Sunday in the City

It was a beautiful day in Dublin so we got up and headed in to town on the Luas. We planned on getting coffee and wandering down Grafton Street with it but then decided to go to Stephens Green park and sit on the grass with our coffee.  Ciaran went to Butlers while I went to Insomnia (I brought my keep cup) and then we met in the park.

 

Afterwards we did take the stroll as planned down Grafton Street and landed on College Green which was car free for the second week running.

The atmosphere was great in the area with a relaxed vibe as everyone walked the streets on the plaza.

Check out #streetsareforpeople on twitter for more pics.

From College Green we went on to Temple Bar and found that All City was open. Ciaran took the opportunity to go in for a browse and pick up some spray paint and oil sticks.

 

And then after Temple Bar we walked to South Williams Street where we took Bones for a pint in Grogans!

By this time we were getting ready for lunch so we decided to go get some wings in Wishbone on Montague Street. So Bones went back on the lead and off we went walking again.

It was such a nice day that we took our wings in to Stephens Green and sat on a bench and enjoyed them there. We could hear music from the band stand which was very cool!

And finally after all of that it was home on the luas. Fun for sure and car free College Green was very enjoyable. A great day all in all!

Friday meet up....

I met up with Cousin Kasey this morning and we had a lovely breakfast in The Pot Bellied Pig in Rathmines after a walk from Ranelagh. 

After breakfast we went for a coffee across the road in Insomnia where we chatted further. It was all very relaxed.

And then after that we had a browse around the Swan Centre where Kasey helped me select a hostess gift for a dinner date in a friends house tomorrow night - see below, I got a nice balsamic vinegar in
Fallon & Byrne.



Edit 5/01/2020
Fallon & Byrne Rathmines closed on the 31st of December 2019

Keto pizza night!

I had a hankering for a chilled out evening on Thursday as I was off on Friday so I made keto pizza!

Here's the recipe I followed from Diet Doctor

It was a big success with both Ciaran and I agreeing that it tasted really good. 

I doubled the recipe so made two - guess it will be pizza night again tonight!!

I used Janet's Pizza Sauce (available in Supervalu) for the pizza and topped with both cheddar & mozzarella cheese along with pepperoni, bacon & chicken.

This is the almond flour that I used - almond flour is pretty much ground almonds.

When you are buying your almond flour be sure and do a good price comparison.  One of these ground almonds was €9.95 per kg while the other was a whopping €32.90 per kg!!!

Guess which one I bought!

Sun & Fun on a Monday night!

It was sunny and warm yesterday in Dublin. After cycling home from work I was hot hot hot and needed a cold drink to cool down. Ciaran was painting up in the studio so I called up to him that I was going to open the Whispering Angel and did he want a glass.

While dinner was cooking, I hung out in the studio with him enjoying the cold rosé wine and the good sounds that he was playing on spotify. It was a lot of fun!

 

There has been a fair bit of rain and also sun (very mixed weather altogether) and because of this the plants in my garden have shot up. Look at how hidden my letter box is - I love it.

For plastic free July I switched out my plastic scrubbing brush for a wooden one with a detachable head. When the head wears out you can just buy a new one. What a great idea and far better than the horrible plastic one that I had been using previously. Have you made any changes for Plastic Free July?!

An "Up and at 'em" Saturday

Whew I got up to loads yesterday!

I was up early and we headed off to Deansgrange to visit a church. A church you say!

Yes! This 1970's wonder designed by John L. Griffith who seemingly was the brother of the parish priest of the time. 

It's the Holy Family Parish Church at Kill O'the Grange and it's a whopper of a brick building.

Very impressive altogether and worth a visit. It was locked so had to take the picture of the internals through a window. I'd like to go back and see the inside sometime in the future.

 



After our Church visit, Ciaran had to go on a site visit so I went home and did some social media work for his website and on his return we took Bones to Pot Bellied Pig, Rathmines for brunch. I had their full Irish (the Hog) for the first time and was really impressed. Excellent quality ingredients cooked perfectly. Annoyingly I forgot to ask them to leave off the toast as I don't eat bread.  Gah, I hate food waste.

 

After brunch, Ciaran headed off to play Padel in Bushy Park, while I got on my bike and cycled in to town to experience a "Car Free" South William Street.

This one street had been closed off to car traffic for the day (access was given to anyone with a disabled parking badge and cars could still exit the Brown Thomas car park) by some civic activists including the Dublin Commuters Coalition, Irish Pedestrian Network and the Dublin Cycling Campaign.

Wow it was blissful given that this is a terrible street when cars are on it as it is woefully small, with inadequate pathways for pedestrians - in particular those with buggies or using wheelchairs.
It was great to see the street being fully used with loads of people socialising on the street, families hanging out and people spilling out from Grogans drinking pints of Guinness on the roadway. It's definitely one road that could be pedestrianised quickly and would be such a great improvement for the city.

