A Fun Filled St Patricks Weekend

What an action packed St Patricks Weekend we had this year..and not one drop of alcohol passed my lips..there's a first for everything!! :)

I took full advantage of the extra day off due to our national holiday and packed in loads of out and about trips. 

First up, myself and the Boy took a trip to Kinsale in West Cork (I've blogged about this place before but it really is one of my favourite places in the county). We decided to pack a flask of tea and some rolls for our trip and ate them while looking out over Kinsale harbour from Charles Fort..an amazing view from up there. We then took a stroll around the town for a visit to Sundays Ice Cream Parlour..I love this place!! It's really retro and funky with 1950's style decor. We stocked up on some yummy sundaes in there. An extremely colourful looking shop caught my eye as we walked past so I just had to go in and have a look! It was like walking into my own little piece of heaven...it was filled with little trinkets, writing sets, 1950's style cups and signage, fairies etc. Its called Stone Mad, quite apt too. 

Sunday then of course was St Patricks Day. I'm ashamed to say I haven't actually made it to my local parade in a few years due to the effects of the night before taking their toll. This year, however I ventured down town to Cobh town centre to watch the parade. We were joined by the Mothership and Daddykins to watch it as the oldest niece was in it with her rowing club. It was the biggest turnout I'd ever seen and the town looked super! Thankfully the sun was shining for most of it with the odd shower here and there but it didn't seem to dampen anyones spirit. While most people were out in the pubs for the rest of the night, myself and the Boy ate loads of finger food, played cards and watched some films..couldn't think of any better way to spend a bank holiday Sunday night :)

And to finish off our bank holiday weekend...a picnic on the beach!! Some friends asked us did we want to join them on a trip to a beach near by for a little picnic which of course we did..we've grown fond of the flask! :) So we loaded up the car with the tea, goodies and a blanket and took off to Garryvoe. It was a bit cold but once the sun was shining it was lovely, we had a stroll along the beach, ate some sandwiches, visited the playground and of course finished it off with a 99!

Keeping Warm

The Boy <3

Garryvoe Beach

All in all I had a super awesome long weekend (thanks St Paddy for the extra day!) and really enjoyed our bit of sight seeing, picnicing and general chill out down time instead of the usual drunken antics...and we can't wait for next year already to bring Junior along to his first local parade to join in the festivities with us :)

<3 

I really hope you all had as good a weekend as me and celebrated St Patricks Day in style no matter where you were.
Keep Smiling :) xoxo

Mum's Fish Dish

Phew...finally a chance to sit down and blog!! Life has been hectic these past few weeks between work, car shopping, baby shopping and life in general - happy to say though that I finally managed to buy a car, with 5 doors, am I grown up or what?! Sad to see me reliable 'ol Civic leave my driveway though, but not too worry, Charlotte has only moved into the boys house where will now look after her :)

Anyway, I feel like my last few posts have been very "me" so I'm making a conscious effort to make a bit more interesting with more lifestyle posts.

So today's post is a quick recipe to give some fish fillets a bit of pizazz! I've aptly named it "Mum's Fish Dish" because it was just something she tried one night that I liked, so gave it a go myself.

Ingredients:

4x Cod Fillets
3x Scallions
3x Tomatoes
Breadcrumbs
Cheese - Grated Red Cheedar
Mayonaise

• Pre heat oven to 170 degrees (I was using a fan oven)
• I started by cutting my tomatoes into quarters, deseeding them and then dicing them up.
• Next the scallions were chopped up finely and added to the diced tomato.
• I mixed these together with approx 3 dessert spoons of light mayonaise 
• Next up I lined a baking tray with some tin foil and made a bed out of the mayo mixture and placed the 4 cod fillets on the bed of mixture
• There was a bit left over so put the mixture on to the top of the cod fillets also
• I mixed up my bread crumbs with the grated red cheddar and an egg to bind them
• I then made a topping with the cheese/bread crumbs and covered the fish into a tin foil parcel - rolled up the tin foil at the sides and folded over loosely on the top
• Popped them into the oven for about 30mins
• Served them up with mixed veg and some potato wedges

Yummy :)

xo