Free Kids' Activites All Summer With Ikea Belfast

Stuck for something to entertain? Ikea Belfast (& most likely your own local Ikea too if you don't hail from Northern Ireland)  are putting on lots of activities to keep young ones busy. Climbing walls, £1 lunches and lots of products designed for playing at home too. 

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/store/belfast/storeInfo

Picnic plates, cups and napkins

bake from the box

really nostalgic, old school kit

I REALLY like this sand box kit. You can pretend to serve up sand ice creams! 

Clambering the Bishop's Trail at Downhill Demesne

This week we are staying on the North Coast. This means trips to Barry's amusements, ice cream for breakfast in Morelli's famous ice cream emporium, and lots of outdoor exploration. 

Michael and I headed out past Castlerock to the National Trust property, Downhill Demesne. As well as the massive ruins, you can visit Mussenden Temple on the cliffs, as seen in Game of Thrones. 

The property has two entrances and car parks. The closest one to Castlerock has beautiful gardens to walk through, and a newly built wood trail for kids to climb and explore. 

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/downhill-demesne-and-hezlett-house/

The further car park entrance is closer to the ruins and Mussenden Temple, if you are short on time you might want to park there to take in the property. If you're on a Game of Thrones locations your this would be a quicker way of seeing the temple.

Cheer Yourself Up Post-Budget With a Splurge in Snixy Swoon's 70% off Summer Sale

I featured Snixy Swoon a fortnight ago, and I've been wearing the samples she kindly sent me for review ever since. There were a couple of other pieces I wanted to buy for myself, so I visited her Etsy today to buy them. Turns out I visited on the right day! The store has just added a 70% & a 50% off, summer sale catagory, with little cat necklaces for just £2. I picked some of them and one of the huge, floral, statement necklaces I was after for £12.50 rather than over £20, which they are definitely worth.

Have a visit yourself and scoop up a bargain  

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SnixySwoons

£2

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£2

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Loads of tiki pieces starting from £3.50

Summer in Newcastle, County Down

Continuing on our week in The Mournes, here's what you can see & do in Newcastle, the main seaside town at the base of the mountains.

It's always been a fun, family destination with twee, little shops with fancy dress & jokes to buy. There's a new bead shop where you can pick & choose from hundreds of designs and make your own necklace, bracelet or brooch.

Doll's house accessories in Bon Bon's

There are a handful of amusement arcades with video game machines, two penny drop gambling games and a few rides too.

Down in between the buildings we found an outdoor funfair with five rides including small chairaplanes and a waltzer.

These boats are £2 a go.  

For food there's a KFC, Subway, Country Fried Chicken, Mauds Cafe and dozens of ice cream parlours.  There's even a machine that makes candy floss outside Bon Bon's shop.

So whether you're staying at The Mourne Lodge, Dan White's Cottage or Hanna's Close, or just down for the day, Newcastle is a nice little nostalgic seaside stop off.

Expensive, but cool, American import sweets available from Ben & Jerry's icecream shop.

Visit The Fairy Village at the Giant's Lair, Slieve Gullion

Just outside Newry is Slieve Gullion Forest Park. The carpark is free and they've a giant playpark, also all free. There's a cafe and ice cream vans or you can bring your own picnic.  

What we had visited for however is the new sculpture walk, complete with magical fairy village. I would have gone wild for this sort of place as a child. The walk is around a mile through the forest, and again it's totally free. It's definitely work the drive down if you're from near Belfast like us. 

Eddie Rockets, Dundalk Shopping & The Armagh Planetarium

So I shared with you our lovely accommodation at Dan White's, but what did we get up to during our stay? The next few days I'll share with you what you can do down in the Kingdom of Mourne & surrounding area. Of course there are the outdoor pursuits like mountain hikes, biking trails etc. but if you've young children there are plenty of family activities too.  

Here is a good day's worth of fun should you have rainy weather during your stay. Newry is about a half hour drive from Dan White's and the drive comprises the Mourne Coastal Route which is outstandingly beautiful. You pass through picturesque towns like Warrenpoint where you can stop for fish & chips or an icecream.

Reaching Newry & following the signs to Dublin will bring you to The Quays and Buttercrane, the city's main shopping centres which are side by side. Both centres parking is paid, but it's about a pound for an hour, so it's not terribly steep. 

The Quays has Eddie Rockets, the first of the 1950s' themed restaurant chain to open North of the border. We hit it up for breakfast AND dinner. Their milkshakes are famously amazing, and I highly recommend the bacon and cheese fries. 

The Quays has stores like Topshop, Lush, H&M and Debenhams. Crossing over to Buttercrane you'll find Mark & Spencer and an absolutely massive Primark. Buttercrane also has some kids' fun going on during the summer months, plus an igloo where you can get your photo taken with Elsa from Frozen for £6. 

Leaving Newry & following the motorway to Dublin will lead you over the border to Dundalk, about a further half an hour drive. For those who aren't from Northern Ireland and might be planning a visit, crossing the border is simple. There's no passport check or anything, in fact you only know you've crossed over when the road signage changes from miles to kilometres.

Keep an eye on your phone network too. It may be worth switch off data unless your contract allows roaming, as your phone will switch to an Irish carrier even around Newry. 

Our destination in Dundalk was Marshes, their huge shopping mall. I didn't have a sat nav or map, I just winged it, and found it easily enough. Again you pay for parking, €1 an hour or so. The highlight of Marshes for us was Tiger, which I mentioned before. A really cool home ware store. You'll also find a huge Dunnes, a big Primark (called Penney's in the south) and lots more fashion stores. 

