I hadn't been in Lidl in ages, then today I struck lucky and found these £2.99 pots in stock.
£2.99 pot, 89p Parsley plant
Alternative prints, also pastel versions
I got the set of 2 for £2.99
There were also some cool bowls and servers, I think they were around a fiver.
Last minute shout out about a handy little event running at IKEA Belfast tomorrow, just in case we have another washout of a day.
This Saturday 2nd April, the fashion and interiors industries will convene during an exclusive, one-off event, a live fashion installation with local stylist Sara O'Neill and photographer Khara Pringle. They are celebrating the launch of GILTIG, a new, limited edition collection of homewares designed in collaboration with London menswear designer Katie Eary.
What is truly unique about the installationis that Sara will be using only products from the collection – including tablecloths,coasters, napkins, lampshades and bowls - to create the unique look on model Kirsten, from 10am-12 noon. An IKEA hack you can wear? Sounds cool to me.
Sara O'Neill
Sara is a professional stylist from the North Coast of NI, sort of a Rachel Zoe of the Giant's Causeway. If you haven't heard of her, and her glorious Éadach silk fashion collection, then Sara's Instagram account is a beautiful place to start. Her eye for natural colouring & love for her surroundings is addictive and inspiring. I'm excited to see her collaboration with IKEA, she's definitely the best woman for this job!
GILTIG is the first of three fashion-inspired collections that will be launched by IKEA from April to September that will allow customers to furnish with fashion. It is an eclectic range of soft furnishings and dinnerware with fish, cat and eyeball prints at the forefront of the design aesthetic.
The Limited Edition collections focus on re-invigorating interior design, and push the boundaries of what can be achieved through large-scale production in the home furnishing sphere.
The GILTIG collection is on sale now, with GLӦDANDE following in June and SVÄRTAN in September.
My must-buy
Bianca, Latrice, Alaska, Sharon, Adore, Pearl
I think I'm Northern Ireland's biggest RuPaul's Drag Race fan, and yes I would accept a challenge on that. I asked Instagram did anyone else share my passion, and a friend tagged a girl called Agnes, who definitely seems to be as keen as I to seek out the new season 8 episode on a Tuesday morning.
Season 7 winner Violet
Even better, Agnes has an Etsy store selling her own prints of the queens and she'll sell you a canvas tote with your favourite on it too. So all of us can walk into the room purse first, purse first, just like Bob The Drag Queen. Hooray!
Adore
Thorgy
My season 8 favourite Kim Chi
My season 7 favourite, Trixie Mattel
Ginger Minge
Katya
One of my all time favourites, Alyssa. Back rolls?
Season 8's Acid Betty
Bianca
Pearl
Bendelacreme
Latrice
Miss Fame
Max
Jinkx as Little Edie
Smix and I drove down to Dublin on Wednesday, for a little getaway. We stayed in the Phoenix Park Travelodge again, which I would highly recommend for families visiting the city. We park there then get a bus into the city centre. They come along every five minutes past the back gate of the hotel, and for one adult and one child it costs just €4.20 to get into the city centre.
Giant Toymaster store with an animatronic dinosaur!
Temple Bar area
Yo Sushi for lunch
Johnnie Cupcakes in the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre
Vintage toys in 'Stock'
Excellent breakfast in Temple Bar
Market Arcade
Future Farming at the Science Gallery
Easter is early this year, but the weather is looking promising, should you wish to go egg hunting at the weekend. Cadbury have paired with The National Trust once again, to put on over 300 hunts across the country. Use the hunt locator on their site to see where your nearest event is being held.
It just so happened that we decided to take a spin to Mount Stewart today, one of the Northern Irish National Trust properties hosting a hunt. Their festivities run from Friday 23rd until Monday 25th, and for £1 each, your kids can take part in the lake lapping adventure. The parents get quite competitive at things too, as I remember from previous years!
Bunny hadn't visited yet, but we had a nice visit and made a little video to share with you.
Coincidentlly we had planned to make our own treasure hunt for viewers of the Smix Brix YouTube channel. My friend Pamela had told me about an app that uses augmented reality called Aurasma.
How it works is person A takes a photo of say the harp, while standing at the red hand. They add the augmented reality aspect and save to Aurasma's database. Person B will come along, open their Aurasma app and stand where they've been told to stand, and point the screen's searching circles, which hopefully will circle in, then they will have the same augmented reality animation or video pop up on their phone. It's sort of like a trigger to make your device play a fun little gif or character.
