Irish Life Mall - Dublin City

I met my twin sister at the Irish Life Mall this morning before we went for coffee in Starbucks on O'Connell Street. 

My twin sister works close to the Irish Life Mall so she gets to see the mall in all it's quirky glory most days of the week. 

I am rarely in this part of town so it was quite the experience for me to park in the mall car park and then walk up the stairs to the mall.

Here's a few pics which show you what it is like.......

                          Welcome to the Irish Life Mall!

This plaque is in the car park of the Irish Life Mall. 

It reads:

The Moland Street Stone

Moland Street appears on old maps of Dublin in the 18th and early 19th century. This stone originally marked the site of the street which was in the vicinity of the present Irish Life Centre.

 

The plaque is situated to the front of these plants - you see it to your left as you come out the doors to head up the stairs.

Love the stone work!

This place it unlike any other in Dublin City. When I visit, it reminds me of childhood trips to town. 

They have some nice Christmas decorations in the Irish Life Mall.

Thank you for visiting the 1980's!

Happy New Year - 2018 is here!

2018 is here after we had a lovely celebration yesterday. We had dinner in Dillingers and then returned home early and watched a film before switching on the TV just before midnight for the countdown.
We cracked open a bottle of prosecco and toasted in the New Year and made it to bed shortly after.

Earlier in the day, Ciaran had painted and videoed him and broadcast live on both Facebook and Periscope. You can watch the video here.
I also took a few pics of him for posterity on the last day of the year. Here's one of them.

For my New Year resolutions, I intend to give up my diet coke habit as I drink far to much of it. A far better option is to substitute with sparkling water at first and then switch out for regular water.

I also am going back off carbs as I have started back eating them since November and quite honestly I feel better when I am not eating a big load of processed sugar.

I'll let you know how I get on!

In the meanwhile here's a handy guide on what to eat and what not to.

Happy New Year to you all and Good Luck with your new year resolutions.

Christmas 2017

Christmas 2017 was BUSY!!

We had so many parties, dinners and events to fit in.We even threw our own cocktail party on the 16th which Amy and I enjoyed catering for.

BTW, how Christmassy is Amy's red dress?!

Amy's made Auntie Mary's Philadelphia Sweet Chilli and melba toast. My aunt lived for years in South Africa and this is a cocktail party staple there!

Amy also made the prawn and cocktail sauce shooters. Very cute in little sherry glasses!

It was fun to catch up with friends that we don't see often.

We set up a bar on the kitchen table. Our signature cocktail was "Jameson & Ginger" and along with beer and wine we also served Vodka Tonics and Gin & Elderflower Tonic.

Christmas Eve lunch was lovely. It was great to meet up with good friends and have a lovely relaxed meal. We were all finished up and home by 6pm which was super.

After being back in work on 27th, 28th and 29th Dec, I took the tree down on Friday night while watching The Family Stone.

Two sets of lights weren't working when I took them down so I threw them in the bin. So today on New Year's Eve I went shopping for new ones. Not only are they half price at this time of year, it will also save me having to think about buying new ones next Christmas.

I bought the above lights in Homebase and the ones below in Home Store & More. There was bigger reductions on the Home Store & More ones but they were nearly all sold out. I bought two sets of the Homebase ones.

I sure am happy to have my lights sorted for next year!

Enid & Amy's annual Christmas Lunch - Amuse, Dawson Street

For the past few years I have brought Amy on what we call our "boozy Christmas lunch" for her Christmas gift from me.

Last year was Luna while this year was Amuse on the 23rd of December.

Amuse is on Dawson Street and has a beautiful calm quiet dining room. 

We decided we were going to take it easy and only have one glass of wine with dinner as I was heading on to a cocktail party afterwards. However, after we looked at the menu and chose the tasting menu we decided to order a bottle of wine as we felt we needed more than a glass to go with the five courses.  We only drank a little over a glass each but we were glad we got the bottle!