We left Dundalk to cross the border again and head toward Armagh. A good tip here is to NOT follow the signs to Armagh you see round Dundalk town. We followed that route and it was a twisty country road that took about an hour. I think you'd be quicker to fly up the motorway to Newry again & through to Armagh that way, on roads where you can do 70 mph rather than twisting through tiny towns doing 45 mph most of the way. Michael got really car sick that route too.

But eventually we got to Armagh & the planetarium. It's free to come in and walk about the displays, but you must be over age six to enter the dome shows. They run on the hour and we arrived in time to catch the 2pm show. Each programme runs for about 35 minutes, so we ended up staying and watching the 3pm & 4pm shows too, making rockets in the crafting room in between.

The shows cost around £5 per person & are well worth catching. We had a lot of fun that afternoon, and have decided we will call back again when we are down again in a few weeks' time. 

Scrapbooking. Making Memories in the Digital Age.

Do you ever get that awful sinking feeling imaging if your iPhone got wiped and those thousands of personal, family photos you never quite get round to backing up got deleted? I've an iPhone 4 that has about three Christmases worth of photos on it, literally thousands that I haven't backed up. I try to reassure myself that I've enough of a breadcrumb trail of uploads on here, Facebook, Instagram etc. There's no way I could afford to print, or even store the amount of photos I take these days. 

So a compromise is to create a snapshot of days out, by Scrapbooking. 

When Michael was little, I picked up a photo album in TK Maxx in the bargain section, and started Scrapbooking. I kept the odd nursery scribbling, tickets to events we would go to, that sort of thing. I think I got two books filled, then it tailed off.  

Here are a couple of examples of those first books. 

Now that we are starting our first summer as just a twosome, I've decided to start Scrapbooking again, to keep a record of our memories to pour over once Michael has flown the nest some day. 

I bought this lovely paper in Tiger in Dundalk (http://www.tigerstores.co.uk) and I think I'll pick up some more when we are down in a couple of weeks' time again.

The scrapbook is actually a photo album from Easons. It has dividers for photos, but they can be separated to slide the full page of paper in instead. It was a hefty £15.99, but TK Maxx didn't have anything suitable either.

The backing paper is a little too big, but I used the off cuts to make a pretty paper chain for the kitchen. 

While I have mentioned Tiger, I must sing its praises. Until yesterday I didn't know it even existed, never mind not knowing that there was a shop out there that sold everything in my taste ever. I literally could decorate the whole house from just that store. I can't wait to visit again and pick up more goodies.  

This Tealight bottle was something crazy like just €2. The felt bowl I bought to keep tea lights in was a similar price.

Their cards and postcards are two for €1 and I picked up this holographic bird and orange frame. 

This was my entire haul, but I will be back, and with a bigger basket! The Eames' atomic over-the-door hanger was just €4 MADNESS!

Dan White's Cottage, Cosy Accomodation in the Mountains of Mourne.

Our Summer 2015 adventure continues! We ventured to the mountains for two nights in the absolutely beautiful Dan White's Cottage. 

http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Dan-Whites-Cottage-Rostrevor-Newry-P45049

The self-catering cottage, once a shepherd's residence, is nestled in the foothills of the Mournes. The compact yet spacious accomodation sleeps five, with two separate bedrooms, a bathroom and kitchen/living area. I'd guess that it's recently been refurbished, as the living quarters are spotless and finished to high standards. You may be in the middle of nowhere with only sheep for neighbours, but the surroundings are luxurious. The cottage has a four star rating, and we adored it. We didn't want to leave! In fact I phoned my parents the first night to try to persuade them to come up to stay in the other room for the second night, I was so impressed with the place.

Finding the cottage is easy, even given it's almost off-road location. Follow the road from Newcastle to Warrenpoint, and along the way, before Rostrevor you'll see a sign for Kilfeaghan Lane to the right. It's a very narrow lane way, only wide enough for one car, but keep climbing and you'll eventually see little signs pointing you to Dan White's. You'll honestly think a few times 'is this the right road?' as it's so rural, but keep going. Our little, old model Clio made it there, so your car can too!

There Eamonn or Yvonne will meet you to give you the keys and answer any questions you may have. The cottage has a little peat burning fire, which will be lit for your arrival. You really don't need much with you- the kitchen is fully stocked with all the plates, cups, cutlery and basically anything you could think of needing to use. You've also a dishwasher and washing machine with powder there to use if you need to on longer stays.

There was also a welcome hamper and milk in the fridge, so if you are arriving after a long journey you can have a cuppa and some soda bread before unpacking.

There are tvs in each room with Freeview, and pretty good wifi. I could stream Sky News live onto my iPhone, but because we were near the border I couldn't watch BBC iplayer on my ipad. You will find all the BBC channels on the tvs though. 

The bathroom has little toiletry kits for you, so you won't need shampoo or conditioner with you. The shower is easy to use (I always get flustered trying to work other people's showers!) and the water pressure is great.

As you'd imagine it's very quiet at night, but be prepared for some 'baaaas' in the morning from neighbouring fields! We noticed this on the first morning, but by the second we didn't hear them at all. 

We had an absolutely wonderful stay at Dan White's, and I would recommend it to anyone, tourists or locals for a getaway from it all break. The surroundings are simply stunning and the cottage interior is equally beautiful.

You can connect with Dan White's on Facebook  

https://www.facebook.com/DanWhitesCottage

Stay was complimentary for review purposes. Thank you, Eamonn and Yvonne!