Belfast Children’s Festival 2014

Rudy at The Grand Opera House

This year’s Belfast Children’s Festival, run by Young At Art, took place in various venues across the city from 7th – 14th March. We attended four events over the festival and enjoyed them all.

The first event was Baby Chill. It was N’s first arts event at 10.5 weeks and I am delighted to say she loved every minute of it! She and I were welcome into a room in one of our favourite places, the Ulster Museum, where we entered an inflatable pod which was full of super soft cushions with different textures and had soft twinkly music playing. N was fascinated by the lights changing colour and it was so nice to spend half an hour with her as she stared  and smiled at what was going on around her.

Back in the land of the living..with Maximo Park and more

Hello, I’m Nancy!

I’m back to my much neglected blog after a problematic pregnancy and painful recovery from a c-section after welcoming our absolutely beautiful daughter, Nancy, into the world on Christmas Eve. More on the trials and tribulations of dealing with a toddler and a newborn soon but in the meantime here is a little review of a gig I went to at the weekend.

Total r & r at Bellinter House

Bellinter House

Bellinter House in County Meath is somewhere I’ve wanted to go for ages. I know people who have raved about and it sounded like the perfect place to unwind and relax. Mr. G-S and I had been talking in July about getting a last few days away together without R before Jnr.2 arrives sometime around Christmas/NY, so I was delighted to see that Bellinter House had an offer on Groupon, which I immediately snapped up!

Beware of the ducks

As a mother of a toddler, who is always looking for exciting and interesting places to take him, and someone who has always liked birds (I was a member of the Young Ornithologists Club in Primary school – geek!), Castle Espie has proven time and time again what a great place it is for young and old alike.

Good free family fun.

Everyone is feeling a bit lighter in the purse these days and so it was great to discover lots of free things happening this weekend which we thought R would enjoy.

The National – a little post about why I like them.

I’m 32. Far too old to be a fangirl. Far, far too old. I’ve spent many years obsessing over bands and spending all my spare cash on buying music, going to gigs and ransacking merchandise tables. You’d think I would have grown out of it by now…but I haven’t.

The National at Electric Picnic 2010.
Taken by me in the front row.

Bugg in Belfast

Over the last few weeks we have been bombarded with slogans such as Backin’ Belfast and Take Back the City in order to persuade the people of Belfast to get ‘back’ into the city centre. The aim is to encourage spending money in bars and restaurants as opposed to staying in, hiding away from the flag nonsense which has had a very detrimental effect on the city. This weekend had proved to me something is working, whether it is the Council backed campaigns or maybe just the fact that everyone is just more solvent now January has passed.

Definitely my favourite Jim.

I first came across The Jim Jones Revue in 2009, when they played at the Open House Festival with Andrew Weatherall supporting. I hadn’t heard them but reading about them was enough to make me want to go and see them so I bought tickets and was so glad that I did. That night introduced me to one of the best frontmen I have ever seen, and to some great music which is regularly played (quite loudly) in our house.

A New Year’s trip to the blustery seaside.

After an absolutely brilliant Christmas, Mr G-S and I took ourselves away to the Slieve Donard Hotel and Spa for our present to each other. We decided back in November that instead of buying actual presents, we would take advantage of a Travelzoo offer which was a deal for bed,breakfast and a 3 course meal at the Slieve Donard in the seaside town of Newcastle, Co.Down for £120.

Well..that was an interesting year!

Since we are coming to the end of 2012 I thought I would re-enter the blogging world after a short break, to say a few words about this year. The year started with the beautiful wedding of my close friend Vicky, and her husband, Darren and is ending on a quieter note but is no less happy.