Joules' New Trousers!

Joules hates to shop. In fact he never shops. He'd be happy with "two socks, two jocks, two t-shirts and a pair of jeans" although I'm not sure how he get them washed and dried each day. So when I buy clothes for him I have to buy them from shops where you can return them if they don't fit or if he doesn't like them. I knew he needed new trousers and had looked recently but the shop only had a young and trendy range (he may be youngish but definitely not trendy) and an old fogies range which I couldn't bear so I came home empty handed.

Yesterday Joules came home wearing new trousers. He been shopping and bought not one, not two but three pairs of trousers (one pair a bargain at €1 in the sale) and was dead pleased with himself. So what happened to turn him into a shopper? He bent over at work, heard a tear and his "arse was hanging out"!

Chilly Bristol.

It was still summery yesterday when I packed for my trip...today it is positively wintery even though the sun is shining there is a chill in the air. So what's a girl to do in a situation like this...go shopping of course!

Bargains

Mollie and Ben were off school, I was minding a friend of Mollies for the day and the weather sucked - gale force winds have blown all my bags of plastic recyclables all over the garden. Of course if I was more organised there wouldn't be 10 black sacks worth of plastic all over my back garden! Those of you who know my dirty suitcase secret will not be surprised at my ability to leave things but you'd be impressed with my toilet! Anyway enough of my ramblings I'm hear to tell you about my bargains.

As the children were off school and the weather was bad I took them to the cinema. What I mean by that is that I drove them there, paid for their tickets, sweets and drinks and settled them into their seats with strict instructions about what they were (sit still watching the film) and weren't (move, get separated, talk to anyone else) allowed to do. This gave me 95 minutes to bargain hunt in the sales. Not a lot of time I agree but enough for me to buy a beautiful sundress from Monsoon (€18); jeans (€5.95) and two t-shirts (€2.95 each) for Mollie in Zara. Also in Monsoon, which had 70% off, I bought lots of girly, sparkly bits like sequined bags, body jewelry, desk sets and beaded purses. These go into our 'present box' and when the children have parties to go to they have great fun choosing appropriate presents from the box for their friends. When I checked the timeI realised I had five minutes to get to the cinema which was the other side of the shopping centre so I sprinted through the centre and arrived in the cinema foyer just before the children. So not only did I come home with some bargains I also got some exercise, what can be better than that!

Hiking and Bagels

Looking at Bray Head from Bray

Yesterday I woke to a beautiful, clear, bright, wind free day. I was very pleased because I had arranged to go hiking with my friend Sally and after spending the weekend feeling rotten I was feeling much better (thanks antibiotics) and dying to get some fresh air and exercise. We had decided to hike from Bray to Greystones where we would have a coffee, or in my case a peppermint tea, and get the dart back. The walk started off well, the weather was perfect and clear and we could even see a seal basking in the sun, then we saw another and another and another. My camera wasn't good enough to get a picture but we suddenly noticed that seal no. 3 had a square head and seal no. 4 was soooo not a seal. In fact we were admiring buoys although Sally is convinced the first was a seal, I'm not so sure!

Looking over to Dalkey and Killiney.

Shortly after we came to a sign warning us that the path ahead was closed so we decided to carry on and see how long before we got to the closed bit. Eventually we got to the barrier but saw that a new path had been trodden and we could continue our walk. So continue we did when we came to a fork in the path we could see a barrier on the left path so took the right which led us to a dead end. Here there was a path through the undergrowth but that came to an abrupt end. We had been walking for well over an hour and Greystones was within site whereas the path back to Bray was long and already trodden. I found a waterfall and suggested walking down the side of it. We were having an adventure and I love adventures and always the first to jump in with a (some may say crazy) idea. Sally felt she might fall flat and suggested we cut through the fields.

I have to add here that had we climbed down the waterfall I would have been the one to fall flat on my face as I am known as the clumsy one! There's a story involvimg the Avon Gorge and me running down it but I think Mum plans to tell that one!

