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After sacrificing sleep last night for Grey’s and the Interweb, I went with some friends to St Georges ‘Christmas’ Market. It had been years since I had been to the market, and although it was near closing by the time we got there, it looked like it would have actually been good during peak hours. Of course I didn’t find anything I really thought suitable for anybody, for either Christmas or birthday, both are coming up within my immediate family.
Ronan did amuse us by falling over backwards as he sat on the ‘Fun Bag’
There was a small brass band blasting some classic christmas hits for the resting on-lookers. It really helped with the christmas atmosphere, which was definitely in the air.
I found some colourful items:
Then finally we stopped for a delicious crêpe
I do enjoy markets. There’s often a great atmosphere, strange odds and ends that wouldn’t be found in the average high street store; perfect gifts for anyone. I know this market is open all year round so I think I will go more often.
Unfortunately it is only open on Fridays and Saturdays. Fridays is the Variety Market, open from 6am to 1pm, “a range of products are sold at the market including food, antiques and clothes”. Apparently it dates back to 1604, with 248 stalls, including 23 fish stalls. Unfortunately my working on a Friday morning interferes with that.
The Saturday market, however, does sound enticing: “The City Food and Garden Market takes place every Saturday from 9.00am until 3.00pm. The market offers a huge range of local, continental and speciality foods.”
This sounds like something worth investigating further before the year is out.
What a relaxing weekend. Much of my time was spent at the parents house, chillin’
When there is a purpose for taking photographs it always makes it so much easier. Especially when my purpose is to show to people who have [probably] never been to Ireland. I try to think like this most of the time but it can be hard. To start to look at things a lot differently, through the eyes of someone who has never seen it before.
When I got back from the USA 2 years ago I did see everything differently. Looking forward to the day my friends would come to visit, I ended up seeing so much that they would find interesting. Through understanding that so much of what we take for granted is so unique to us comes the ability to see things in a different light and capture them.
So this afternoon I set off with my brother to the city centre to take some more buy some socks and underwear, pick up lots of leaflets and event guides on Belfast and Northern Ireland and take lots of photographs.
I am totally loving my brother, Chris’ new-found interest in photography. Since my dad bought the Nikon D40 last month Chris has been enjoying using it and I have been enjoying helping him.
After much shopping and photographing, we went for a great lunch in the Northern Whig.
Finally I managed to get him to stand still for longer than 2 seconds:
With only 5 days until I leave, I’m getting quite excited. It may turn out to be quite a stressful week too. With quite a lot to do and having not had one cigarette all weekend, I wonder how much longer that will last…
When it comes to chocolate, I’m not usually too adventurous. Twix and Twirl usually do the job. I’m also not usually taken in by clever marketing tactics, such as those currently employed by Cadbury.
This story begins with my cold which has worsened over the last few days (can I have some sympathy please?). As a result, I don’t have the energy to go into the cold cold kitchen and make food. Theres a pizzeria just around the corner.
While the pizza was being prepared, I popped into the shop a few doors down. Milk. Bread. Yogurts. Pie. Then, as I was queuing for the checkout, I spotted something. One of those stands with the word ‘new’ in large letters was within arms length as I stood queuing. Inside was chocolate. “That’ll be perfect for desert,” I thought to myself.
The pizza was great. I was pretty full. Now for ‘desert’.
As I mentioned above, I usually stick with the chocolate bars I know and love. I have in the past eaten a Twix everyday for a long period of time, though this was a few years ago. I don’t eat a lot of chocolate anymore. It is kept for the occasional treat. Since I was treating myself to a pizza, why not treat myself to a bar of chocolate. Although the new bar isn’t described anywhere on the packaging it was all down to luck.
I was putting my faith in Cadbury, that they would provide me with tasty chocolate if I choose to allow their £3.85m multi-media marketing campaign be considered (or at least some of it) well spent.
From the picture it looks like there is a river of chocolate oozing from the inside of each segment. First thoughts: “Where’s the ice cream!”
The chocolate on the outer casing reminds me of that on the Cadbury’s Caramel bar, thankfully, the inside was not caramel - It is only at this point that I realise the packaging of the two bars are identical, except for the colours. Instead; chocolate. A very rich, sweet, oozing chocolate, that tasted like it was stolen straight out of a hot chocolate fudge cake from a fancy restaurant and all it needed was some ice cream. Its soft smoothness goes down effortlessly. Hmmm.
It is definitely the desert I was looking for, though possibly too sweet for typical impulsive consumption. I doubt its particularly healthy either, but chocolate was never meant to be healthy was it?
Today’s chocolate buying was a product of Ze Frank’s influential brainwashing.
I went shopping today. This is not something i have done often enough since moving out in October ‘06. My problem is that I am not a great cook, well not even that, more that I’m not so good at putting together meals - what goes with what. I don’t know what to buy. I was never a very adventurous eater when I was young. I’ve gotten much better at eating a variety of
foods in the last few years, but making it myself isn’t something I have mastered yet. I really need to read some websites on healthy eating along with recipe sites. Let me know if you know of any good ones.
I bought a fair amount which should keep me going for a week or so. Though I feel I should really get out of the way of eating ready meals so often. I do have a small variety of other ingredients which i plan to experiment with during the week. I do find it quite worrying however, that I cannot even remember how to eat an apple. I bought three, and ate one. Well I forgot to take the little sticker off it. This was drawn to my attention when I saw half of it. The other half had been eaten. Better luck next time I guess.
There is of course the fact that food is expensive and awkward when its only for one person. You cant just buy one chicken breast. They come in packs of 2 or 4. Which really isn’t much good. I could probably go to the butchers. The same with mince. Well I have some sort of mini chicken things, rice, pasta, plenty of sauces and some vegetables - cant go wrong, right?
