Earliest Childhood Memories Part Three- Taxidermy in The Dead Face Shop (Delaney's Restaurant, Lombard Street)

The third instalment of how my earliest childhood memories seem to have guided my likes and loves in life. I blogged about my earliest ever memory being of a collection of garden gnomes on the Castlereagh Road, and how I'm fascinated by exterior features used as interior walls, thanks to many toddler aged visits to Summerland in the Isle of Man.  

The third iteration of my toddler years spookily influencing my later life isn't so much a memory, as I don't remember the tales my parents recount now, but it involves Delaney's Restaurant in Lombard Street, Belfast. 

Delaney's still stood there until a few years ago, when it was gutted and turned into a souless Caffè Nero.  

My Mum and Granny would take me to Delaney's when I was still only three or four years old, and if you ever set foot in the dimly lit, mysterious eatery you'll have noticed one thing above all others- the massive amount of taxidermy.  

Back then it would be my favourite place to eat, because of the taxidermy. I would refer to it as 'The Dead Face Shop', as I would eat my broth under the watch of the stuffed head of a buffalo, elk and other beasts.​

In my 20s I spent a few years working next door to Delaney's, in the fabulously kitsch independent boutique Liberty Blue. 

Of course now taxidermy is part of my weird and wonderful home. I would have the large pieces Delaney's once had if I could, if I had the money. Myself, I have a fox mount, piranhas, a stoat and a selection of different birds.​ I would have loved to have owned a piece of the Delaney's collection. Maybe some how some day something will turn up for me to buy and it will all come full circle.

The Money Fight as Foreshadowed By Castle Ward's Boxing Squirrels- Plus Their Game of Thrones Winterfell Festival

I've been totally and utterly suckered into the hype for the Money Fight. Some guys are boxing in Vegas for billions of dollars.  If you live in the States you have to pay $80-$100 just to watch it. What happens if one knocks the other out in seconds? Is there a refund policy if you get twelve seconds of a match?

Its on at 5am our time, early Sunday morning, and whilst I'm not going to pay to watch it (£20-£24 here, I assume cause it's 5am) I am going to set an alarm to wake up and be on social media for the buzz. I love this sort of thing. 

Anyway, it reminded me of one of my favourite parts of Castle Ward's grand house tour- the taxidermy boxing squirrels.

If you are a Game of Thrones fan (and who isnt? Well, me, but I'm odd) then you might be excited to know Castle Ward is holding a Winterfell Festival on 24th September . 

Festival gates will open at 11am on 24 September and at 12 noon a fanfare will herald the arrival of the King’s procession as he visits House Stark at Winterfell for The King’s Tournament Games. Irish Arms, a historical reproduction company, will perform a series of medieval jousting shows on horseback throughout the day. Sword sparring, archery demonstrations, jesters and falcon flights will add to the atmosphere in the tournament ring where visitors will be able to feast on roast hog washed down with local cider.

Amongst the medieval themed stalls, armourer Boyd Rankin, who starred as Mikken in Game of Thrones will showcase a selection of the weapons he forged for the world famous TV series. Special guests will also include two of the original Stark family Direwolf dogs.

The iconic Winterfell Tower House will be open throughout the day and fans can join Winterfell Tours on a skirmish to Audley’s Castle before having their very own green screen photo taken in the Winterfell Courtyard where the Stark family famously lined up for the King’s arrival. An interactive show and workshop with Shadow Puppets themed on Game of Thrones will take place in the historic courtyard and can be enjoyed by all.

Travellers will also be encouraged to walk down the Kingsroad to the Inn at the Crossroads where they can pull up a pew and listen to stories from A Song of Ice and Fire Series One being performed by Footsteps theatrical company, while dining on venison pie and ale.

• Adult - £22.50

• Child - £10.00 (10 - 16 years)

• Family - £60.00 (2 adults and 2 children between 10 - 16 years)
  *Children under 10 are free

Access to Castle Ward on 24 September will be exclusively for Winterfell Festival ticket holders only. Castle Ward will be closed to non-ticket holders, including National Trust members, from 9am-6pm on 24 September.

You can plan a do it yourself road trip to visit all the filming locations the National Trust work with HBO on Game of Thrones, with this handy guide to where they all are.

So, shall I see you online at 5am on Sunday morning? Who do you think is going to be champion? 

P.S. I made the long list of this year's Irish Blog Awards in the Lifestyle and Best Blog Post categories, but I won't make a song and dance about it as every valid blog that got nominated makes the long list. When the short list, then the finalist lists come out I'll add buttons etc then (if I'm a finalist again this year- fingers crossed!) But thank you to anyone who nominated me I really appreciate it. 

Exciting New Belfast City Centre Walking Tour For Kids On Sunday Mornings- and it's totally free!