I've done plenty of walking in fields and know that some have right of way for the public and some don't. I guessed these probably didn't so was a bit scared of bumping into a farmer, (give me the waterfall any day)! So we walked around the edge of two fields and could see no sign of the road. We were also getting further away from the path and Greystones and closer to the farmhouse. Thankfully Sally suggested turning back, I was very pleased as I had visions of a big farmer and his gun coming after us.

We walked back to the fork in the path ( I looked wistfully at the waterfall begging me to climb down) and went down the other path. When we came to the barrier we could climbaround it and continued onwards to Greystones. We shortly came to the reason for the barriers:

As you see the path has suffered from erosion quite badly just in this place. I hope they fix it soon because it is a lovely walk on a clear day. We made in into Greystones and luckily for me Ben was going to play with a friend after school so we had plenty of time to mooch around Greystones and enjoy a bagel (sausages and cream cheese) for lunch.

Guess what I purchased today?

Indecision of a 10 year old!

Mollie needed a new coat as her old coat was too small so I decided to wait and buy in the sales. I promised her that we could look in lots of shops and if we found nothing she liked that was ok because I wasn't buying something fo the sake of it. We started in John Lewis which had no girls coats and moved onto Gap which had lovely coats. "Too long" said Mollie to the lovely warm black coat with the fluffy hood. "Too white" was her reaction to the white coat. Now I had an idea of what she wanted, a coat with fur (fake of course) around the hood but not too long or white.

Next stop was Next. I looked at the racks of coats and thought great we'll get one here. The pink and green ones were too colourful. The karki one was too long and had no fur. White was out. She then said that she didn't like them "puffy or shiny". At last her Grandma spotted a green one that fitted all the requirements and there were lots of them. Mollie tried on an age 9-10 coat and liked it but it was too small so Grandma and I looked at all the coats in that style but alas the 9-10 year old one was the largest.

We were running out of shops and patience with Mollie as she seemed to have lost the ability to communicate in a nice voice and could only whinge. Next shop was BHS, now I'm not a snob and one of my favourite shops is Penneys which is the same as Primark but I've always had a thing about BHS. I can't tell you why, maybe I had a bad experience there in my youth but it is a shop I always walk past. We agreed to go in and look, desperate measures and all that and tucked away in the corner was a Tammy section. As a young girl I remember so wanting to grow bigger because I wanted to buy clothes from Tammy Girl. I was jealous of Sam's outfits from there, except the hideous brown threepiece which I never wanted handed down to me. There was a good selection of coats but it was a familiar story, "too shiny", "too white" or "uck". We spotted two more in the corner and persuaded Mollie to try them on. The black one was a bomber style jacket but as it was age 13 it was quite long on her but no she doesn't like bomber jackets. The other coat was grey and really suited her. Mollie wasn't sure about it and tried it on twice. I was about to put it back on the rack when Mollie decided she did like it, phew. Unfortunately it wasn't in the sale but at least she had a coat she could do up for the cold months ahead. We looked in other shops as well and the more we looked the more Mollie liked her coat so I think today was a success.

Christmas 2005

Today I got my last Christmas present from the year 2005.

Wow, did you read right or did I make a mistake?

You read right!

Last year Sam very kindly gave me a voucher for Avocoa Handweavers. I love this shop and there are always lots of lovely things to tempt me but I decided to buy some clothes. Their clothes are out of my usual budget so when their sale was on I went looking for a bargain but found none. I kept the voucher as it has no use by date with plans to look again in the summer sale. Nothing took my fancy in the summer but I found myself buying some small kitchen utensils the odd time. I had €20 remaining and was delighted to find this set of cake trays on sale for €19.95 today as I had fallen in love with a beautiful glass cake dish in New York in June and really regret not buying it, (I didn't think it would travel well).

