ManicMammy's Blog

Reviews, news, family, wine and me

Wexbird here we come

photo credit: jwalsh So the bags are nearly all packed, car’s getting loaded up and we’re off on our annual trip to Wexbird as the kids call it. The extended August bank holiday weekend is meetup time for Conor’s clann: his sisters, their kids and his parents. Its good fun and the kids in particular [...]

Double Fault by Lionel Shriver

Double Fault by Lionel Shriver So Wimbledon was in progress, I was in my local bookshop and this novel caught my eye. Its the story of Willy, a low ranking tennis professional on the way up when we first encounter her. She’s been playing tennis since aged four and is now in her mid twenties [...]

Hanging out with Oisín

O’Conaill’s Milk and White Chocolate Chips Today myself and Oisín had a day out to ourselves. It was very enjoyable as he’s a highly entertaining fellow and was in top chatty form.  We ambled about Cork city centre and inevitably visited O’Conaill’s Chocolate shop on French church Street. As I’ve mentioned before this place is [...]

Its raining, its pouring

Chuckies Playzone, Doughcloyne Industrial Estate, Sarsfield Road, Wilton, Cork, Ireland Last Friday, it rained all day here. I was on my own with the children and by around 4pm we were all going ever so slightly stir crazy, cabin fever had struck. With the weather showing no signs of abating, we set out for Chuckies [...]

If you love chocolate….

Spicendipity Chocolate Brownie Mix Hurrah,  the Spicendipity site is open for business. It looks gorgeous and theres a great selection of spice mixes, sauces, baking mixes and gift hampers. In addition, a very helpful recipe section which gives plenty of serving/cooking suggestions and examples and is therefore excellent for people like me who are culinary [...]

You can’t beat the taste and aroma of freshly baked bread

Arbutus’ Granny Ryan’s West Cork Brown Soda Mix One of the many stalls we visited whilst at the Taste of Cork festival was Declan Ryan’s Arbutus bread one. After sampling the delicious bread we decided to purchase a few bags of his West Cork Brown Soda Mix to take home. Finally got organised enough to [...]

Changes

Why has my very soon to be 3 year old son, Fionn morphed from angelic this: to this: Lunchtime today: Me: “Would you like some toasted ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch Fionn?” Fionn: “No, I want flat eggs with toast.” (Sibéal’s term for poached eggs) Me: “Are you sure, I think you’d prefer ham [...]