Well, after thinking long and hard about what I should do and how much longer it would take me to save the necessary funds, a deal came up on that popular auction site that was too good to pass up. A local girl who was selling all her gear to fund an overseas trip had a 1 year old 70-200 f/2.8 non-IS with a buy it now and make an offer price. After some back and forth negotiating price we settled on a price that we were both happy with so I'm now I'm over the moon to say I'm the proud owner of my very first L series lens

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I trialled it out at her house when I went to pick it up and fired off some pics of her cat - man I gotta say this beast focuses fast. After giving it more of a work out over the last couple of days I'm now 100% positive I made the right choice with some very nice results.
Thanks once again to all who contributed to my original post.