To make a long story short, we had a terrific day there, spending over 2 hours in the pool. The children loved the intervals when waves would traverse the pool. The smaller slides were perfect for the 5 year old, whilst his older siblings tackled the much larger flume slide.

The lazy river, various water showers and sprays, jacuzzi and spa pools were all tried and tested. It was great fun.

8 year olds and younger have to wear arm bands which is no harm as parts of the pool complex have water depths which are above their heights. I felt the whole set up was very well run. There were plenty of staff and life guards keeping an eye out.

My only minor gripe is that I felt the individual changing rooms were on the small side. I would have preferred a larger family one in which we all could have been accomodated rather than the hassle of splitting the children up into their own rooms.

It is quite expensive but there is a good deal on offer at the moment where you get a second family visit for half price which we availed of the following week which I guess is another indication of how much we liked the place. It was a great way to spend an otherwise dreary Sunday and I can definitely see us heading there quite often over the next few months.

]]> https://manicmammy.com/2011/02/27/welcome-to-the-aquadome/feed/ 0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ https://manicmammy.com/2010/10/11/galway-bay-half-marathon/ https://manicmammy.com/2010/10/11/galway-bay-half-marathon/#comments Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:55:13 +0000 Manic Mammy https://manicmammy.com/?p=2386 After the hills of Dingle, we decided our next run would be somewhere flat. A google search later, we settled on Galway bay’s “fast, flat, fun and very scenic” half marathon on October 2nd.

I was looking forward to this run as I thought I’d find it much easier than Dingle. However, despite completing it in a faster time, I didn’t really enjoy it as much. I did like the fact that most of the route was along the salthill promenade and so close to the sea. I didn’t like the full belt of the wind as we ran out the causeway. I didn’t enjoy doing two laps of the same course to notch up the requisite half marathon mileage. Also I discovered that I much prefer starting a run early in the morning rather than waiting till 1pm.

I prefered the atmosphere of Dingle. I loved the music at the startline there, it got everyone in top form. There seemed to be more people along the route in Kerry too.

That said, the Galway bay half marathon was, to my eyes, well organised.  The race packs contained a decent running top amongst other goodies. I relished the sambo in the finish pack and it was really nice to have a coffee in the tent after finishing as the day turned inclement. The free massages in the finishing marquee were also a nice touch.

Will probably think about doing this road race again next year but will keep my fingers crossed for less wind and I’ll know what to expect this time. Now I need to start some decent training as hoping to take part in the Clonakilty half marathon on December 11th. It looks to have quite a few hills on the route so will be ever so slightly more challenging.

]]> https://manicmammy.com/2010/10/11/galway-bay-half-marathon/feed/ 0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ https://manicmammy.com/2010/07/08/super-sugru-scissors-repair/ https://manicmammy.com/2010/07/08/super-sugru-scissors-repair/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:10:38 +0000 Manic Mammy https://manicmammy.com/?p=2282 This is a guest post from Oscar, our 11 year old son. He eagerly awaited the arrival of Sugru in our house as he had seen the demos on its website. He repaired a broken scissors handle with the wonder material. Now nothing is safe

Take it away Osc:

Today I did an experiment with a product called Sugru. Sugru is colourful silicone rubber used for fixing items. I tried to fix a pair of broken scissors. What was wrong with them was one of the handles snapped. So I got a small packet of Sugru to fix it. I first opened the packet and felt the play-doh like substance. It was surprisingly very soft. I then applied it to the broken part of the scissors. I spread the Sugru so one could get their fingers in the handle. Then after 24 hours I checked the scissors and the Sugru on the scissors. The Sugru had turned hard in the 24 hours that it was setting but it was still feel the rubberiness in it. So in other words it was a complete success. I am giving Sugru a rating of 5 stars. Excellent. I would recommend it to anyone.

Being a major Lego fan, Oisín loves it, particularly the line “We Come In Pieces”. He wants to send it to all his pals. As I’ve previously mentioned, the cost of cards usually irks my thrifty soul. But at €2, these won’t break the bank and I think I’ll be buying a few more of them.

This 31in guitar has 6 real steel guitar strings and comes complete with a powerful stage amplifier, a sing along microphone, a hands free headset and an adjustable stand so you can rock the stage just like Hannah.

To be fair, it is what it says in the blurb above. She had brilliant fun over the Christmas holidays with her cousins doing thrash metal versions of the carols. The sound was loud and she loved the hands free mic. She was a rock chick. Trés cool.

However alas within a few days one of the wires from the standing microphone to the amp had broken. A few days later, the headset mic also broke. To be honest she hasn’t really played with it much since. I think for someone of her age, it was important to be able to sing with a mic at the same time as playing the guitar.

From a parent’s point of view, I would have preferred if the amp could have been plugged in rather than totally reliant on batteries. It also would have been a nice idea to have some guitar musical instructions on how to play some of Hannah’s songs perhaps. A built in tuner would have been very helpful too.

