse Mountain on the skyride, hired a pair of snowshoes and went for a hike, and finally bought myself a bowl of vegetable chilli and ate it watching the sun set over the ocean. The day probably cost about £35 (I was a student and didn't have huge amounts) but it was a real soul tonic.

Sometimes luxury is just having an entire day to yourself, being able to site and read a book from cover to cover without feeling guilty.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Orient express? Wow - I love long train journeys, but I've never experienced one luxury...

I've spent huge proportions of salary on foreign phone calls too. Quite funny to think of it now, when IP cards make the calls so cheap.

And so true about the luxury just being quiet time. It one of the biggest luxuries there is.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I don’t normally do extravagance, but I can come up with a few things.

There's the annual X-country skiing trip. Not this year, alas, but for the passt 4 Februaray has been made bearable by a week in a hotel with someone else doing all the cooking, reliable central heating, and evenings spent semi-comatose with exhaustion, food, port, and the sauna following a glorious day on the fells. It is true luxury to be skimming along at minus 15 instead of in a meeting.

I went to the Lord’s test a few weeks ago. Middle Sister bought tickets through a bloke at work who’s a member, and we were about the 7th row from the front, just behind the Pavilion End wicket, and made ourselves a terrific picnic that involved between the three of us two bottles of cava and one of wine (the maximum alcohol allowance we could bring into the ground). Other people had far more expensive plonk (the bloke in front of me had a Coutts chequebook), but our picnic more than stood up to the competition, even the Carluccio’s picnics that could be bought at the ground. It was terrific. Those around us who thought their Waitrose deli nibbles were a good choice were shamed by our homemade little pastry tarts, cheese, pate, meringues, strawberries etc. etc. Not to mention the pickled onions. We also had three copies of DH between us, but the weather was fine, so we only read for 10 minutes at lunch. It made up for a childhood of cheese sandwiches in the car.

For my thirtieth birthday, I went with both sisters and MS’s partner to the Berkeley Hotel for afternoon tea with alcohol . It was in December, and we went round Christmassy looking shops in the morning, had tea and stuffed ourselves (there was violet-flavoured mousse), and then went to see Frost/Nixon at the theatre – I had wanted a light musical, but there were none on, and this turned out to be absolutely perfect, once Youngest Sister had given us a quick modern American political history tutorial over the canapés.

Longley Farm rhubarb yoghurt. Yoghurt, rhubarb, and just enough sugar to stop it stripping the enamel of one's teeth. There are fools and syllabubs and souffles that bow down before this stuff. The internet informs me that this is in fact available in your locality, so if you have never tried it, go and spend the 29p that will ensure you never buy another brand of yoghurt again when this is available.

Other than my fortunate relationship with my sisters, none of the above reflects my everyday life ;-)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

It must be nice to have sisters - my brother thinks you're being all swanky if you take the packaging off a sandwich before you start eating - glorious trips to delicious tea rooms or intellectual plays would be right out.

Still - Longley Farm Yoghurt is definitely within my reach. Must go out and look for it!

Your account of the cricket match has strange resonances of Harriet and Lord Peter out boating in Oxford - was that intentional?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

::looks around for highly disturbing UST. Is relieved to find none::
Any Harriet/Peter/punting references were wholly unintentional. Aside from fancying a day at the cricket, the picnic business was largely about a history of envying other people's picnics and being damned if that were going to happen this time. I still wonder if the women behind us who ate king prawns with some sort of sauce late in the day regretted it later in the evening. I wouldn't have trusted _our_ coolbag.

Longley Farm is the best - I was gutted after last time I was in The North I bought several pots and then left them behind in my parents' fridge.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

What? They don't have Longley Farm in the South? Barbarians!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

They have it in one or two flavours (ones I don't really like) in Selfridges food hall at an enormous mark-up. Otherwise, the cream is available in a few places.

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're feeling downtrodden and miserable today. :(

This is such a cliche, but in January my dad rented a villa in Jamaica and flew the entire family down for a week of tropical laziness. We had nice Jamaican ladies cooking and cleaning for us, a private beach to use, and rum punch to drink at every hour of the day or night. It was seven days of not worrying about anything except to remember the sunscreen, and it came right in the middle of the most tiresomely snowy winter Colorado has had in a long time. After eight straight weeks of blizzards (not, unfortunately, an exaggeration), a week in Jamaica is pretty much the most luxurious thing I could imagine. (And we all liked it so much that we're going back this December. My dad is powerless against the combined forces of all four of his kids pleading for the same thing.)

On a slightly smaller scale, when my sister and I were in Sicily we were staying at a campground outside Agrigento. It was a stupidly hot day and we were exhausted, so rather than going into town to eat we just walked across the street to the nearest restaurant, figuring we'd settle for whatever they served and be happy. It didn't look like much from the outside, to be honest. We had no idea, but it turned out to be one of the best restaurants in Agrigento (one famous throughout Sicily, we later learned), so we ended up treating ourselves to a much finer meal than we had planned, including the best cake in the universe for dessert.

