At the Symphonie

 On Friday night we had the most amazing time with a pre-theatre dinner in Ovedoble and then on to Teatro Cervantes for a symphony performance.

Ovedoble is located right next to the Roman ruins. It's very busy as this is the heart of the tourist area in Malaga. However, that doesn't stop this restaurant serving the most creative tapas dishes.  We were a group of 5 and we shared 4 different dishes between us. I love this as it allows you to taste dishes that you may not have ordered if you were only getting one plate of food in front of you.

I only took one picture which was toasted black noodles with Malaga squid. So flavourful and fun to look at too!

And after dinner it was on to Teatro Cervantes to see the Philharmonic Orchestra of Malaga. Nothing in Malaga is a far walk and the theatre was only about 5 minutes away from the restaurant. The symphony was spectacular and the theatre setting is fantastically atmospheric - I'd go back even to just look at the painting on the ceiling of the theatre.

Unfortunately someones phone went off during the performance, and I've never seen this before but on the second time the musicians were put off and stopped playing. The conductor then turned and addressed the audience asking everyone to turn off their phones and then restarted the piece of music that there were in the middle of. Thankfully they were supremely professional and the performance went on without a hitch after that.

Jose Maria Moreno conducted while the soloist was Cello Player Senja Rummukainen with both being  spectacularly good.

Here's a few pics before and after the show.

As we entered, some of the musicians were settling in on stage

A view of the ceiling from the floor beneath where we were sitting

A view of the theatre from the first floor

A The view from my seat. Ciaran was meant to sit beside me but a friend who was sitting at the edge of a row on the other side of the theatre switched out his seat so that Ciaran could stretch his knee out. Space was tight so I don't think he could have actually sat in his assigned seat with his injured leg, so he gratefully accepted the offer of an alternative seat.

Cooling down in Malaga

After a week of the most beautiful weather in Malaga, clouds have arrived with lower temperatures. 

We have swam in the sea every morning since we arrived, however it was way to windy and choppy for a swim today. However, we still walked to the beach which is about 20 mins there and then back.

I've been remiss in taking photos as I am trying to have a digital detox and am not bringing my phone with me at all times. So here's a few pics for you, but unfortunately no photos of our favourite lunch spot where we have a small portion of peel and eat Tiger Prawns with a small drink. Ordering the prawns is interesting as you order and pay by the 100 grams - and needs to be done all in Spanish! It was intimidating the first time but now I am fine with it!!

Photos below are in no particular order...

Here's the most amazing cheesecakes that were swerved to us by a friend in her home. She bought 4 different flavours and they were all divine: Chocolate, Original, Bluecheese....and for the life of me I can't remember what the 4th was. But either way they were all great and I will be seeking out the cheesecake shop in Soho that she got them from.

Walking home from dinner a few days ago we passed by the Cathedral. It was dusky so it was the perfect time to take a photo and you can see the moon at the top of the pic.

This photo was taken today and as you can see there is no blue sky, just cloud. I am actually wearing trousers right now to stay warm!

Here's one of my favourite places, Constitution Plaza. It's pedestrianised so am not sure what the car is doing. This square was quite close to where we lived in Malaga in 2020/21.

We visited Recycleo Cafe and Bike Shop and got a great "Solo" coffee. Great location near to where we are currently staying and a good cup of coffee which we are always seeking out in Malaga.

Check this tray of Empanadas out! They were served to us by our friend before she offered the chessecakes above - so so good!! And accompanied by an incredible bottle of champagne. We felt truly spoiled!

Tonight we are going to an orchestral performance in the Teatro Cervantes which is an incredible space and during the week we also visited the Carmen Thysson Museum, so we are getting up to lots of cultural things as well as eating out and going for early morning swims. Ciaran of course is really busy in his Art Residency and then there is lots of meeting up and socialising with friends to be done. 

One other fun thing I did was go to an outdoor "Bachata" dance class. This was a lot of fun dancing in the outdoors was new to me and I got to dance with people from all over including from Greece, Argentina, Bulgaria and Denmark.

So it has been a quick week in Malaga but am looking forward to having lots more great experiences.....and I will do better with the blogging.

Hasta luego!

We made it to Malaga!

We are in Malaga - us and all our 5 bags!!!

After a hectic day of final packing and organizing on Thursday, I was up early on Friday morning (4.30am) to do further work before going to the airport for our 11am flight.

We had planned to get the Blue Aircoach which has a stop that is only a short walk away from our house. However, after adding a last minute extra bag to our booking and given Ciaran's injury we decided a taxi was a better option. Also we were travelling at rush hour so the taxi gave us the option of taking the tunnel to the airport which helped us get there with no delays.