The device you are searching with has to be online as it were. A non-sim iPad wouldn't work unless you somehow can connect to wifi or someone's phone's tethering. The video above will show you exactly where to stand, and what to point your device at to view the surprise animations.
So Mount Stewart is a lot of fun this weekend. You may well bump into us again, as we will be back for the Cadbury hunt as usual. also if you haven't been in a while it's worth going to see the house renovations. Touring the grand house is included in the entrance price.
Tonight I'm being a bit meta and the topic I'm promoting is- myself! My Instagram account to be exact. My username is @rudedoodle and on there you'll see snippets of what's coming up on here, but also bits and pieces you don't get to see on my blog.
For example this photo from last night, when Smix had a go at putting fake eyelashes on me. I was hoping that I might secretly have a little beauty technician living under my roof, but sadly not!
So you'll see me, more than I am in photographs on here. I also love snapping new and cool products when I'm out an about so my Instagram is a wonderful place for ideas. You will definitely see plenty of cliched food pictures, and the odd bit of beauty too.
Mostly you will see what Smix & I get up to of a week, so come on over, you'll be most welcome.
This evening Smix & I attended the strangest & quite possibly coolest blogging event yet. Studio Souk in Belfast has partnered with Yelp UK to create a room with 10,000 balloons. The floor and ceiling are covered with them.
Smix was in his element diving amongst them.
Studio Souk's balloon party will be open to the public all weekend, with balloon room yoga classes on Sunday as well as selfie competitions with spot prizes. Worth popping in just to say 'I've been in a room with 10,000 balloons'!
Solo Kitchen Belfast is a fresh new city centre restaurant combining European and Asian dishes and full & bountiful tapas menu. Solo's sister restaurant, the successful Ambrosia on the Ormeau Road is also owned by Michael Karan, who's vision for casual dining in plush surroundings is based firmly in locally sourced, excellent quality ingredients.
The restaurant is located on Wellington Place, opposite 'Home', which makes it an ideal location for pre-theatre dining. In fact Solo Kitchen have a dedicated theatre menu alongside their main menu and tapas selection. The menu focuses on traditional European dishes, but also fine dining versions of Asian favourites, such as Biriyani, Tikka Masala and Honey Chilli Chicken.
The tapas menu has over 35 dish options. Stand out delights for me are Solo's Poca Carne (mini steak, peppered sauce, green beans), Calamari a la Paprilla ( calamari sprinkled with paprika & lemon juice) and Mejillones Con Choritzo (mussels, chroritzo, white whine cream sauce, garlic bread).
Smix and I were invited along last week to try the menu for ourselves. We had just been at Vintage Rocks Hair Salon for a few hours, so we were ravenous!
To begin I chose the avocado and beetroot salad, which is also available as a main course. The dish is a refreshing start to a meal, with an intriguing wholegrain mustard and citrus dressing. It's a light choice, which is great for me, as give me too hefty a starter and I can't even manage half a main course.
The grill and its sirloin steaks certainly tempted me for my main course, but I decided to go with something a little more interesting. I chose the pork belly, served with wholegrain mustard mash, roasted baby carrot, king prawn, black pudding and candied pecans.
The presentation was outstanding, and the veg was cooked to perfection. You can see how green the broccoli is, yet it was soft and delicious. It must have been cooked to the exact second! The mustard mash wasn't too spicy, so it went well with the flavours of the pork belly, without overpowering it with spice. The candied pecans were a playful touch, and the black pudding had a devine clove aroma to it.
The children's menu impressed me with its options of more than just chicken nuggets or burgers. Of course then Smix goes and orders the chicken goujons, but to Solo Kitchen's credit kids can also chose from dishes like honey chilli chicken and steak.
Smix declared his chicken the best he ever tasted, and I'm not sure if it was the long wait at the hairdresser's, but he ate much more than he usually would when we dine out. The children's menu also has dessert choices of a lolly, or icecream.
My dessert choice was tiramisu. It was beautiful, so much so that I managed to squeeze the whole thing in even after two other courses. The dessert menu is very traditional, so it might be fun to see an Asian dessert choice on there to match the rest of the menu, but that's a very minor 'complaint'.
Solo Kitchen hope to appeal to the surrounding city workforce, nipping out for a special lunch, or stopping for cocktails and tapas after the office. Their breakfast menu has just launched, being served from 8am-1130am, which would make it worth while taking an earlier train and having fluffy pancakes or a veggie breakfast before the working day begins. All breakfasts come with free tea or coffee, and a refill!
As heard on BBC Radio 6's Lauren Laverne Show.
