Our Premier Weekend!

 So, we FINALLY got around to using our fancy restaurant voucher from Secret Santa on Friday night. It had actually expired a month before, but after the obligatory groveling phone call, we booked a table and sorted the sitter.
 Alright then, that's not EXACTLY how it went down... You see, I had come across the voucher, immediately after throwing a (totally justified) strop, about a certain person's apparent inability to make even the most basic of social plans, concluding with,
'Oh, and you needn't think I'm booking my own birthday meal again this year, cos I'm not.. unless of course, you've it all organised already?'
 (As if). Cue exaggerated feigned innocence from me, and predictable 'caught in the headlights' shiftiness from him. 
Later on, I strategically positioned the voucher next to the kettle with highish hopes, but a few days later, I quietly backtracked and rang the restaurant to do it myself. I did the whole grovelling thing, only to then sheepishly discover, that my less than subtle hint HAD indeed been heeded. Proof that a well placed metaphorical boot up the arse does actually work... sometimes.

Our room

Then it just so happened, that soon after that, I got an email from Premier Inn, offering me and my family a weekend in any of their hotels. I know-tres exciting! (Back story-Premier Inns are sponsoring the 'Family Life' category in the MAD BLOG AWARDS, and as one of the finalists in that category, they offered this lovely freebie to little old me.)
Unfortunately, and to cut a very long story short, it turned out that our super size family was too big for their family rooms. So instead, it was decided that the two of us would stay in the Premier Inn in Belfast's Waring Street, in the hip and happening Cathedral Quarter, after our fancy meal out on  Friday night. Then, after a day out in Belfast on the Saturday with the kids, all of us would have dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening. Sure, it would've been rude not to....
I suppose that I should mention at this point, that Belfast's most gorgeous 5 * hotel also happens to be on Waring Street, and on passing it, it took ALL my willpower to focus on the purple Premier Inn sign further up the street, and not get waylaid by all it's 5* fabulousness....but, believe it or not, I was glad that I did.
Honestly, from the moment we arrived until the moment we left, I don't think I've met nicer, more welcoming staff anywhere (and just for the record, they had no idea of my superstar status!) It's true -from Rachel on reception, to Marty in the restaurant, to lots of others who just chatted to us and the children, everyone was friendly, helpful and chatty, without being fake, in your face, or just too much. In fact, they could teach many fancier hotels a thing or two!
Our room was huge, bright, and spotlessly clean, and the bed turned out to be super comfortable- always a bonus! Once we were settled, Loverboy went down to the bar to get us both a glass of wine, and discovered that if you bought 2 glasses, you got the rest of the bottle free! (Now you won't get that in Fancy Schmancy up the street!)

Gotta love the brekkie!

 It must be said though, that breakfast next morning in the Thyme Restaurant was the piece de la resistance. It was self service, with Costa coffee, the freshest of cereals, fruit, toast, muffins and all the cooked breakfast goodies as well. I was only sorry that the kids weren't there to enjoy it too, because for them, nothing says 'I love you' like an 'all you can eat' breakfast!
 (The only minor downside was my unlucky view of the next table- each time this Lovely leaned forward, I was treated to more of the same!)

The view...now that's some craic!

After collecting the kids from my mum's, we headed into the brilliant St. George's Market, where I could happily have put in the day, but we'd pre booked tickets to the  Titanic Museum, and honestly, it was world class. Informative, emotional, exciting-everything a museum should be. If you get the chance, go. Afterwards, when we stood on the exact spot where her keel was laid and gazed into the water where she was first launched, it was surprisingly moving.

Then it was back to the Premier Inn's Thyme restaurant for dinner with the kids. We had the meal deal, which was 3 courses and a glass of wine or soft drink for £22, and the kids had an great selection to choose from for £4.25, or £4.75 with dessert. (There was even a baby and toddler menu for up to 7 months and 10 months+!) The food was tasty and seemed to really hit the spot- proof were the clean plates afterwards!

Add caption

But the big question is-would I go back to the Premier Inn and pay for it this time? For a family break, the answer is a resounding YES! In terms of a child friendly, great value hotel,  it's top of its field. (We stayed recently in a Holiday Inn and there was simply NO comparison).And the icing on the cake was definitely the staff- in Waring Street Belfast anyway. 
So that was my weekend..did you get up to anything yourself?

Titanic- enough already!

Complete with bulkheads...yes, really.