Fancy a Cuppa

Christmas is the time of year when we keep secrets. I've been very busy today getting started on my Christmas gifts but alas can not share them with you! I can share my new purchase for the kitchen. I was thrilled when my kettle broke as it was getting old and grotty looking. I'd seen a kettle I liked and when I went to buy it I fell in love with this.

Shopping for an Adult Party

Today I went shopping with Clare the ladies captain of Sandycove Tennis Club. One job in the year of lady captaincy is to organise a Christmas party for all the ladies in the tennis club. Being fairly new members of the club and not having experienced many of these parties there was no pressure (or more pressure) on how to enterain the ladies.

Clare roped in some old hands as well as myself and came up with the theme of an Adult Christmas Party. We had great fun, it was almost like shopping for a hen party, (I have only been to one hen party and I think it was fairly mild, 1 x blow up doll, 1 x tiara and some chocolate willies). I won't go into detail of what we saw (my children might read this) or what we bought ( tennis ladies might read it) but we had a laugh.

We also had a good browse in Stock a cookery shop, (can't find it on the Internet so can't link). It was my idea of heaven but resisted any temptation due to price tickets, eg €49 for a rolling pin, but what a lovely, soft rolling pin it was! New cake tins for €44, so pretty and so practical and the daintiest cake dish, much more reasonable at €16.50 but alas not practical for my kitchen and a bit small for the amount of cakes I make. I did purchase a silicone pastry brush and some Christmas pressies so came out happy. Then we visited Butlers where I had the most delicious hot chocolate. What a lovely morning, thanks Clare.

A Friday Out

Feeling a bit better today, but did not a lot! Slept in then read in bed, a real luxury for me. Took Mollie and Ben to Cabinbteely Park for a walk and play and have just pigged out on Chinese meal.

Yesterday morning I went out with my friend Sally. Two weeks previously we'd been to Heatons and I had bought Ben a tracksuit for tennis. He wore it on Monday and I realised too late (when he was on the court), they were faulty ie the waist elastic had no elasticity. Poor Ben spent most of the lesson pulling up his trousers! Sally had bought some cream enamel storage pots and when she opened them at home they were baby pink! So back we went to Heatons in Wicklow town to change our goods and have a quick shop in Lidl where I picked up marzipan bars for Dillon and Mollie then it was definitely time for a coffee break. We chose our usual haunt of Avoca Handweavers in Kilmacanogue and as we were under pressure for time (Mollie and Ben were finishing school early) we skipped through the shop ignoring all the pretty gifts, sumptuous clothes, glittering jewelry, sparkling pans and yummy foodstuffs and headed straight for the cafe. Luckily we had missed the coach parties as they had left as we arrived and there was no queue so we headed straight for the coffee counter and ordered our peppermint tea, coffee and two fruit scones. We, or should I say I, devoured my scone as if I hadn't eaten in a week (well I was very hungry)! Not as delicious as last week at Marc Michels but very good with plenty of lovely, homemade raspberry jam. If you're ever in Ireland I highly recommend a trip to Avoca Handweavers to experience the food (lunch is very worthwhile) and the range of goods they sell, there is something there for everyone!

Help!

Mollie is going to a fancy dress party on Sunday and after much mind changing decided to be an emo fairy. A what? Dillon told her about emo fairies and I was promptly told what to wear. Basically she's a raggle taggle fairy dressed mainly in black. No problem there, Mollie has black leggings and leotard (my old one from when I went to tap dancing lessons as a girl). I made a ragged skirt from black netting and Dillon told us this should be worn with a pink studded belt and pink converse, both of which Mollie has.

So, what's the problem? Hair is the problem. Dillon tells us she should have black hair with a pink stripe down. Originally I thought no problem untill I went shopping in Dun Laoghaire. Nowhere could I find temporary hair dye. I tried Boots and the €2 Shop both shops where I have bought coloured hair spray on previous occasions. Other shops I looked in were also severely lacking in the coloured hair spray department. So if anyone reading this can tell me where I can get my hands on black and/or pink temporary hair dye before Sunday that would be great , in fact it would be better than great it would be fantastic!