Naughty, I know- but I am sure we all do it!

Anyone that buys drinks from the hotel mini bar is, in my opinion, mad. Who in their right mind would pay €6 for a tiny bag of macadamias or €4 for a teeny weeny can of Schwepps Indian tonic water that's finished in two sips? Maybe the insanely rich or blind drunks of the world.

One of my first tasks when I get to my hotel is empty the mini fridge, and no I don't mean 'drink the contents of'. What I mean is I make a beautiful arrangement of products that I will never consume on the nearest available table. This leaves me with a delightfully empty fridge to stash my self-purchased booze and snacks. Locating the nearest offie/supermarket is my second task when I visit a new destination (God- I sound such an old lush). In the case of Tenerife I have found the local Cash And Carry, not only closest but also cheapest, a bottle of cava for €2.24 is my idea of goodvalue! It's also proven an excellent place to stock up on Milka to satisfy my late night chocolate cravings. (A Cadburys Crunchie costs a whopping €2,90 in the hotel shop).

Cash And Carry's may not be the world’s most glamorous of places but they have always been there when I need them! While working (in the oh-so-glamorous role of a runner) on a Robbie Williams music video in Spitalfields, London, I was being sent to the local Tesco Express to buy bottled water for a cast and crew of 200+. Not only was it costing the production company a fortune, but carrying 18 bottles of water at a time (which was all I could manage on the stupidly long walk from Tesco to set) was never going to cut it for the number of people on set, that baking August day. So I whipped out my intuition and dragged the image of a Cash And Carry that I had seen out of my subconscious memory and managed to track it down. It was not only cheaper, but it was closer and they had stacking trolleys! Bingo! If you can make life easier (or cheaper) for yourself then do it- and Cash And Carry is often, in my experience, the best place to start.

Anyway, I digress. Our fridge is now perfectly stocked containing: a bottle of cava (and one in the wardrobe on standby for tomorrow and the next night), a big bottle of diet coke, some Kinder Happy Hippos and several blocks of Milka! What more does a girl need to have in her room for when she's getting glammed up for dinner? Actually, I now realise that isn't a rhetorical question as I have just answered it. Crisps. Which funnily enough I have also bagged at the Cash And Carry.

So with tonight's aperitif-on-the-cheap sorted I can get back to my book (Always The Bridesmaid, Lindsey Kelk- it really is laugh out loud funny) and my tanning or more accurately put, burning.

Xo