"Patriots Day" with Mark Wahlberg

I have always felt that the Boston Marathon bombings were one of the worst terrorist attacks in the world. There was something that touched me about the attacks on such a group of brave people coming to the end of their marathon. In some ways they were at their strongest (what a feat to complete a marathon) but they were also at their weakest (the body can only get through so much and I think a marathon pushes a body to its limits). What a most cowardly attack to go after these vulnerable brilliant marathoners.

Because of this I was interested to watch Mark Wahlberg's new film "Patriots Day" which is about the Boston Marathon terrorist attack.

It is an incredible film. Very moving and it really gets to the heart of all the people involved. 

I borrowed the dvd from the library and I highly recommend it. 

Boston Strong!

What I have been up to.......

Yesterday was a fun day.  I went in to the city early on Saturday morning to return a coat to Marks & Spencer. 

I then called to my twin sister and we went for a walk to Baggot Street and back. We then had Tia Maria Coffees and hung out together and chatted loads.

This brought me up to midday when I got back on my bike and cycled to Rathmines library to collect a few books I had on reserve. One of them was The Ketogenic Kitchen which is filled with both low carb and keto recipes.

After the library I went to The Hopsack in the Swan Centre where I bought almond flour for Fathead Pizza which I planned on making later that day.

The Hopsack is a great speciality health store that has a massive selection of items and very friendly and helpful staff.


I also bought a few other groceries from Dunnes and then made my way to Parcel Motel on Sandford Road to pick up a parcel (wine glasses for Ciaran's next exhibition).

Whoa my bike crate was packed full - I did not realise how large my package would be!!

But it was all good, I managed to fit it all in.

I only got around to making the low carb Fathead Pizza today.

Here are all of the ingredients that you mix together to make the base.

 

Here it is with the base cooked and the toppings added. All I need to do is put it back in the oven to melt the cheese and voila I will have a perfect low carb thin and crispy pizza for us to enjoy!

Update:

The low carb pizza was a great success. We both agreed it hit the spot and thought it was far tastier than the cauli pizza that I made awhile back.

"Room" at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin

While I was on lunch in work yesterday, I received a text from my sister asking what time were we meeting before going to "Room" in the Abbey.

What!!!

I had completely forgotten that we had made plans!

But there was no issue, I assured her I would cycle directly to her apartment from work. We could have drinks and something to eat there and then make our way to the theatre.

And so that is what we did!

 "Room" started out as a book by Emma Donoghue and then was adapted in to a film and now is a play.

Here I am ordering drinks for us at the bar - ignore my luminous yellow cycling jacket!!

When we entered the theatre, we found our seats near the front. I have said this before but it is worth reiterating - I don't think there is a bad seat to be found in the Abbey. I always end up in the cheaper seats and have never had a bad view of the stage.

What a play.

It was harrowing to watch in so many different parts but was handled so sensitively. It was real, it was raw and it was a very difficult watch at times. But it was also uplifting and hopeful quite possibly due to the spirit of Jack and his Ma because of her desire to get him out of Room.

The crescendo at the end of the first half left us with tears in our eyes and a lump in my throat as the curtain went down. I could not wait to get back in and see the second half.

The next part of the play was just as good as the first part and as we left the theatre we both agreed that it was one of the best plays we had seen. Everything was done so well, the script, the staging and most importantly the acting. It was a phenomenal production and if you get the chance to see it you should definitely go.

Pre-ordered interval drinks are the best.  They are a small pleasure in life :-) 

Thanks Amy for a wonderful night and tickets to a great play!

No more rain checks with Georgia in Dublin!

I am an unashamed fair weather cyclist. I enjoy short cycles in good weather.

However, things have changed for me in recent times. I have got a new job with a shorter commute. The shorter commute gives me the opportunity to cycle to work and get nearer to my goal of turning us in to a one car household.

So on Wednesday I set off on the 11km cycle to my new workplace. It was a beautiful cycle out by the coast but with about 10 minutes to go, it started bucketing rain. I got soaked.

I got so wet that I had to go buy a new pair of trousers before I went in to work!

I then got rained on again when I cycled home.  Well this is Ireland!

So when I got home my mind was made up. I loved the cycle to work and would do it again the next day but I also really needed to buy good rain wear.