After we got all of our bags checked in (which included 2 fold up bikes in hard cases which needed to be brought to the oversize drop off) and getting through security fairly promptly we were able to relax. First point of order was to have a double espresso from Butlers and then we decided to have a "last drink" in Dublin so went to the bar and ordered beer and bubbles.

I got a little teary as we walked past the old Dublin airport terminal. It felt like such a momentous thing to be saying goodbye to Dublin for a year. But very exciting to see what awaits in Malaga.

When we arrived in Malaga it was so bright!! We had to dip our head as we emerged from the airport. I thought it was just me but when I said it to Ciaran he was in complete agreement.

We got another taxi at this end too - in Spanish we were able to tell the guy directing the taxis that we needed a big taxi because we had so many bags. And then when we got in to the taxi we managed to give directions for where we were going in Spanish too.

And then when we arrived to our AirBnB we discovered (1) it was above our favourite cafe bar Te-Piko but that our favourite coffee shop El Mortal has closed and is now a pub.  Ah well things never stay the same.

It was amazing how quickly we got back in to the swing of things, with Ciaran calling straight to the guys in the gallery and then walking with them to his studio space where he then got the keys. 

And later we went for some tapas in a 2 favourite places, one being Te-Piko followed by an early night by Spanish standards - after a long day for me, I was asleep by 10.30am!!

Here's a few pics of what we ate on our first night and also the view of the plaza from our balcony.

Tunnock's Tea Cakes

For Christmas this year Ciaran gave me a Monika Crowley Tea Cakes print.  He then got it framed after Christmas and we hung it recently in the kitchen area of the house. 

I adore it!!

I love the fact that art can resonate so personally with each viewer.  When I look at this print it brings me right back a few years ago to a time where, along with 2 other staff members, I worked in a small library in Fingal. One of my colleagues brought in a box of Tunnock's Tea Cakes in to the library and we all tucked in......and thenbecame hooked. We each brought box after box in to the library and then some relief staff started bringing a box with them when they were sent to cover in the library.There were stacks of boxes of Tunnocks Tea Cakes like a shop. We literally turned in to the Tunnock Tea Cake Library branch!!

And then when one of our original team was leaving the library, I decided to make a "Tunnock Tea Cake Mountain". I bought a load of Tunnock's Tea Cakes and took them out of the box and piled them high. It was quite the sight and a lot of fun!!

So when I saw Monika's artwork and her print of the two Tunnock's Tea Cakes, it brough me right back to that fun time when I worked in that library that I loved. Good times and great memories!

The Good Neighbour, Rathmines

The Good Neighbour is now open in Rathmines across from the Swan Centre.

This afternoon, I took a wander to Rathmines in order to drop off two bags of donated clothes to the Oxfam Charity Shop. 

Afterwards I popped in to the newly opened Good Neighbour store (it is where The Source used to be located).  It's a zero waste shop that allowes you to measure out exactly what you need of any item and fill your own container, or use a brown paper bag that they have available for use there in the shop.

I bought some Onion Powder along with a selection of seeds in order to make some Seed Crackers. I had Chia Seeds and Psyllium Husk at home so I only needed to buy some mixed seeds which includes sunflower, pumpkin and linseeds. I also got some seasame seeds.

And here's the seed crackers that I made!

They are easy to make and taste great - and are perfect with cheese or butter. They kind of remind me of a ryvita cracker and it is awesome to be able to make crackers at home rather than buying commercially made store bought ones. I highly recommend them and with seeds available just about everywhere it's easy to source the ingredients (especially if you visit The Good Neighbour, which I highly recommend too1)

Happy St Patrick's Day!

 All the best to you, wherever you are, on St Patrick's Day

It's a quiet one here in Dublin for us, we had a brunch of rashers and eggs while we watched the Dublin Parade on RTE1. 

In past years I've cycled in the parade with the Dublin Cycling Campaign but they aren't taking part this year.

In fairness, it's a fine day here in Dublin with no rain. About the best you can hope for in Ireland!

So wherever you are in the world - have a great day.

Bank Holiday chores

 I was up early this morning to start on a big chore - cleaning my oven....which had not been done, let's say "in awhile".

I started the cleaning at about 7am by applying "Oven Mate" to all of the surfaces in the oven that had baked on grime. This was pretty much all of the sides and the door on the mini oven that we use the most and just the bottom of the regular size oven that we generally only use at Christmas time or when we have friends over for dinner.  Along with the two ovens, there is also the built in microwave but I cleaned that the other day. 