I hope that People Power can get this done!

Check this pic out - Dublin is so small. My sister in the States was sent this pic by a friend asking if this was me! You can't do anything in this town without being spotted.... :-) 

And then I found a picture of myself on social media coverage of the Streets are for People actions. Too funny seeing myself caught on film all unaware!

After my cycle home, I had a short turn around time before I headed back towards the city on the Luas. This time it was to Iveagh Gardens to see Burt Bacharach.

This was my first time as this venue and I thought it was brilliant. Capacity is about 5,000 and it has a nice bar set up with lots of food stalls to get something to eat at.

The bar had beer, wine and mixed Gin drinks in a can (this is a somewhat odd single liquor offering, but how and ever...) so I went for a glass of prosecco which was rather nice in the setting!

We had a great night at the concert, it was mild and didn't rain. We were able to get very close to the stage and had a great view of the show along with the sound being very good. Burt Bacharach is an absolute legend, 91 yrs old and still going strong. All of his hits had me singing along and I was still singing them in my head as we took the Luas home. 

A great day and an even better night!

As the song goes
"Dublin can be heaven, with coffee at a eleven and a stroll around Stephens Green......"
With the pedestrianising of more streets there can be more strolling around this heavenly city - let's keep the action going!

For further info about South William Street being given over to pedestrians, check out #Streetsareforpeople on Twitter.

Package from America

Amy sent a lovely package from the States to me.  I finally got to pick it up from the post office because the collection office is only open Monday to Friday (which is a bit stupid because obviously the reason they couldn't drop it off was because there was no one on the house Monday to Friday because of work.....so it baffles me that they think it is convenient to pick it up at and office with such bad hours - could they not open for a couple of hours on a Saturday?!)

So look what was in the package - some really cute coloured reusable Starbucks cups!

I collected them on Friday and used the pink cup straightaway on Saturday for coffee before work. Such a nice colour - it made me feel very cheery indeed.

I shall keep 1 cup and 2 each will go to my younger sisters. I think they will like them just as much as me :-) 

"Bullfight on Third Avenue" at Bewleys Cafe Theatre

I love going to lunch time plays in the Bewley's Cafe Theatre on Grafton Street, I've visited a few times and seen great plays - and they are generally in the region of an hour so very accessible for anyone who only has a short window to go to the theatre.

The latest opening in this theatre is "Bullfight on Third Avenue" which is by Eddie Naughton  and centres on an imagined meet up between Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald in a bar in New York.

It's a 3 man play directed by Karl Shiels* and starring Dave Duffy (Leo from Fair City), Ross Gaynor and Rex Ryan.

The meeting between the two literary greats takes place just before Hemingway heads to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War. Through the Irish bar man and his stories of the Irish Civil War the horrors Hemingway will face when he covers the Spanish Civil are demonstrated. It is these stories that perhaps will do more to change Hemingway's mind about going, than the pleadings of Fitzgerald who sees Hemingway as planning to go to Spain only in order to follow his new love.

Rex Ryan as Hemingway is both commanding and convincing while Duffy and Gaynor put in excellent performances also.

The bullfighting scene was atmospheric and tense and along with the boxing scene showed the intensity of the love/hate relationship between the authors. And then there was the scene that that the whole play had been heading towards (I won't give too much away) - it was thought provoking to say the least.  

As a long time Hemingway and Key West Fan (click here to see about my visit to Hemingway House), this was a must see play for me.  I intend to go back and see it again over the next few weeks (and my mother is also planning on seeing it again with a friend). If you are in Dublin City over the next few weeks check it out too!

Edit 15/07/2019
*RIP Director Karl Shiels

Wing night!

Thursday was a gorgeously sunny day. After work, Ciaran made the suggestion of walking to the Devlin Hotel and having wings for dinner rather than cooking.

This sounded like a good plan to me so I readily agreed.

We shared a bowl of wings at the bar in the Americana Bar, which is on the ground floor of the Devlin Hotel, along with enjoying a couple of drinks.

The setting is great (suberb decor) and the staff are excellent it made for a really pleasant casual evening.

A fun night for sure and nice to get out of the house and up to Ranelagh village on a sunny evening!

 

Before the Devlin Hotel was built, I never knew what was missing from Ranelagh. But now that it is here and given the amount of times I visit here, I can honestly say that the one that thing missing from the village was this boutique hotel. It is a really nice addition to the village.

I am booked in for brunch in the Rooftop restaurant this Sunday so will report back on that afterwards. Watch this space!

Irish Ice cream weather

I have a great cycle to and from work - particularly on sunny days when the view looks like this.