I blogged about the amazing Georgia in Dublin range in the past and decided that now was the time to buy their innovative rain skirt and "leggits"

I knew that Georgia in Dublin was sold in The Design House which is a gorgeous shop that sells the most fantastic handcrafted and Irish designed  items. 

Having Friday off work I took a trip in to the city (by bike of course!) to purchase my rain skirt in The Design House.

 

In The Design House I was most ably assisted by a friendly gentleman who helped me find my size of clothing and who also chatted to me about the range and how great it is.

I decided to buy the rain skirt in black and the leggits in an olive green colour. The leggits slip on over your shoes so, like the rain skirt, are convenient for cyclists to quickly cover up if it begins to rain on a cycle.

After buying my leggits and rain skirt I loaded up my crate with all of my purchases including some items I had bought in M&S. 

When I got home I tried on my new rain gear.

Here I am suited and booted....

 

 
Georgia in Dublin also do fabulous jackets for over the rain skirt and while they are stunning they are also quite pricey so I might have to wait until my birthday before I get the matching jacket.

So until then it is my old luminous jacket that will have to do!

My next purchase from Georgia in Dublin will be the polar gloves and cuffs which I spotted in The Design House store. I didn't know that they did gloves, but was happy to see them, as in the middle of getting rained on a thought had struck me that waterproof gloves would be of use.

Here's the link for their gloves on the Georgia in Dublin website.

You can also check out their website to see where your nearest stockist is. However, even if you can't find a shop near your home you will be glad to know that Georgia in Dublin ship internationally!

Georgia in Dublin on YouTube

Miro in Mallorca

We are back from the most relaxing trip to Mallorca last week.

It was our first time staying in an AirBnB and we would highly recommend the website.  The AirBnB we ended up in is only a few doors up from the Miro Studios and Museum. It was so good we visited 3 times!!

Other things that we did were visit the Spanish Royal Family's Summer Palace Gardens (Marivent), have a lovely meal in the amazing Il Paradiso and we also took a short bus ride in to Palma to visit the Es Baluard modern art museum.

Here's pics from the trip which I will let them do the talking!

Holiday Reads - Picoult, McInerney, Bryson & Silver

As I was limited to hand luggage on my recent trip to Mallorca, I only brought two physical books but also packed my tablet to download books from the library.

Here's an outline of the books that I read.

I started with "Small Great Things" by Jodi Picoult. This is not a challenging read although it deals with the challenging subject of racism and prejudice in modern day America. I found the book to be very interesting and well written - I always enjoy reading anything by Picoult and have no hesitation in recommending this read.

The next books I read were downloaded eReads. I had brought "The Sellout" by Paul Beatty but it just didn't hook me after reading a few pages so I left it to the side.

Here's all of the books that I downloaded on my Amazon Fire:

 "Hot Pants in Hollywood" by Susan Silver was a perfectly fine holiday read. Nothing to write home about but perfectly readable. It is a biography with stories by Silver of her time as a writer in Hollywood, writing for such shows as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". I found it interesting to read about what it was a like as a "woman writer" in this era and it has echos of Helen Gurley Brown's "Sex and the Single Girl".

Monica McInerney is an Irish Australian author who writes (in my opinion) somewhat similarly to Maeve Binchy in a sweet sentimental way about Ireland and Australia. I really enjoy reading her books since I first read "The Alphabet Sisters" on a beach in Sydney, Australia nearly 20 years ago - it had me in tears.

Bill Bryson is my "go to" for a bit of humour. I read this book before but it was good to go back to it again on this trip. This is his book about his return to the USA after 20 years in Britain so there is lots of contrasting between the two countries in Bryson's hilariously funny way.

I read "Spies in the family" on the plane home. It was lucky that I downloaded a book to read as we were delayed for a few hours with a tech issue being discovered as we went to take off. After engineers fixed the problem we had another aborted takeoff before being taken off this plane and moved to another one. Mallorca is only 2.5 hours from Ireland so all of the issues with the plane doubled our travel and then some.  
Thank goodness for free eBooks from the library!!

For info:
I read eBooks on my Amazon Fire. As it is a tablet and not an eReader it is not easy to read in the sun as it does not have a "paper screen" like an eReader. However, I was given a tip by a friend to switch the screen to black with white writing. It worked perfectly and I was able to read in the sun with no issues!

And in case you are wondering, children's eBooks are also generally available for free from your library with graphic novels and cartoons too!