I bought Oven Mate in Supervalu and looking online it got lots of good reviews, so I was interested to see if it would work.  If it didn't work, I was going to go with Plan B which was to get a professional oven cleaner in to do the job.

After I applied the gel, I had to leave it for a few hours (or it can be left overnight if it is really bad) so I headed off to my parents house for a visit. I drove over to their house after booking a "Go Car". This was my first time to use a Go Car and my first time to drive in since about 2020!!  

When I returned home after a few hours, I started on the removal of the Oven Mate gel which had turned to a disgusting brown gunge.

Here's the oven before I cleaned off the gel:

And the results speak for themselves, here's the after!

It was a dirty messy job and it took ages (and a lot of paper towels). But I was very pleased with the results and I highly recommend this product for the job.

Next time I won't leave it so long!!

When life gives you lemons....

Got a cute new wreath for my front door and I adore it!

I had a browse in TK Maxx for a Spring or Easter wreath and among all the ones with eggs and bunnies on them, I found this unique one with lemons on it. To me it looks more Spring like and less Easter like which is exactly the look I was going for. I added the yellow ribbon in order to tie it to the front door and it is all set. So cheery and uplifting.

And speaking of when life gives you lemons....

Ciaran had a slip and injured his knee. Currently awaiting MRI report to see what the diagnosis is. Fingers crossed it is not as bad as it currently seems, given that he can't put any weight on his leg.

Hopefully we will know more early next week, but for the moment he is icing it and taking medications as prescribed. Watch this space....

Cheese O's delivery!

 I haven't had Cheese O's in ages but I saw some being delivered to Super Valu the other day as I was walking through the car park so it prompted me to put in an order for delivery.

Since the last time I ordered some, I saw that some of the flavours have oils or other ingredients that I don't want to consume. However, I think the Cheddar and Salt & Vinegar flavour are clean enough and contain only ingredients that I am comfortable eating.

Cheese O's are shipped from Fermoy, County Cork and with my order made on Sunday, they arrived to my door on Tuesday morning. So convenient and all nicely packed up (see pic below).

They certainly ship to Ireland and the UK, but beyond that I am not sure. Maybe they are available through Amazon to other desinations?  Not sure about this - let me know if you have ordered from far afield and I can edit my blog.

They are seriously tasty - particularly the Salt & Vinegar flavour and the Cheddar flavour is very cheesy too. A really nice keto snack!

There are some carbs in Cheese O's but the full ingredients and macros are listed on the website so you can check all of this out before you decide to order. The Cheddar ones are probably the cleanest and are literally made of Cheddar cheese with no added flavourings. 

What I like about them is that they contain a fair bit of protein and I'm currently working on increasing my protein intake. So they work for me!

Do let me know if you have tasted Cheese O's or if you prefer to eat other low carb/keto snacks. Drop me a line in the comments below.....

PIGSY Art is in a Group Show in Ranelagh

 

"Sound & Vision" is the latest exhibition to open in Ranelagh Arts. Curated by Dino Notaro of Slow Lane Gallery it opens this Friday and runs for the whole of March 2024.

PIGSY is one of the participating artists in this group show and you can read more about it on his website here. 

See you at the opening if you plan on dropping in!

And in the meanwhile you can also watch a short film about PIGSY's last exhibition in Ranelagh Arts below

Sardines for days!

 Have you heard about the Sardine Challenge?!

While looking up the macros of Sardines (which I love) I happened on a video by Dr Annette Bosworth, otherwise known as "Dr Boz", all about sardines and fasting.

As I said, I love sardines, both their taste and their convenience. 

So what do you think I am doing this week?! Yes a sardine fast!

With a variety of tins of sardines available in Tesco, including John West, King Oscars (spratts) and Shines which is an Irish brand of spratts / sardines, I picked up a few cans today.  And then for dinner I had sardines along with some cauliflower cheese left over from yesterday. Really delicious and really easy! 

What do you think?  Will you give the Sardine Challenge a go?!

Out and about in Dublin

Last Thursday myself and Alice met up to go to the theatre!

We had met about two weeks previously and Alice had suggested we go to John B Keane's "Sive" which was showing in The Gaiety.

It was a marvellous performance and a thought provoking tale. A really enjoyable evening out and great to see the very well known actress Fionnula Flanagan in the role of Sive's grandmother.

Then on Friday, it was off to the cinema with Ciaran to watch "The Iron Claw". It was great! A movie about the Von Erich wrestling family and starred the always underrated, in my opinion, Zac Ephron. We saw this film in Cineworld on Parnell Street and then went for wings afterwards in All Bar Chicken on Capel Street. 

I had to work on Saturday but it was up and early on Sunday where I meal prepped for the week and made amongst other things Meatloaf and Keto Bread. 

