The No Diet Zone! Treats from Marks & Spencer to Get You Through Miserable January from The World of Kitsch.

This is a healthy eating free zone! We all are aware from 1st January tv ads bombard us with guilt for over eating during the holiday season. So for me to do a blog post with Marks and Spencer's healthy eating range, or feature lots of fresh fruit and veg and recipes would just mirror a thousand other blogs & featurettes you've read this fortnight.

So instead I approached picking this week's M&S goodies with the mind set that seeing it's gloomy, old January, what would I like as a treat to brighten my day? Here are some ideas from the Food Hall. Don't deprive yourself during the most miserable month of the year, follow my lead and tuck in!

£1.85 per litre

The classic sweets range of fizzy drinks are bang on the money, taste-wise. I also was tempted by the still pear juice and couldn't resist the tin of the lemon shortbread, which would make a lovely little gift for £3.

£2.50 pear juice, £3 tin

The very opposite of restriction and dieting- an all butter Belgian waffle with some posh chocolate.

waffles £2, chocolate bars £2 each

Healthy admittedly, but not plain by anyone's standard, sushi rolls and calamari snack.

sushi £3.50, prawn dip £2.50

Sprucefield M&S had lots of these exquisite cheese truffles left, but your own local store may not, as technically they were party food for the new year. If you can get a pack, do. The beetroot cheese is especially divine. I also like the look of the healthy eating Beetroot and Goats cheese salad.

Cheese £2.50, snack £3

Hands up if you got yourself a serious cheese habit over Christmas? I'm not going cold turkey, instead I picked the cheddar with smoked tomatoes and Cornish cove with chilli.

£2.50 each

Facebook has gone a little juicing crazy this January, but you can buy 3 bottles for £5 in M&S and never go near a juicer. The clementine juice tastes exactly like the little orange treasures Santa leaves you. Delicious.

3 for £5

Mealwise I liked the look of these Chinese dishes.

£3.50 £4.25

Sometimes when you look in the sleeve there isn't much that resembles the photo on the cover of your meal, but I was pleased to see lots of fish in both these dishes.

One of my son's favourite treats, he just loves dough balls.

£2

I'm a sucker for anything vanilla if I see little black pod speckles in it. I expected this to taste just like icecream, but it doesn't. 

£1.90

Dame May McFettridge Celebrates 25 Years in Pantomime

If you're from Northern Ireland you knew the comedy character May McFettridge years before Mrs Brown's Boys ever appeared. She's a national treasure and this year marks 25 years of her appearance as the dame in the yearly Grand Opera House, Belfast, Pantomime. 

In celebration the BBCNI website has tracked down the posters from each year, but are missing some of them from the early 90s. Could you help? Click through to see the whole gallery, and to contact them if you have the old programs by any chance. 

I went to this one, the year means I must have been 14. I remember May throwing packets of Cadbury's buttons into the audience.

A very fresh-faced Julian Simmons

New Year's Day Ikea Trip For Ideas For Our New Home

Smix & I are getting excited about our new, little home, so we took a trip to Ikea, Belfast for inspiration of what we will decorate with.

We don't need a chair, but if we did....

Super cute storage

This looks like a 1960s' G-Plan original

So shiny

I must have a plant wall..it's my dream

Smix just wants to upgrade from a toddler bed, to a bunk bed. I think we can manage that.

But which one?

Whichever one he gets he wants this canopy.

Don't need, but do want.

Nice fresh duvet cover too, will pick this up when we do move.

I went ahead and bought one of these cute toilet brushes today, with a matching bin for the bathroom.

Smix loves these Tetris/Death Star type lamps

Plants! Taking inspiration from Gertrude Anna's Timmy White, I'll be filling our new home with lots of plants and plastic dinosaurs.

My Mystery Blonde Bargain. Who is She?

I have a couple of original Louis Shabner prints, and I leapt on this one I spotted in an East Belfast charity shop today for only £3. I've never seen this print online before, and a Google Image Search doesn't bring any pics of her up. So I don't know her name, as it's not printed on a label on the back, as usual with the original 70s' frames.

Anyone seen this print before, or know the title of the print? 

Fifties' Cutsie-Pie Kitsch First Aid Tin

My favourite present this year, from my Mum & Dad; all stocked and ready for our new house when we move next month. Brand is Cotton Candy collectibles.

