Gold Cup Day 2013; a blow by blow account

For those of you who are not of UK origin Gold Cup Day is the biggest horse-racing day of the Cheltenham Racing Festival week.  Historically Hubby and my brother C (who might as well be twins!) have spend the Friday afternoon each year in the pub watching the racing, screaming at the TV, spending copious amounts of money on beer and racing – though I am eternally grateful that Hubby can restrict himself to smaller bets than my brother even if it does my for smaller winnings.

This year, not only did I take the afternoon off work to spend with the boys I took the week off with Hubby – because he is worth it (not really an apt slogan seen as he has very little hair to speak of……)

So here goes:

• Thursday night we arrive at C’s house to spend time with his fiancée A.   Hubby loves their company but dreads their open fire place – I would spend my life in front of it if I could get away with it. 
• Hubby goes to bed muttering under his breath about nightmares after being subjected to ‘American Horror Story Asylum’ out of the corner of his eye while playing on line poker while A and I catch up on some episodes.
• A leaves me at 11pm watching more episodes as I was hooked – 3am came and went requiring a lie in the next morning.
• A swift dash home after dropping the boys off at the pub on realising that the admission tickets for the evenings charity event were safely tucked away in a drawer meant I had some alcoholic catching up to do when I eventually arrived at the pub.
• A quick dash for A and I to the charity shop to pick up some Comic Relief noses (a set of 3 meant we had to have them all) so we could mess about with them all afternoon.
• By 3pm the race winnings score was Hubby 1 – Ribena 3 – enough said.
• By 4.30pm A and I commiserate with C and Hubby after they narrowly miss scooping up winnings of £440 and £75 respectively as a result of jockey’s who forgot to put Velcro on the seat of their pants. 
• I’m guessing that commiserating by saying “C, you never had the money in the first place” wasn’t that helpful on reflection.
• After discussing all things wedding with A in preparation for being her matron of honour and making random videos of Comic Relief Red Nose getting drunk on vodka and filling up on chips we took off for cocktails (vodka count = 7).
• After being presented with a strawberry mojito an apology was in order after berating Hubby for not arguing with the barmaid over the absence of strawberry daiquiris when they were clearly on the menu.  After all, the mojito was beautiful even if it did have too many green leaves in the glass for my liking.
• Onwards and upwards to the charity evening raising funds for an operation to enable a special little girl to walk.  I walked more than well enough into that bar despite 7 vodka’s and a strawberry mojito, if I do say so myself.
• Swiftly followed by R and her hubby D, the bar beckoned as did crisps and unfortunately for me Pork Scratchings for Hubby – eugh!
• Brother C was ‘wasted’ for want of a better word; I knew he should have been eating more of those chips with me at dinner time and after selling the benefits of home made mashed potato and burgers he had to go home and lie down.
• Many trips to the sensible women selling pretend horse sponsorships and bets between copious amounts of lager (can you tell I was sending Hubby to the sensible women – I needed the drinking time…) and at the end of the evening we had won a grand total of £20 despite spending about £100 in total but were all the merrier for it all going to a great cause.
• Arriving back at C and A’s with a stomach filling 10 vodkas to my name both Hubby and I declared that we managed to have drank ourselves sober and fell into a blissful sleep until the next morning.
• Another lie in for me having realised that the lack of a lie in at home is the result of 4 very insistent fluff bags only to arrive downstairs to see Hubby getting excited at being 1 of 40 left in an online poker tournament he had been playing for 2 hours.  Even I had to get interested the more he kept throwing his arms up in the air with excitement.  A 2^nd place netted me us a nice £130 which would pay nicely for the basin and taps I wanted – who said you had to work for money.