And then later on in the day, I went to a 5pm Hot Yoga class (Bikram) in the gorgeous Yoga Yard Studio in Irishtown. It was a nice cycle to the studo with no traffic due to road closures around the Aviva stadium because Ireland were playing rugby in the 6 Nations.  Coming home was a different story because it started raining just I started unlocking my bike.

It was a great class and probably even better because I was fasting all day and was wondering if I could manage the class in a fasted state having not eaten since probably about 8pm the day before.  I did manage the class buy was well ready for dinner when I get home. I was glad I had meal prepped and had food ready literally as I walked in the door!!

The Source in Rathmines

After work this evening I walked to Rathmines to buy some items in "The Source".

The Source is a shop where you bring your own container or use a shop supplied bag to buy whatever weight of an item that you require.

It's so clever really and a good way of cutting out food waste and also extra costs.

For example, I wanted to buy a cup or two of Coconut Flour rather than a big bag as I only plan on using it to make a loaf or two of Keto bread. And I only need this small amount.

I also plan on making Chicken Shawarma and so I was able to buy just what I needed, which is a few teaspoons of gound cardamon.

It's a fun little shop, and I enjoyed browsing everything and measuring out what I planned on buying.

One interesting thing that I saw is that they sell protein powders which again you can weigh out in a small volume rather than buy those big expensive containers of protein powders. I bought 100g of Hazelnut Chocolate protein powder that I plan to add to a Keto Cheesecake that I will make this weekend.

There is lots to buy in this shop (they even sell freshly made nut butters) so I plan to go again soon for another browse.

Let me know if you have ever bought from a shop like this before - how did you find it?!

Brigid's Bank Holiday

Happy Brigid's BH!

Great to have a break from work for St Brigid's Day.  With Monday off I made a plan to do a few things over the weekend. 

The first thing I did on Saturday morning was take the bus to Ikea over in Ballymun. The bus journey was fine but Ikea was packed and hellish. When I arrived I immediately wanted to leave! 

I was buying a lampshade so I got it quickly and left and got the bus back within an hour of arriving.

With Ciaran away playing squash in Belfast, I had the opportunity to catch up on a bit of reading and am nearly finished John Stamos' biography "If you would have told me"

Fun to read about John Stamos starring in Gore Vidal's  "The Best Man" - my twin sister saw him in this play - you can read about that here!

On Sunday morning, after a walk, I sat down with a cup of coffee to watch the Tommy Tiernan Show. I specifically watched it to see a lady I went to school with (about 35 years ago!!!) being interviewed by Tommy. She is Karen Dempsey the founder of "Entheos" and also known as the Bald Headed Priestess. You can watch the interview on the RTE player and I highly recommend it - she is one interesting lady!

Ciaran came back from Belfast in the afternoon and we walked to Ranelagh to get something for dinner. Before we went to Lidl, we called to Nick's Coffee as we knew Nickie Harrington was doing a pop up with some of her art and jewellery for sale. It was nice to chat with her and her boyfriend and I got these lovely new earrings!

And then for tomorrow I'm taking part in a parade for St Brigid's Day. What fun!

Watch this space tomorrow when I share all about how the parade of "Brigid's on Bikes" goes.

Edit - 

Here's a little clip from the Karen Dempsey interview on the Tommy Tiernan Show

Cinema Sunday

I've wanted to go to see "The Holdovers" since I first saw the trailer for it.

So this morning we went off to Smithfield (on bus & Luas) to watch it at an 11.40am showing in the Lighthouse.

Before we went in to the cinema, we had coffee in Mad Yolks Cafe which is just across the square from the cinema. There are loads of tasty egg breakfast dishes but we were happy with just an Americano. They serve "Full Circle" coffee and it was pretty good.

The view wasn't bad either as we were facing the Smithfield 360 degrees viewing tower.

After our coffee, we headed over to The Lighthouse and bought tickets for the show and settled in to screen 2 to watch the film. We like this movie theatre. They have signs up saying that vaping is not allowed in the cinema - this is appreciated as neither of us like the smell of vapes one bit and we've been to certain cinemas where people have vaped through movies. Ugh.

But thankfully no vaping today!

It was a really great film, we both really enjoyed it and spent the time getting home talking about it, the characters and the acting in general. Both of us agreeing that Paul Giamatti absolutely holds your attention in every scene. I loved the overall nostalgic feel to the movie and I think the 1970's was captured perfectly on film.

All in all a great morning on the "Northside" and I highly recommend going to The Holdovers!

Guess what these are?!

 

Any idea what these might be in the picture above?

