January - surprisingly a good month

No January blues in 2022!

January can sometimes be a tough month after the high of Christmas and New Year Celebrations. 

However this year it's been a good one. We saw restrictions end in Ireland and the weather was fairly mild. 

The days are getting longer now so we know the dark days of Winter are behind us. Who knows what February will bring us (it can be a really cold month some time) but for now all is good, I'm in great form and I'm enjoying life a lot.

As I mentioned before, simple things like the commute to work on my bike give me great pleasure and our regular trip to Dillingers at the weekend is always something I enjoy. Other things that make me is happy working on the business side of PIGSY's art (social media and website, etc.) and seeing his art being appreciated,

Cocktails and great food in Dillingers

The above is a picture of us in Dillingers in Ranelagh when the restrictions ended. We made a 7pm booking and stayed out til nearly 10pm(!) which felt very strange after having to adhere to the 8pm government mandated closing times for a while before this. As you can see I ordered a Brandy Alexander to celebrate!

PIGSY Painting now Sold!

And here's a pic of the most recently sold PIGSY art work - read more about it here.

Return to Dillingers!

Dillingers Ranelagh

Do you have a favourite neighbourhood restaurant?

I do, and after a hiatus of about 18 months, I returned to Dillingers for dinner yesterday evening.

With a change of menu but still the same staff, it was great to be back!! We got a lovely warm welcome and one of the guys even pointed out that they still have Bones picture up above the Cash Register. Lol!

Pictured is steak, veal and super fun mac & cheese truffle balls- all just delicious. Like I said, it's good to be back! 

Ranelagh Arts Festival

In PIGSY news, the PIGSY short movie was screened in The Stella in The Devlin Hotel as part of the Ranelagh Arts Festival. Unfortunately, I was working yesterday so I couldn't attend but PIGSY went along to the screening and was very impressed with the high standard of all of the short films, He also enjoyed seeing the PIGSY film on the big screen in the beautiful surroundings of the boutique cinema that is The Stella at The Devlin. To read more about what PIGSY has been getting up to lately, see his blog here.

Saturday night is movie night

Saturday was slow.  We got up and went out for a cycle in to Dublin City (less than 2km away from our house). Ciaran rode his Brompton fold up bike while I was on my electric bike. We cycled to Fallon & Byrne on Exchequor Street where I bought some freshly made bread and some Ranch Dressing (this seems to be the only place that I have found in Dublin that sells this type of dressing!).  I also bought a 50% off Easter Egg that includes mini peanut butter eggs inside - can't wait to taste those!

We then did chores around the house (my kitchen could not be any cleaner and we are on top of all of the laundry).  Ciaran did a video lesson with his Spanish teacher at 4pm while I did an online class at the same time. It felt really productive to do that and I will do another class today.

Later on we decided that we would pick up dinner from Dillingers which would be our normal Friday or Saturday haunt (we sit in the exact same spot at the end of the bar, every time we go, yes that is how regular we are!).  We walked up to Ranelagh Village and visited Dillingers to get our order in.  They have it set up that they have the door open and then it is all blocked off to the actual restaurant. In order to comply with social distancing we stood at the door and spoke to the manager with space between us all and then gave in our order.  He told us to call back in about 10 minutes and it would be ready then.  While we were waiting for our food, we walked up the road to Redmonds Beer & Wine shop and bought some supplies there.

We walked home fairly smartly in order to keep the food warm.  Look how good it was......so tasty! Hearty American style food at home - what can beat that?!
I had Ribs while Ciaran had Hot Wings and then we had a side of Chilli Fries. 

 

And so for the movie selection......we watched.....wait for it...."Contagion"

Oh my gosh what a film. We had seen it before a couple of years ago but jeez what a different perspective watching it while we are living in a real life pandemic.  Seriously scary.......

And that was our Saturday with us heading to bed about 11.30pm - how did your Saturday go? Hope you had a good one! 

Weekends are for Takeaway!

Since all of our favourite restaurants have closed we have been eating at home every evening. I've been cooking simple items like meatballs, chicken, baked broccoli and cauliflower cheese. I generally have cooked one night and then eaten the same meal over two nights. It makes sense to do this when cooking only for two and it saves on the clean up.

Here's some of the items I cooked......and I also bought some L'Or coffee for my coffee maker - I'm saving a fortune by not buying takeaway coffees!

The below are puff pastry with cream cheese, tomato puree and chorizo. Delish!

However, when the weekend came it was time for a takeaway!  We got Rasoi last weekend which is an Indian takeaway restaurant in Ranelagh and it does amazing food. So tasty and travels well in comparison to some takeaway food.  I had biryani for the first time and it was delicious - I'll definitely order it again.

This weekend we plan to order from Dillingers which is were we would generally be found of a Friday night.  So if we can't go to Dillingers it will come to us!