All of my luxuries involve travel and/or food, it seems. I am very predictable.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Can't top that, can you?

I had a feeling that you might have some blissful experiences to share - can't say I'm surprised.

A friend of mine is from Jamaica, and I've seen pictures - pretty close to paradise, by the sound of it.

And the best food in Sicily? That must have been fine food indeed.

All of my luxuries involve travel and/or food, it seems. I am very predictable.

Travel and food? It seems that our tastes are identical...

[swythyv.livejournal.com]

Well, an entry for a "in the little corners" category of luxurious things. One of the nicest gifts I ever recieved was from a older lady who was turning out her household surpluses and gave me a pile of white damask dinner napkins.

They were soft and well used - shadows of stain on a few - and were the sort that needed ironing. But their essential charm was that they were used, which took away any reluctance to use them for fear of "spoiling."

:D

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean - some of my favourite things have been hand-me-downs - you feel that they've been broken in by other people. I have at least one lovely thing that sits, unused on the shelf, because I'm worried I'll hurt it if I actually start using it!

[perosha.livejournal.com]

I think the most extravagant thing that's ever been done for me is when my dad and stepfamily went on vacation to San Miguel de Allende for a month (three years ago, I think it was), and I got to go. The vacation wasn't specifically for me, obviously, but it was still an amazing month and I feel really lucky to have gotten to do it. Granted, I had a crazy foreign intestinal parasite for six months afterwards, but that's a different story. XD

(If the intestinal parasite knocks San Miguel out of the running, then the vote goes to the OTHER time I got to tag along with my dad to Mexico, this past spring. It was beautiful.)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

You're very lucky - I've always wanted to go to Mexico (though I can see that the Intestinal Parasite was perhaps a bit of a drag). All the pictures I've seen on TV just look impossibly beautiful.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

My parents took me to Key West for a week-end in May. It was wonderful.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

*envies*

Wow. I bet there were pelicans, and everything!

[snorkackcatcher]

Extravagant? Hmm, that would probably be about five years ago, when I spent the day at the sale of the leading collection of the postal history subject that forms my own main collection (British registered mail, basically), full of things I'd drooled over for years. And spent lots of money, on 31 lots. :) (A combination of cash in hand in my bank account, a couple of loans from family members, and managing to sell -- privately, at lunchtime on the day of the sale! -- a rare and valuable item I'd picked up very cheaply a few months before.)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I can't say I've ever cared enough about a stamp to pay serious money for it - but I completely understand what a thrill it must have been to pay out serious money for something you truly love. (Of course, in your case you can view it as an investment as well, which must help kill the pain).

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

I bought some overpriced (but beautiful) hand made soap, ostensibly to put in with the linen. But I used it in the shower. And it lasted about a week, and then it was gone, but it was heavenly. (I'm not very extravagant, really. But it was nice.)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I'm worse, in that I've actually bought expensive soap and then been too tight to use it - so there it sits till it doesn't look or smell so nice any more. So much better to let it fulfill the ultimate destiny of soap - to be used with joy!

[aerama.livejournal.com]

I have this issue with soap AND candles. Because if I use them, they'll be used UP, and we can't have that! Better to let them sit around on the shelf *sigh*...
I always intend to use what I buy, though. One day it'll actually connect!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I do it with shampoo as well - if it's a brand I can't get at easily I can never bear to use the last wash in the bottle...

[aerama.livejournal.com]

...and do you tell yourself you really should buy two bottles at a time but end up not because that's extravagant in itself! And you think "Nah, I don't need to do that."
and always regret it??
That's what happens to me!!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

And of course, buying two bottles is out of the question because there are so many bottles in the bathroom already, even if there's only one wash left in the bottom...

[aerama.livejournal.com]

The extravagant corset!dress purchase I made at the RenFaire last month.
The way I kept looking at the display from across the way, and how I found the exact design I wanted, and was "just going to try it on to see," despite being a little nervous about corsets & not breathing & all that.

Insanely gorgeous. Tremendously expensive. Able to breathe (with the bonus of improving posture)!

But the reaction from Mr. Aerama? Fantastic.

And I love it very much.

And! Wearing it tonight; we have IrishFest going on by the lake.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I remember that corset!dress from the pictures - it really suits you. Interesting to note that it is possible to breathe in it!

Have a good IrishFest - does that mean Guinness and dancing?

[aerama.livejournal.com]

It does indeed! (Although, *gasp*, I'm not a beer drinker! ALAS! Scotch for me, though I have no tolerance).

Here, have a link! http://www.irishfest.com

They do have tons of cultural things...and Irish bands of course...and travel agencies like Aer Lingus.
We purloined a stuffed animal sheep last year, actually (a mascot of sorts on their table).