ManicMammy’s Blog

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 bake one today. You just need to add 1/2 pint of water to the dry ingredients in the bag which include wholemeal wheat flour, pinhead oatmeal, dried buttermilk, bread soda and cream of tartar. Pop in the oven for 45 minutes or so and violá, its ready. This is what I love, its so convenient. I don’t need any extra ingredients here in the house.

It’s smell was fabulous and it tasted divine. I am a sucker for fresh bread with butter and this met my expectations.

It cost €2 per pack which makes a good sized load as can be seen above. I used a silicone bakeware container which isn’t as rigid as standard loaf tins and so its flatter a loaf than I’d normally expect.

I will definitely be keeping a few packs of this mix on standby in the cupboard and use on a regular basis. Excellent product. I’m not sure where else it is available to purchase, I am hoping I’ll be able to find it in the English market in Cork or in the other local farmers’ markets.

UPDATE: emailed Arbutus and discovered the mix is available at Mahon Point Market on Thursdays, Midleton Market on Saturdays or from Nash19 Restaurant.

Since Sibeal inherited her brother’s repackaged, that is, case changed to a pink one, Nintendo DS, we have been on the lookout for a game that would suit her. As she can’t read yet, many of the console games out just didn’t work for her. I bought the Imagine Fashion Designer initially, as she loves playing the dressing up games on nickjr.com or webkinz etc. This didn’t work for her though as there is alot of reading involved and she hasn’t reached a stage where she could competently follow the games and tasks so that DS game was abandoned and she was peeved.

I then spotted ‘I did it Mum’ online. I was unable to track it down locally but purchased one on ebay for approximately 23 euro. Initial impressions were great. You record a parent’s voice saying an encouraging or congratulatory sentence. This is then what is heard by the child as he/she completes a task or game. She was delighted with this, as I did one and Conor recorded a second one.

The basic layout is very graphical with keywords and she is able to navigate it easily. The games are fairly basic: colouring, puzzles, dress up, find the difference, a couple memory games: one cards, one sounds, counting, drawing and a tiny piano keyboard where you can record and play back.

So far she has enjoyed having her very own nintendo game and the independence of being able to tackle it alone and not needing reading assistance from us. My only complaint is that the games are very basic and she is tiring of them at this stage so I can’t see its appeal lasting much longer which is a pity.

I do think the whole layout and especially the touch of being able to customise the recording of the parent’s voice to praise the child is excellent.

On Wednesday afternoon, we were driving from Bandon to Ratoath in Meath when we decided to stop at the Midway food court in Portlaoise as both adults and the 5 kids were hungry, tired and in need of a break.

We have stopped there previously and enjoyed a decent meal for us all at Tapenade, its just off the motorway so very handy with plenty of parking. However recently all of Tapenade’s main courses have tended to be too spicy for the children and so they have elected just to eat O’Briens filled bread rolls. I would much prefer if Tapenade would offer at least one non-spicy/hot main dish like they used to and therefore keep all happy. Our gang previously loved their meatballs.

However on this visit we were pleasantly surprised to see that a Little Caesars Pizza outlet had opened.
The kids all decided there and then that they’d love some pizza. First, I must say we ordered way too much food. The pizzas come in one size, 14″ and they’re huge. Definitely one to share between 2 people is more than enough.

The service was very friendly and efficient and the pepperoni, hawaiian and cheese pizzas were fairly good. Thin crispy base and a fine serving of toppings. The kids and adults happily ate them. Conor also ordered some hot chicken wings. To be honest, he didn’t really like them: not hot enough and badly cooked, one side burnt.

The italian cheese bread was universally abandoned. No one liked the taste or consistancy of it.

Overall, I would say that the pizza outlet in this foodcourt is definitely a welcomed addition as it gives more choice to adults and children alike. The pizzas are huge and good value at €9. The staff were helpful. We’ll probably be stopping by again on our next journey from Cork to Dublin but this time we’ll be more selective in what and the amount that we order.

Just 3 episodes in and I’m really looking forward to the next instalment of this drama series. Set in an advertising world of New York in 1960, it centres on Don Draper, the creative director of the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency.

Initially we see the facade of a suave, goodlooking, stylish man working in this fast paced, pressurised world with his picture perfect wife and 2 kids to go home to. Then the cracks begin to appear: his mistress, drinking, alternative name and we begin to realise all is not as it seems and the snap analysis of this man that we made on initial viewing may not be the real one.

The first episode also heralds the arrival of his new secretary, Peggy Olsen who initially appears very naive and out of her depth as she hears a barage of advice on what to wear, how to act, who to placate from Joan, the office manager. The whole typing pool is something to behold.

The New York of 1960 is incredibly well portrayed here. It looks fabulous, the costumes, scenery and feel faultless. Every scene seems to have the majority of characters smoking, which is really odd to see now. Pregnant women drinking, drink driving, sexism, racism: all subjects that are now not tolerated are shown and it does really strike home how much has changed in the intervening years. It does make uncomfortable viewing at times.