Elsewhere, Titanic fever may have died down somewhat, but round here it's still very much in vogue.
It would also be fair to say, that out of the four boys, Rory is most enthralled and, not a day goes by, where I don't find a 'Titanic', in the sink or bath or shower. Often cobbled together from anything he can scavenge out of the recycling bin, he gets busy with scissors and Sellotape and produces... well, these.
Although usually all christened 'Titanic', this week he mixed it up a bit, with a 'Carpathia'!  Understandably enough though, upon learning that Carpathia didn't actually sink, she too reverted to Titanic...because obviously a huge part of the enjoyment is seeing how long these, (let's loosely call them), ships, take to sink. Personally though, my very favourite part, is discovering the wrecks of these sunken vessels in the bottom of a filled bath...because if you've never experienced the clean up of huge sodden piles of disintegrating cardboard, quite frankly, you haven't lived.

Yes, that IS a cheeky Fly London shoebox you spy!

Following his 'Life on Board Titanic' project, Jude has been pondering, (seemingly endlessly), the big question of which class OUR family would have been aboard Titanic. With first class obviously out of the question, second was the preferred choice, with it's clear benefits of an elevator and a live band, but, as it turned out, steerage was also deemed perfectly acceptable. With four good meals a day, (Four mummy! That's more than we get at home!), bunk bed rooms, and music in the evenings, what's not to like, apparently? Indeed, upon overhearing, one might assume that he was excitedly discussing his upcoming holiday, as he, quite impressively, manages to sidestep the whole pesky iceberg issue entirely.

I  MAY have mentioned this before ;-) but I'm a finalist in two categories in the MAD Blog Awards. If you're feeling any love at all for this wee blog, I'd really appreciate it if you could vote for me in the Family Life category (the other one is decided by judges). Here's the link- http://www.the-mads.com/vote.htm and thank you very much xxxx
PS While you're there, check out the other finalists-who'd have believed there were so many amazing blogs out there?

Titanic Much?

Titanic leaving Belfast

Titanic mania reached its peak this week with the 100th anniversary of its sinking, but surely nowhere more than here in Belfast, aka Titanic town. It's EVERYWHERE. Even in the hotel last week, the walls were covered with Titanic inspired paintings, (an artist somewhere is sooo making a killing), while 'authentic' Titanic afternoon teas were being served on the terrace. (Presumably these were the teas enjoyed on the upper decks and not by the poor sods in steerage class).
On the TV and radio over the last few weeks it's been programme after programme, (Even Len Goodman was jumping on the bandwagon for goodness sake!), and 'A Night to Remember' seemed to be running on a loop. There's commemorative supplements in all the newspapers and last week the Belfast Telegraph issued Titanic medals! 

Titanic museum, Belfast

There are tours-a -plenty and the new Titanic museum opened its doors here in Belfast last week to sell out crowds- tickets have been like hens' teeth, but personally, I think I'll wait till it settles down a bit myself. 

See that Rose one...

Oh, and James Cameron's Titanic movie has been shamelessly re-released in 3D as well- (like he didn't make enough first time around!) I remember seeing it in Virginia in 1997- we had just moved there a few months earlier, it was 2 BC ( Before Children),  my cousin was visiting and the three of us went on a cold December night. I was secretly thrilled to see Belfast featured, albeit briefly, on the big screen so far from home, and cried my way through it along with everyone else. Fast forward to this weekend, and our Anna asked to go see it on Saturday with her pals. It's a 12 certificate, and although she IS 12, we're pretty strict about  TV and movies in general, and my practiced parental mind immediately filtered through my memory bank, bypassing all it's historical value, zooming in instead, on Rose lying in the nudie rudie being painted by a bloke she'd only just met..then subsequently getting up to no good in the back of the car!  But we discussed it and decided to let her go, and later, when she arrived home red eyed, she announced that it was the saddest film she'd ever seen in her life and she cried the whole way through....and she'd had the best time ever. (And happily she was at the loo at the car bit ...cos I checked.)
But where was I? Oh yes, despite feeling more than a bit Titanic-ed out, I just can't help being proud of the increased tourism and buzz that Titanic fever has brought to Belfast. You see, like so many of us, I remember the bad old days all too well, when a backpacker was a rare sight, and anyway, we just automatically assumed they were here by mistake. When the streets of Belfast were all closed off at night, with barriers, and soldiers and barbed wire... but sure that's another blog altogether!
Now, haven't we only gone and got ourselves a Titanic Quarter? (along with Queen's, Cathedral and Gaeltacht ) To me, it's another welcome string in the bow of a town, that's long been the black sheep of Irish tourism, but my goodness, she does scrub up well.