Merry Kitschmas from The World of Kitsch

This year, especially the past two months, has been terribly hard for me and my son in our personal life, and so many of my PR contacts for various big brands have been absolute angels this Christmas sending us little notes & gifts to brighten our day. 

I've been so busy with real life problems I haven't even sent a single Christmas card, or managed to buy any for my closest family either, so this post is a big, all-encompassing THANK YOU card to everyone who has worked with me and supported me this year.

The brand PRs who send me wonderful treats (Jane xo), or set up collections of products from local stores for me (Nadine xo), everyone who takes time to vote when I've entered yet another blog competition, and the people who RT my links to blog posts and those who hit 'like' on my Instagram photos.

Have a very wonderful, merry Christmas and here's to a prosperous 2015 and all the blogging it brings. 

Europe's Largest Trampoline Park Bounces Open on the 19th December, in Belfast

Tonight Michael & I giddily attended the launch of Europe's biggest trampoline park, in South Belfast. The We Are Vertigo adventure park already boasts indoor skiing, a Swiss chalet themed soft play area and lots of clip & climb, as well as a huge indoor zip wire.

Their newest addition is their massive trampoline adventure centre, and we went along to try it out this evening. 

My son bounced for about 90 minutes solidly. There are jousting areas, dodgeball courts, stunt areas and square feet of just good old trampolines. I even popped on the special trampoline socklets & gave it a go, although my M.E. is going to make me regret that in the morning!

The park opens to the public tomorrow, 19th December, and if bouncing isn't for you, there is a spacious cafe both on the ground floor, and overlooking the bouncing area so you can keep an eye on little ones. I would imagine Vertigo will be quite busy over the Christmas period, but you can book your session online to ensure entrance and avoid disappointment.

Stumped for a Present for the Person who has Everything? Why not Consider Treating them to the Removal of Their Old, Now Unwanted Tattoo?

Giving the gift of laser tattoo removal may not seem like the most romantic Christmas present, but if your partner has a regrettable inking from their youth that they hate the sight of, this Christmas you could be giving them a body & life changing experience.

I have many tattoos that I love, but I've always disliked the look of the tiny star on my ring finger I had done ten years ago. Not only is it wonky, but I just don't like hand tattoos on myself, and am embarrassed by having it sometimes. 

Now even though I can recommend you the best tattoo parlours in Belfast City (White Dragon, Skullduggery) and even though I once had a monthly column in a national Tattoo magazine, Things & Ink, when it came to tattoo removal, I actually had no idea who to go to, or how it really goes down.

So, I just Googled laser tattoo removal and found a Lisburn beauty salon Indulgence by Susan, offering the treatment.

Susan's salon is based at her home, but stepping inside it doesn't feel like that. There are several rooms in the large, suburban home dedicated to Susan's beauty craft. She has ten years experience in the industry, with teeth whitening, slimming treatments, waxing, makeup and the whole works available and performed with expertise.

Over the coming while I'll share more of Susan's treatments with you, but today I'm concentrating on the laser tattoo removal specifically. 

The purple machine on the left is the laser, you can see the little gun in a holster, and it really is as straightforward a process as that- shooting the tattoo all over with little blasts of red light that help break down the ink and let it absorb into the body. 

Susan tipped me off to buy some skin numbing cream, over the counter at a chemist and apply that to the area about an hour before my appointment. It costs just under £5 in Boots.

Having the laser treatment does involve some pain, but not as bad as waxing pain, and certainly not as sore as it was GETTING my finger tattooed. The healing process was painless, but that might be as my tattoo is so small. 

This is a before shot of my star.

This is thirty seconds after the treatment.

As you can see, that's a pretty big difference. However the treatment will require return visits, as tattoos ARE supposed to be for life, and the ink is terribly stubborn and doesn't just break down after one attempt. The age of the tattoo also is a factor in how easily it can be removed.

Here is the star now after two weeks. 

You can see the top, right lines have faded a lot, but as Susan had told me, it will take a couple more sessions to fade the entire tattoo. She recommends leaving three months between sessions, which feels like a lifetime, but it limits the scarring and Susan has been doing this treatment for years, so I'm taking her advice and holding off, rather than rushing back up after a month for more blasting.

So, are you tempted? Rid yourself of that regrettable dolphin ankle tattoo from that crazy fortnight in Ibiza in 2001? Why not contact Susan herself via her website, and she can advise a treatment plan for you.