Well they are intense buttery and toffee tasting. 

Still no idea?!

Well......they are called "Brown Butter Bites" and I made them on the pan today by simply browning butter and then pouring in to silicone moulds to set. That's it, that's all I did in order to make these sweet little buttery bites.

If you want to make them you can google exactly how to do it, but all you need ingredient wise is butter.  Next time however, I am thinking I will add in some chocolate flavour (or peanutbutter!) protein powder in order to elevate these bites from a regular Keto fat bomb to a protein fat bomb. Watch this space!

The most beautiful Yoga Studio in Dublin

There's a new yoga studio in Dublin! 

It's called Yoga Yard in Irishtown and it's open less than a year in a newly purpose built studio. 

I visited Yoga Yard this weekend and did a Hatha 25 + 2  class on Saturday morning.  Then on Sunday morning I did what was called "Hot Sunday Fusion" and boy was it hot as well as being very tough!! The Saturday hot yoga class is probably the one that I will be looking to repeat.

I signed up for a 5 class series over the next month and I look forward to doing some more yoga classes in this beautiful studio over the next few weeks. It really is the loveliest place with a spacious and airy reception and a spotlessly clean studio with a special floor surface not like most Bikram studios that have that awful carpet on the studio floor. The studio is also cleaned in between each class which is really great to know. Additional to the studios there are changing rooms with showers that again are spotlessly clean and well laid out - all in all really great facilities that make for a a brilliant yoga experience.

With the studio being about a 15 minute cycle away from my house it is very accessible and I can't see myself going to another studio after visiting this one!

It's a downhill cycle on the way to the studio so a little bit tough on the way home as there are a few small hills to navigate. But so very worth the effort :-) 

New Year - new you?

Happy New Year - here's to 2024!

To be honest, I'm not really in to the whole "New Year, New You" thing. To be fair, self improvement is always a good thing but on the other hand, do you really think you need to be a whole "New You"?

Small changes are probably something better to focus on rather than large scale resolutions. So with this in mind, here's a few things that I am going to focus on in 2024

First thing is sustainability.  I'm going to try buy less new clothes and items and instead try and buy vintage or secondhand, or alternatively reuse things.  Another thing that I will do is try and get a lend of an item that I may only use once or twice, rather than buying.

The next thing is I am going to do is read more because, well, nothing bad comes from reading more! Already I'm mid way through a book I borrowed from the library yesterday and have put my name on a request list for Reece Witherspoon's first book club read of 2024.

Looking after my body is my third focus, and along with getting more sleep, I am going to as always focus on my diet with continued intermittent fasting and a low carb diet. A change for me is that I am actively going to focus on getting more protein in to my body along with taking a vitamin D supplement.

I'd love to hear from you - what are your new year changes that you plan to make?!

Sharing a pic of myself that was included in my sister's "Christmas Portraits" project - to see the rest of the Christmas portrait pics on instagram, click here.

Announcing the winner of the 2023 annual "Christmas Sandwich Search"!

 

So here it is.....the winner of the annual Christmas Sandwich Search!

As you have seen in the past few blogs, myself and PIGSY have been on the hunt for the best Christmas Sandwich in Dublin. In order to complete this task we both put forward two places offering Christmas sandwiches and set off to eat in these places and sample their sandwich offering. We also included last year's winner on the list so this meant that we had 5 places to visit in the month of December.

The five cafe's / restaurants are:

KC Peaches (last year's winner)

Gerard's Deli (Enid's nomination)

Greenville Deli (Enid's nomination)

247 Deli (Ciaran's nomination)

Junior's Deli (Ciaran's nominaton)

Unfortunately we didn't get to visit 147 Deli due to certain circumstances but we did get to visit some bonus venues that were not on the list above. With marks out of 50, our scores for each Christmas Sandwich offering are outlines below (in no particular order):

KC Peaches 28/50

Farmer Brown's 36/50

Greenville Deli 38/50

Itsa Bagel 31/50

Gerard's Deli 29/50

Starbucks 33/50

Juniors Deli 32/50

Two Fifty Square 33/50

You can read back over detailed reviews of the sandwiches here but with the rating not just based on taste there are alot of variables that can effect where a sandwich ranks.

But the sandwich that won out in the end, was....drumroll please......

GREENVILLE DELI

I'm not surprised that this sandwich won, as it was actually the only one that we went and got a second time over the month of December and it was also the one that we spoke positively the most about.

It's been a fun event to do in the month of December and it also pushes us to try new places.  We are creatures of habit so we tend to over visit venues we like rather than risk giving a chance to alternatives.

Let me know what you think of our fun little competition and whether you do anything like this also!