Thanks for the replies.

I found that enabling /combatlog does what i want to a certain extend. It writes the combatlog to /Logs/WoWCombatLog.txt. It doesn't look like it's instant, but there were only a few seconds delay between starting a fight and when the log appeared in the file (output looks like this). I also came across this project, which could save me work at first sight writing the parser and could give me a bunch of extra 'possible' features.

Even if there is a short delay, that shouldn't be a big issue for the reminder function i want. The log contains timestamps which makes the math easy. For things with longer cooldowns like fire elementals it doesn't have to be on the second.

Gonna keep an eye on the delay when the data is written to the logfile and will post here.