Sunday mornings in Belfast City Centre just got a lot more fun for children and families. Belfast One, – Belfast City Centre’s Business Improvement District – has partnered with Young at Art to launch a new, exciting, interactive children’s walking tour, designed to help families see lesser-known parts of the city in a fun and engaging way.

Speaking at the launch Julie McCullagh, marketing manager at Belfast One said: “We are thrilled to be launching the new children’s walking tour which is designed to be a whole lot of fun and is aimed at attracting families to the city at a time when it is quieter, offering the opportunity to view the fantastic sites at a slower pace.

“The forty-minute tour will start at Howard Street in the heart of the city and the children will get clues and a map to help friendly character Janey find her missing lottery ticket while exploring Belfast City Centre, before finishing at High Street.”

Speaking about the partnership with Belfast One, Morag Stuart from Young at Art Events said: “This is a fantastic new initiative to provide a unique interactive performance. We welcome families and children of all ages to come along and get involved in the new tour.”

The tour is free and is suitable for children age 4-10 with upcoming tours on 3 and 17 September - to book the tour visit www.BelfastOne.co.uk.

Family Friendly London #7 SeaLife Aquarium for £10.50 Each, Plus London Eye Review

On our latest visit to London, Smix asked could we visit the Aquarium. The huge SeaLife aquarium is located opposite parliament, just over the bridge beside the Shrek Adventure attraction and The London Eye.

Never pay full price for tickets! There are kids go free offers on Cadbury packs, and 2 for 1 deals online, but I found the absolute cheapest way to do it. Kellogg's have an adults go free offer, which you can get even on cereal bar packs in the Pound Shop. So with it you just pay the £21 price for a kid's ticket, and the adult ticket (£26) is free.

You can pre-buy a ticket online, but you have to choose a 15 minute time slot to arrive at. As we didn't know what time our train would get in from the airport, I decided to just buy our tickets when we showed up.

The website had warned there can be a long queue, but this was a busy Tuesday afternoon in August and we just had to queue for 15 minutes to pay and go in. We just presented our voucher cut out of the Kellogg's box on arrival.

To see exactly how it works and read the list of all the attractions over the whole UK that the voucher can be used with, visit the Kellogg's deal site.  It also works for the Shrek Adventure which is beside the aquarium, and locally, Carrickfergus Castle.

The London SeaLife Aquarium itself is really just like a bigger version of our Portaferry Aquarium. It's just that on a bigger scale, and takes longer to walk round. 

There are dozens of viewing tanks, more fish and species, but I'm glad we didn't pay more than £10.50 each because we had seen most of it all before. The only difference was it had a crocodile, and a pretty cool jellyfish exhibition. I liked the piranhas best.

Right beside the Aquarium is one of London's newest but best known attractions, The London Eye. 

The giant Ferris wheel gives 360 views of the city as far as the eye can see. We went on it on Smix's first visit to London in Easter 2016. We both loved it. 

It can be pricy, but if you have a valid rail ticket for the day you can get a 2 for 1 London Eye discount voucher. Simply print it at home before you travel.

The ride lasts about 45 minutes, and is well worth the price. If you are cautious of heights don't worry, the pods are enclosed and solid, no wobbling, and quite large and spacious. There is a place to sit in the centre of each, and iPads with facts about the views you can see as you rise and fall. 

I've heard that the view at night is something special, and might make a return visit to the London Eye on another trip to see the city at night. 

Asda's Kitschest Cakes- From Giant Custard Creams to Dessert Burger & Fries

Asda are probably have the best value party cakes of all the supermarkets, and definitely the most inventive!

We had the cute Gnorman the Gnome cake back at the start of the summer, for a birthday. This week Asda sent us the huge, indulgent Chocolate Drip Cake to share for Sunday lunch. 

It's the novelty cakes that I love, and for pug admirers there's a whole range of pug cakes. There's the full size Pabs and Paloma celebration party sized cakes, plus pug cupcakes and a small gift cake which serves six. 

The coolest cakes are the oversized biscuits and 'shaped like other food' designs. The massive Custard Cream is uber realistic, as is the Jammie Dodger. The Donut Cake looks like a Simpson's offering and the giant Rainbow Jazzie is positively mouth watering.

Theres also an oversized Ice Cream Sundae Cake, and Burger and Fries!

A clever little offering I haven't seen anywhere else before is Asda's Afternoon Tea packs. They've profiteroles, cream doughnuts and custard slices, all in a little box for £3 each.

There are two varieties, Cream Tea and Summer Selection. 

The prettiest cake in all the land has to be the Piñata Cake. A rainbow Wonder filled with a surprise in the centre. There are matching mini pinata cupcakes which also spill forth sweetie treasure. 