The dialogue is sharp and the rivalry and subterfuge between the ad execs is entertaining as they struggle to come up with the next winning slogan and ad campaign. Their certainty that Dickie Nixon is a shoe in for the upcoming election and the wives’ bewilderment at why the new single mother on the block just likes to walk to clear her head without having a purposeful destination adds to the humour.

Worth keeping an eye out for, I’m looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds.

Its Summer time yeah, at last and legs all over the country and being let out to see the sun after their Winter hibernation.

photo credit: frischmilch

For over a decade now, the husband has been a fan of the King of Shaves shaving oil products so when I recently spotted the woman’s version I decided to invest and see what all the fuss is about.

The verdict: Its great. It smells really fresh. I like the smell of tea tree oil and this with peppermint are the predominant aromas of this product. You massage a small amount of it onto your damp/wet skin, it lathers slightly but not in a conventional shaving foam “can’t see your legs” way. The razor glides very smoothly along your skin. I haven’t had any nicks, cuts or angry, irritated red skin since beginning to use this gel.

The result is smooth, soft, shaven legs that smell great. It cost approximately €5 but the one tube lasts for ages.  RESULT! Me happy and all set for the beach. Let the sunny weather continue.

photo credit: naama

For Oscar’s first birthday my dad bought him an aquarium and some fish. He loved it. But since moving to Bandon 5 years ago, its just been stored as we never got around to setting it up here and restocking it with fish.

All changed last weekend as for his ninth birthday, we decided to get organised and get it set up once more.

I had seen the Potty Fish shop on the bypass road in Bandon and had heard from my sister in law, who has a dog that it was a good pet shop.

Its quite a large store set over 2 floors, with a range of animals to been seen and bought. The kids loved the rabbits, guinea pig and the many fish tanks filled with both tropical, coldwater fish and turtles.

The sales assistant was excellent. As it has been so long since we’ve had fish, I had forgotten much about their care and she was brilliant with offering advice. We left on Saturday with a bag of gravel for the bottom of our tank, new sponges for our water filters, water treatment and advice to set up the tank once more and get it running for at least 24 hours before we re-introduce fish to it.

We decided to just go down the coldwater fish route again as they seem less fragile than the tropical variety. The next day I bought a new filter as had discovered one of the old ones wasn’t working too well. Each of the older children selected a goldfish and we picked 3 small ones for the toddler. Once home, we copped the filter we had just purchased was too tall for our tank. We returned and it was exchanged with a smaller one, no bother.

Overall, I was very impressed with the customer service in this shop, the staff were extremely helpful. The shop stocks an extensive range of dog food, cat food, doghouses and accessories. Aswell as large and small aquaria, birds, cages and lots of pet accessories. Definitely worth checking out if you’ve a pet or thinking of getting one.

This morning did not start well: the car broke down on the school run and it was raining. After all was sorted: the car fixed and kids dropped to school, I decided to call in to The Found Out Cafe in Innishannon.

Its located on the Main Street, I pass it regularly on the way to and from Cork and always mean to pop in. Its bright, airy and very welcoming. Large windows which look out onto the street and not too crowded seat wise. Theres also a seating area outside at the rear for brighter days and for smokers. Once I was seated the waitress dropped over a menu.

I had intended just getting a coffee and a scone but the bagel with cream cheese and bacon caught my eye and I realised I was hungry.

I had expected more streaky and crispy bacon but chopped up bits of rasher, as you can see, were on top of the cream cheese. It did taste good, although I felt it lacked something. The latte was excellent. Total cost was approximately €7.

There was a steady stream of customers to the cafe whilst I was there on a Tuesday morning, though a trio of men left disappointed once they heard the full irish breakfast wasn’t available.

The menu offers a good range of salads, breads, brunch and lunch dishes aswell as a fine selection of cakes and tarts should afternoon tea appeal to you. Service was friendly and efficient.  It has a nice ambience and perfect for taking a few minutes out to revive, chill out and watch the world go by. I’ll definitely call again.

I recently discovered this website by way of a link from the main Mango site. Its basically a discount site that has garments from previous seasons available for sale at greatly reduced rates.

It suits me down to the ground as I’m not really a fashionista preferring to stick to shapes and colours that I feel suit me.

As result I ended up buying an assortment of 7 skirts and shorts for just under €100. Bargain. The only downside for me was that delivery wasn’t free as per the usual Mango website but cost €14.
Some of the garments are also limited in the sizes available, I would guess as result of more popular sizes selling out.

But definitely worth a look for the cheap prices.

Whilst on our Legoland trip a fortnight ago, we decided to eat out in Windsor on the Saturday night. We had intended finding a family friendly Italian restaurant or similar and rather naively hadn’t booked anywhere.

We arrived into Windsor around 7. It was a glorious Summer’s evening and the town was hopping. It was packed with people and unfortunately we discovered after traipsing from one restaurant to the next, that most restaurants were fully or nearly fully booked. The minimum waiting time for a table of 7 averaged at an hour and the kids were getting very hungry and tired.