Amy thought the a la carte looked more to her taste than the tasting menu but I persuaded to go for the tasting menu. She was glad she did!

Amuse serves Japanese-French fusion. The food looks amazing on the plate and is phenomenal tasting.

I think the pork was my favourite dish.

Dessert was what I considered to be the most average plate out of all of the dishes.

Amy chose cheese over the dessert. This attracted a €9 supplement which I thought was a little rich for forgoing the dessert for the cheese plate

Oh dear lord. Do you see the piece of cheese at the back - peeping out from the ramekin?  That was the stinkiest tasting cheese ever. I like stinky cheese but man this was foul tasting!

It looked so innocuous but packed a serious punch.

Cheers to a great boozy Christmas lunch!

Ah Kerrygold.....

An American friend of mine sent me a link to this Kerrygold ad that is currently on US TV.



It is certainly an ad that is made for a specific market but after watching it I started thinking of some of the great Kerrygold ads from my childhood here in Ireland.

One of the more famous ones was "Who's taking the horse to France?" If you ask this question to people of a certain age in Ireland they will all repeat it back with a country accent and then say, "Kerrygold". Lol.

And then there is good old Andre who is wondering if there is something "ee can do to 'elp". In typical Irish fashion he is told he can put a bit of butter on the spuds.

This one is a tear jerker. It is more recent - perhaps around the time of the Celtic Tiger crash. It is very real and in some ways is a record of what was going on in Ireland then as people had to leave to get work elsewhere.

Kerrygold sure did ham up the oirishness in past ads and appears to be staying true to this with it's new offering above. But sure if it gets people tasting this amazing butter, what do I care!

Ok, see ya, I'm off to Youtube to look at the ESB "Going Home" ad......

Basket Brigade 2017

Today once again a group of people came together in Dublin and with enthusiasm and hard work turned piles of boxes, wrapping paper, cellophane and food in to Christmas Hampers for people all over Dublin City.

Each hamper gets a ham and a chicken along with a batch of vegetables and then items such as a bottle of coca cola, tube of pringles, canned soup, tea bags, coffee and a box of biscuits. Additional items include pasta, sauce, breakfast cereal, jam and paper products including kitchen roll.

A lot of the food is donated by corporate companies (thanks Coca Cola and others!) and other items are collected through different avenues. I set a box up in my workplace and my colleagues generously donated a huge amount of goods.

Donations of money are also needed in order to buy some of the produce. This is where one particular Irish celebrity has stepped up for the past few years and given a huge amount of financial support which has helped the Basket Brigaders achieve their goal. What an amazing boy - he sure is in a "zone" of his own. Thanks KD.

 

Nearly 200 hampers were made and numbered and then delivered to different home settings.

Basket Brigade is an annual event that I do along with my twin sister and our best friend Alice. We enjoy working on this project and afterwards we always go for lunch in Pitt Bros which is a nice wrap up for the day.

 

All in all a great day. Brilliant to catch up with the girls and great to try and do some good and help people in need at this special time of year.

If you are interested in getting involved with Basket Brigade have a search for it on Facebook - volunteers are always needed - the more the merrier!

Christmas is coming and the tree is up!

Christmas is coming!

I made the trip up to my attic to get down my Christmas tree and all the decorations that go with it. This year, however, I went for a more pared down look and only decorated my tree along with a few small ornaments on the mantle piece.

I was glad to see all my decorations organised in to clear boxes. When packing away your decorations at the end of the season it is worth making the extra effort to do it neatly and in a systematic way. The effort always pays off the next year when you are unpacking them.

And here's my tree all set up with the usual Barbie at the top.

This year my favourite ornament is my Key West Little White House chair (a present from my twin sister Amy). Hanging this little charmer made me think of my recent trip to Key West.

Last Sunday morning before I put up my tree, Amy and I met early and went to Aldi to get Christmas jumpers. I got three matching ones for myself, Ciaran and Bones the dog. We will be truly kitted for Christmas when we are decked out in our jumpers!