Another thing, I like about my cycle is that it takes me past Scrumdiddly's ice cream shop. I love seeing the big queue of people snaking around the shop waiting to get in and buy their ice cream on sunny days (and even on not so sunny days!)

It looks like such a fun thing to do hanging out with friends and family waiting for ice cream. In some ways it reminds me of the charms of the traditional soda fountain in USA.

Love it - enjoying an ice cream on a nice day is a small pleasure in life!

Keeping it Keto!

I've been eating Keto since the end of May and loving it.

I haven't been missing sweet food but was really happy to get a sample of Keto Cookies from a colleague in work who had baked last weekend. They were so good and only about 3 carbs per cookie.

Well they were so good, I made a batch myself.

So easy and fast to make - only 10/12 mins or so in the oven.

I switched out some chocolate for chopped hazelnuts in the recipe. This was a really nice addition - I plan on adding more nuts on the next batch. 

Here's the recipe if you would like to make "Keto Cookies"

Check out how my batch turned out!

 Next time I make them I may bake them a little longer to brown them a bit more. I was a afraid of over baking them on this occasion.

They really are delicious - almondy and moreish.

Let me know if you make them!

A blog about........straws!

Straws, you say, what on earth is there to say about straws that is blogable?!

So here goes....

I am a fans of straws. I enjoy drinking my go to cocktail of Vodka & Coke Zero through a straw.

However, I am always trying to reduce my use of single use plastic so straws were something that I had on my radar and I knew I was going to either change my straw habit and stop using them or find an alternative to plastic straws.

I found 3 alternatives and you can see my reviews of each below. I also was told of a 4th option by a bartender in the Devlin Hotel. I will tell you about this one at the end of the blog so scroll on to the bottom to see what it is!

1. Paper Straws
The first move I made away from plastic straws was that I bought paper straws. The good thing about paper straws is that they tend to be really pretty in nicely coloured patterns. But the bad things is that they tend to start to go a bit mushy when you are using them. You can slow down the disintegration of the paper straw by taking it out of your drink between sips and balance it on top of your glass - but this is a bit of a pain. Quite honestly, paper straws are not for me, I don't like the feel of them in my mouth when I am partaking in a beverage.

So the search for a plastic straw replacement continued and I went on to try the next one.

2. Metal Straws
I was so happy to receive a gift of a packet of metal straws from my sister. There were four in the pack and they even came with a little skinny brush to wash them with. 
I was really expecting to like the metal straws but it felt a bit too solid when using and I think they could be quite dangerous as you could accidentally stick it in your eye! Take care when drinking through one!!
I think you can buy metal straw with a plastic bung at the end in order to make it both nicer to drink from and also a bit more safe but if you use this you are back using plastic - but at least it is not single use plastic.

And so I am now on to what I am currently drinking my "bevs" through.

3. Bamboo Straw
A bamboo straw!  Yes really!
While on holidays in the USA, I found a packet of bamboo straws for sale in the Key West Custom House Museum Gift Shop for the very reasonable price of $8.95. There was about 10 in the packet and they are all different sizes, some being very skinny and others being quite thick. It really doesn't matter what size one you pop in to your glass - they all feel really nice to drink from. And they have a really cool natural tropical look about them.

So for the moment I am giving top marks to bamboo straws and they get my vote as being a great alternative to plastic straws.

And now if you are still reading this, you get a bonus tip for what to use instead of plastic straws as passed on to me by the bartender in the Devlin Hotel:  

PASTA!

Yes there is such a thing as a pasta straw! 

A quick google leads me to this website.

Pasta straws sound pretty cool - but have you got any other alternatives to plastic straws? Leave a comment below...... 

Fun day Friday!

Last Friday, I met up with my mother for coffee, a chat and a wander around town. It was a lovely sunny day so I cycled in to town and when we met we went for coffee in Insomnia. There was a little garden out to the front of the cafe so we sat out in the sun.

I brought along my little cream holder (or any liquids) that I got in Coach recently. Check this out - 3 little bottles in a cute little zipped up box. I think it is meant for travelling and decanting things like make up remover, etc. in it. But I think it is far more useful for carrying cream for my coffee!

After that we went for a walk down George's street and looked in some charity (thrift) shops where I tried on a fab black Halston jumpsuit. It was so nice but just a tad bit too small for me on the trouser length.

We got up to lots of fun stuff including a game of hopscotch outside Benefit! 
Hopscotch in the city, you might ask. What's that all about?!
Well in what I thought was a very clever marketing event, Benefit were giving out free samples of their new foundation if you took part in a game of hopscotch. Love it!

Check this building out. Wowser!
The whole front fascade has been left up but the rest of it is going to be redeveloped. I'm sure it will be great.

So we got up to lots, saw interesting things and then went for lunch and had a glass of wine in the sun before both heading our separate ways to our homes on different sides of Dublin city. 
A fun day for sure!