The Smash Cake is similar, with hidden bounty inside its dome. There's also a giant pink cupcake, and a strawberry ombré version of the drip cake. 

Lastly, watch out for the Asda Extra Special desserts, for posh after dinner delights. 

Family Friendly London #6 - Ripley's Believe It Or Not- Tickets for just £11.50

Ripley's Believe It or Not museums are my spiritual home. I've been to one in Florida, one in LA, another native offering of the Blackpool museum, and visited the Piccadilly one for the second time last Easter. It's a church of Kitsch.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not London is right on Piccadilly Circus.  It takes over the corner of a huge building and it's .hard to miss

Ripley's is home to the weird and wonderful. Stories of amazing and unusual people. Crazy natural phenomenon recorded for the ages. Bizarre artwork, images made from toast or jelly beans. Tales of great feats, wacky achievements, world record breaking acts. 

It really is right up my street, including strange taxidermy. 

If you love the weird and wonderful, it's definitely worth a visit. You'll spend a good 90 mins winding your way through the many floors and galleries, even if you don't read about every exhibit.  

Kids will love the museum more than perhaps a 'boring grown up' art gallery. There are exhibits you can interact with and play with along your journey, as well as top class photo opportunities. And unlike many London attractions you can take your own photos as you please; you don't have to pay £15 at the end to get a nice picture.

There are a couple of ways to avoid paying full price for your Ripley's ticket. The first is a 2 for 1 deal via Days Out Guide. To claim you just need a valid train ticket for that day. That site is well worth bookmarking as they have handfuls of similar deals for London attractions, discounts on restaurants etc.

This site has a similar good deal for tickets at only £11.50 each, rather than the £27.99 price quoted online for an adult ticket.

So it's really up to what's cheapest on the day. If you walk straight into Ripley's you can check the current ticket price, and see which deal is going to be best for you.  The latter deal doesn't even require printing, you can show them it on your phone to get the £11.50 tickets.

It really is worth paying for if you're like me and just love weird stuff. I think my most excited moment was seeing the 'blue & black or white & gold' dress, the internet famous frock right before my eyes. Now that's culture.

Retro Ulsterbus and Vintage Travel Advertising Spotted at the Ulster Transport Museum

I think everyone in this neck of the woods has been to the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum at Cultra, just outside Holywood, but for non-NI-natives and tourists it's well worth visiting. We went along today especially to see the Flight part, but dandered through the other galleries we had seen before because the giant locomotives and engines are always impressive.

There are half a dozen galleries, including the absolutely HUGE train hanger. As well as the actual trains there is a wealth of reading exhibits and model dotted around each pavilion. 

New since our last visit are the massive five or six story high photos at either end of the train hanger.  One end shows a vintage station (I forgot to check which, if it was Central or Great Victoria Street) with signs for trains for Bangor, and interestingly Castlewellan.

The end below shows Portrush Train Station in its heyday.

We had a cuppa in the cute tea rooms, then walked down to the flight part of the museum.

They had a mini version of the tearoom down there in the separate building for planes, carts and cars.

The flight part is quite small, and hasn't really been updated in years and years. If you are Aviation mad like Smix it may be worth a trip from Belfast, but honestly if you only like planes be aware it's a very small part of the museum. 

The YouTube daredevil pranker idiots of the 1920s

Whilst Smix loved the aircraft section, I loved all the vintage photos of Northern Ireland, and the old fashioned advertising. 

Bonus snaps-

1. facts about the world's worst poet who was from Larne. Sounds about right. 

2. the derp-iest looking plane ever. Smix was able to tell me all about it. It's used to Transport bits of planes to different parts of the world. I think if I ever saw this at the airport I would die laughing.

Family Friendly London #5 Guide to Cheap London Theatre Tickets- Including Kids Go Absolutely Free!

For our summer London trip this year we really wanted to go to the theatre. We've been to the Grand Opera House in Belfast quite often, but never a big show in the west end. 

There are several options to bag tickets for less than up front price, so let's have a look at them. 

We booked through  LastMinute.com and picked restricted view seats for The Garrick's production of Gangsta Granny. Check theatre layouts on TheatreMonkey.com as some seats, like the ones we picked, aren't too bad. We just had to lean forward a bit when the action moved to one side of the stage, but it saved us £10 a seat each compared to the people beside us.

Another option to look into is Kids Week. Every year theatres release a bunch of kids go free tickets, which you can buy through the Kids Week website. Pay for an adult ticket and get a child's seat free. It's also more than a week so the name is misleading, so if you are visiting during the summer at all, be sure to check that website for the shows you might want to see.

Lastly, you can always try the TKTS booth in Leicester Square. It may have half price seats for the show you want. Be careful about any other booths, as they may not be official and may not be accurate about offering you the best price.

Happy ticket hunting.