Titanic in Belfast

And no, I don't subscribe to the school of thought that thinks that remembering, celebrating and, (God forbid), capitalising on Titanic, is somehow in poor taste. This was a TERRIBLE human disaster, but it happened 100 years ago, and is no longer in living memory. Also-let's be realistic here-so much of history is made up of tragedy, and every society has to learn from the mistakes of it's forefathers. If we only acknowledged the happy endings, it would be a false history indeed. At the time it was built, Titanic was a triumph of modern engineering and it was built right here in little old Belfast. My aunt told me, that my great grandfather recalled going to the shipyards, just to marvel at its size and beauty. He also remembered waving, along with so many others, as it sailed from the docks up Belfast Lough on its way to Southhampton. (Actually, it may be in slightly poor taste,  if you so wish you can even buy a t shirt that states 'Titanic- it was alright when it left here...' and I couldn't help but smile.. not least because it's true!)
But now the anniversary's over and the media coverage will settle down, the Titanic afternoon teas will finish, and the queues for the museum will shorten. From here on in though, I believe that Titanic and Belfast will be forever inextricably linked, both for us and in the eyes of the world, and to me that's a very rich legacy indeed.

Down the Toilet...

It started off badly and went downhill from there. A week ago, I'd done my bumper bimonthly grocery shop online, ( it took 2 hours and came to over £300), and was due to be delivered yesterday. (I also do a weekly shop, but this is serious bulk buying, as in 40 packets of cereal and 50 loo rolls-I kid you not!). Anyway I'd ordered from Sainsburys this time, just for kicks, and logged on to the Interweb the other night to add bleach. (Yes indeed-that's what I was up to at 10pm on Valentine's Night - I sincerely hope that yours was a tad more exciting!)
Then, all of a sudden,  my monster grocery shop went inexplicably AWOL. One minute it was there, the next lost somewhere in cyberspace. Quick as a flash, I sent them an email telling them what had happened and assuring them that I still wanted our lorry load to arrive between 11 and 1 the next day. Ha!
Next morning, of course, I got an automated response confirming that it had been cancelled (It had not!) and sincerely hoping that I would shop with them again. Cue my first murmured FFS of the day, but it certainly wasn't my last. Obviously, I then sent them a snotty email telling them that hell would freeze over before I'd shop with them again and they could shove their groceries ...or words to that effect. Then, because I STILL had no bleach, and we were down to our last three packets of cereal, I had no alternative but to spend the next two hours doing a similar massive shop on Tesco instead. FFS! Which only meant that my exciting morning plans of tackling the ironing pile so large that I could no longer force the cupboard door shut, was now my afternoon instead. FFS!
Prior to this, I had morphed into 'Tiger Mother' mode, (which in Ireland is just being a complete targe), turning off the TV, (this went down a treat as 'Spongebob' was on), and organising chores, piano practice and project work. To tell you the truth, all of my Tiger Mother buttons had been well and truly pushed the night before, when I'd been informed that my nephew, who's only five, is currently reading the entire Roald Dahl collection ON HIS OWN... FFS! So, with a renewed fire in my belly,( but not in theirs- It's half term after all), extensive reading material was chosen and new guidelines for personal and guided reading put in place. As you I can imagine my popularity levels are currently through the roof. FFS!
Logged into Tesco in a grim but determined mood, and I was nearly done by lunchtime. The kids were playing outside, Loverboy was munching on a sandwich, wisely leaving me alone to calculate the price of loo roll, when we became aware of the sound of gushing water in the background. Thinking that one of the kids had left the tap on in the downstairs loo, he went to investigate to find that the cistern of the toilet had only gone and cracked completely, and water was pouring out all over the floor. FFS! FFS! FFS!
Surely, this must scoop top prize in 'Crappiest Toilet Luck EVER'? Utter panic ensued- it was just like 'Titanic'. Naturally, the children relished the drama, rushing for torches and towels and later, hosting guided tours of the offending site for the neighbours' kids.
 The upshot is that it looks like we're going to need a whole new toilet, because you can't buy just the cistern. FFS! And further preliminary investigations have indicated yet another issue - Oh, why am I not surprised? Apparently, champagne coloured suites are now so passé that they're like hens' teeth, and we may have to go for a white one... which consequently would mean a whole new bathroom suite. For lack of a cistern the entire bloody bathroom may be lost. FFS! (screaming now!)
Later on, and with the ironing finally done, I'd pretty much lost the will to live- my mood was black and I didn't care who knew it. There was more to come- lying in bed late last night, the pipes in the attic began to make a very loud, dubious clanking noise... for a good ten minutes. My overly optimistic husband assured me that all it needed was a squirt of WD40, (don't we all, love), but because I'd just finished watching 'Death Unexplained ' about a coroner's office and combined with our indisputable bad plumbing karma,  I was tearfully convinced that I was about to clock out, in a most undignified fashion, by being squashed with an exploding water tank in my own bed. FFS!....Then I fell asleep.