Overall, this is definitely more of a roleplay or make believe toy rather than a musical instrument set. It needs to be improved from a quality perspective in manufacture to make it more robust. Wires and headsets should be made to last a bit longer than a few days. Available from approximately €40 from Amazon or Argos. Could do better. ;-(

photo credit: Manu – mars

Myself and Oscar headed into Cork this morning on the advice of his mate Cian. Both the boys are hugely into skateboarding at the moment and its fabulous to see such enthusiasm.

The purpose of this visit to Tubes on Cook Street was to purchase new trucks for Oscar’s skateboard. Since Christmas his skateboarding has improved in leaps and bounds so he is doing more moves, jumps etc so he wanted more manoeuvrability with his board. He has been saving, so all his cash was gathered and in I drove.

Tubes is easy to find and packed full of snowboarding, surfing and skateboard equipment and attire. Oscar was in heaven. The young sales assistant was brilliant. He gave us great advice after listening to Oscar’s predictament. The service was friendly and top notch. Oscar appreciated the fact that the sales guy was a skateboarder himself and knew exactly what Oscar was talking about. The trucks were purchased.

Oscar has already started saving for his next visit and I also now know where to go when I wish to purchase snowboarding gear. We’ll definitely be returning soon.

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My younger kids love this range of Usborne books. The characters and stories are straightforward and fun. Each books deals predominately with one character whether Big Pig or Fat Cat and more. Though often characters from the other books in the series make a guest appearance. The text is extremely simple and the kids love opening out the flaps on some pages to discover hidden text or pictures.

There are 13 books in the series and they are all extremely well read by all of my smaller kids at this stage. Would definitely recommend for children learning to read, getting used to the sound of words or just ready to enjoy a fun story.

Fourteen years ago, scientist William Fox implanted four babies with the Medusa gene – a gene for psychic abilities. But Fox died and the babies were hidden away for years. Now the children are teenagers – and unaware that their psychic powers are about to kick in. Cocky, charismatic Nico thinks his emerging telekinetic abilities will bring him money, power and the girl of his dreams. He’s about to find out just how wrong he is…

He loved the plot which he thought was very unpredictable and full of surprises. He was also impressed with the descriptive passages.  It was definitely unputdownable for him, he is eager to hear what happens next and he has already ordered the next book in this Medusa Project series. Would thoroughly recommend for children of his age of 10 years old and older. Though he warned also that there is some amount of  strong language in the book.

Noone is safe from being photographed in the house now. She’s a one girl paparazzi. She has had no problems in using it so far, its design is fairly intuitive and her older siblings are to hand to assist her doing any of the more intricate functions.  In addition to it being a camera with zoom and flash, it can also record video and she can play one of five games.

Other features include limited editing of photos by adding a range of effects. She really loves it and the older kids have also nabbed and used it when she has left it down for a few minutes. I love the fact that its very robust. Her little hands can manage the buttons, dial and chunky frame easily. She loves when we hook it up to the TV and her photo creations can be seen on the big screen.

One disadvantage is that it is very hard on batteries and when they run out, it forgets all its settings including to use the memory card. The camera has only a small internal memory which fills rather quickly, thus leading to annoyed child.

Despite this minor disadvantage I would recommend this camera for children from 3 years up, its a wonderful present. Available from Smyths or Amazon. Thanks again Brían.

This is by far the best television documentary series that I’ve seen in ages. It follows 14 different people from the 600 or so who are awaiting organ transplants in Ireland. In the first episode a lady awaiting and eventually receiving a heart transplant, a spouse to spouse kidney transplant, a young man awaiting his second kidney transplant for over 3 and a half year and a young girl from Enniscorthy who undergoes a liver transplant were shown.

The second episode concerned, for the most part, cystic fibrosis patients. It is Ireland’s most common life-threatening inherited disease. I was unaware that many cf patients may need a liver transplant as well as lungs transplant. This episode detailed Luke’s liver transplant in Dublin, Orla’s efforts to get on to the Newcastle lung transplant waiting list, the effect of cystic fibrosis on 6 year old Hannah’s day to day life and  Jacinta from Knock suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, awaiting and eventually receiving a single lung transplant in the Mater hospital.

I am humbled by the courage, resilence and hope of these admirable people and their families. To know that their health has to deteriorate to such an extent before they’ll even be accepted on to the organ donation waiting list and to be aware of the numbers that pass away whilst on these lists. For many there are years of waiting, helpless, their lives put on hold as they wait for the misfortune of some other person and some other  family to enable them to receive a new lease on life.

I doubt whether I would be as strong. This programme makes me acutely aware of how very fortunate I am that my family is healthy and of how important it is to carry an organ donation card and to make your next of kin aware of your organ donation wishes.

If you missed the first couple of episodes you can catch up on the TV3 website. Congrats to TV3 for making such a gripping, must-see, excellent and ultimately life affirming series. Less imported crappy reality tv and more of this type high standard documentaries please.