We decided to try the King and Castle pub which is situated along the main street of Windsor. Its a large pub with plenty of outdoor seating. We ended up at a table on the first floor. A fairly extensive menu and kids menu were left for our perusal.

Photo taken from their website.

Conor headed to the bar to order. The four older children at this stage were very hungry and so ordered adult portions of lasagne, for the toddler spaghetti bolognese, I ordered scampi and Conor went with a steak. As it was a Saturday evening and the pub was packed, the service was understandably not as prompt as we would like.

When the food arrived 30 minutes or so later, the children wolfed down their lasagnes declaring them to be “nearly as good as Nana’s” - high praise indeed and their plates were almost licked clean. Unfortunately the toddler didn’t like her spaghetti bolognese, preferring instead to eat slices of garlic bread. My scampi wasn’t great: fairly tasteless and overcooked. Conor felt his steak ok, not medium rare as he had specified but more well done.

Overall the food was fairly mediocre, but the overall cost of the all the food plus 5 glasses of milk and 2 lagers was £56 which was surprisingly low and we left full. Perhaps if we had visited on a less hectic evening we would have fared better service and foodwise.

Where to start? We’re just back from the weekend away with Saturday and Sunday spent in Legoland Windsor.

Despite the really hot weather, the queues, the amount of people there, we all had a brilliant time and really enjoyed it. After two days there our legs were sore from walking, we still hadn’t managed to visit everything and so will probably return in a couple of years when the 1 and 2 year olds are big enough to enjoy the older kids’ rides.

We had bought Tesco Clubcard vouchers prior to going which meant the Adult day entrance fee was approximately €11 which compared brilliantly with the standard cost of £35. Annual passes were being offered for £10 when you presented one day’s entrance ticket so Oscar was chuffed to get his photo-id annual pass. This also gave a 10% discount in any of the Legoland shops and restaurants. Under 3s were free.

The site itself is huge and quite hilly so baby had her buggy on the first day. On the second we opted to hire one of the resort’s double buggies for £10 and the kids chopped and changed who used it, giving each in turn a break.

What I really liked about Legoland was that there was something for everyone. It is very well set up for families such as ours with many kids and a good range in ages. We all enjoyed the more sedate train rides through the site, traditional carousel, mini ferris wheel and balloon ride. As the weather was so hot the splash area in Duplo land was a particular hit. The children removed footwear and tops as fast as possible and ran around getting splashed and jumping in the water. They loved it.

I liked the way also that there were younger and older kids versions of the same attraction adjacent to each other in many of the areas. This meant that Conor could head with the older boys to the driving school whilst I accompanied the smaller pair to the mini driving school which was great fun and they enjoyed immensely.

The big hit that they all, apart from baby enjoyed on the first day was the fire engine. It was really simple but looked good fun.

On the first day, we were very disorganised and meandered around a fair bit. The hot weather taking us by surprise, the resort was very crowded and queues were quite long for most of the popular rides. As result all were weary quite early so we headed back to the hotel and the welcoming swimming pool to revive all.

The second day, Sunday was much better. Kids were all kitted out in Tshirts and shorts, we had a plan of action of where to head to first and what were the most wanted rides by our gang. Legoland seemed less crowded and the queues were very manageable. Vikings’ Splash started the day off well for Conor and the boys without too much hanging around.

Conor and kids only waited around 10 minutes for the Pirate falls water ride towards the end of the day. Things seem to quieten down dramatically after midday which was great. Myself, Sibéal and Fionn were happy to spin around under the spiderweb.

Mid-afternoon we headed to watch one of the shows at the lakeside: “Johnny Thunder in Revenge of the Aztec Queen”. The kids oohhed and ahhhed at the dives, acrobatics and theatre of it all. That evening Conor and 3 older kids headed to the Imagination theatre to see one of their 3D mini features. By this stage the 2 younger had fallen asleep in the buggy.

We didn’t get to spend much time around the Imagination centre which looked very interesting with plenty of things to build and test and that would definitely be one area I’d like to head back to.

The restaurants we visited in Legoland were a bit disappointing food wise. Sandwiches and milk purchased in the Pit Stop cafe were abandoned by the children on the first day. On the sunday we headed to the City Walk restaurant which was slightly better. Pizza and bolognese were ok and they ate some of them. There are plenty of other eateries there and perhaps we would have fared better if we’d eaten in the baguette bar or the fish and chip place.

Thankfully there were lots of icecream and drink vendors scattered around the site so everyone kept cool and hydrated. The resort is very well run, lots of helpful and friendly staff about. Baby changing facilities and stickers to put on the childrens backs with your mobile number on them in case you lose one of them.

We left Legoland on Sunday laden down with Lego kits and gear from the shops near the entrance. We all had a very enjoyable couple of days there and yet left much still to see. However, next time I think we’ll try to visit there during the week rather than the weekend.