Wednesday morning, Nina and Mylo woke Col and I around 9.30am with bacon butties in-hand, honestly, all we’ve done since we got home, is eat, I’m sure the scales will attest to that!  But there’s so much food from here that we miss terribly, bacon is one of the main ones.

Fact: You cannot beat a bacon butty.

Around 11am, Helena was teaching my cousin Emma, so we got a chance to chat to my cousin Brendan’s wife Michelle for a while,  I’d not seen her in years and Col had never met them before.  After the teaching was finished, (and a quick chat with Emma and Michelle), we piled in to the Mini and went off down the road to my parents house (Col stayed home with Mylo and set up shop in James and Nina’s study to work for the day!)

I stole a Pinkerton sausage from daddy’s breakfast, (another food we miss desperately over the pond,) we picked up our mum and headed into Newry ‘city’ centre to do some shopping (mostly for me! LOL!) I tend to take my sister or my brother clothes shopping with me, when either of them are available.  Helena picks things up and makes me try things that I’d not normally try, Rowan has great honesty, if it looks like crap, he’ll say so.

I struck pay-dirt at an unsuspecting place – Marks and Spencer.

I’d always considered that place to be all fuddy duddy, dated and old, however, I came away with three lovely ‘going out’ tops (one of which has to go back cause it’s got a hole in it!) and I was very happy!

We started with Dunnes and Marks and Spencers, before it was time to haul-ass across town to my beauty appointment with Helena’s friend Amy, at Serenity over on Marcus street.

In the US, I tend towards getting a Shellac manicure (as I’ve said before on my blog) and I’ve always been a threading fan (versus a wax fan) and I’ve only ever had my eyebrows waxed once before.

However, at Serenity I signed up for an eyebrow and upper lip wax and a ‘gel paint’ manicure.  My experience was great, I’d highly recommend Amy for both the manicure and the waxing.

I also learned something new, I learned that threading is more painful than waxing.

However, I’d pick the threading over waxing every day of the week, the re-growth rate is slower with threading and it’s just tidier, more accurate.  It’s a good alternative when I’m home away from home though!

During my hour of beautifying, Nina went to pick up my brother and when I was done, we all headed back over to the Buttercrane so we could shop a little more.  Primark, Evans and Wallis were the subject of our dandering this time around, but aside from seventeen pairs of socks and some gift bags, I came up empty.

For dinner, we had a delicious home-cooked Indian feast at my sisters house, it was a big ole spread and was my parents first ever experience with Indian food.  When dinner was over and the dishes were done, my parents sat and chatted for a while, before going home to look after their dogs.  Helena went to visit a friend, and I talked Rowan and Colin into coming out for ice cream with me, to another local institution, Mauds.

Mauds ice cream was a huge treat for us as we were growing up, it was a special treat and a big deal in our house.  The ice cream is ‘home grown’, and though the cashier was as friendly as I imagine chlamydia being, the ice cream never lets you down.

It was delicious, and a nice wee spin down the road was just enough to keep my boredom at bay, back at Nina’s house, I lit the fire (yes, me, lighting a successful fire) and watched The Apprentice with little Mylo while his mummy was out visiting a friend.  She came home and watched ‘You’re fired’ with us, before we all headed upstairs, where I did some late night emails, caught up on my blog-notes and my ‘early night’ became an almost 1am bed time!

Thursday was a lazy (10am) start, we got up (Col got a big breakfast courtesy of Nina, I wasn’t hungry), we headed to my parents house to say cheerio, (mum made me a bacon sandwich for ‘brunch’), I played with the dogs a little and we headed up the road to Larne.

En route, we took a somewhat extended pit-stop in Banbridge, to pay a wee visit to the Outlets.  I wanted to check out the Next outlet and the M&S outlet, I was reasonably successful, I came away with a smart/causal top, a checkered shirt (which, since moving to Texas I’ve become somewhat obsessed with).

From M&S I came away with four pairs of cut-offs, (or capris or 3/4 lengths depending on what you call them), two pairs for now (the size I currently am) and another two pairs in a size smaller for when I get my ass back in gear and start losing it (my ass that is!) as well as a pair of linen trousers for a not too bad total of $45.

Even in Walmart it’s hard to find a decent pair of ‘pants’ for $14, let alone ones of such good quality.  So, I stocked up – it is, after all, almost summer, and I’ll be wearing them til they fade, tear or stain! LOL!

Once we got to Larne, we totally flopped, neither of us wanted to move a muscle, tiredness had struck!

We unpacked, I sat trying to catch up with blogging, Col did a bit of work and then embarked on his ‘manly man’ duties, he ran the washing machine again, discovered that the tumble dryer sounds unwell and spent almost two hours trying to replace the part in the dishwasher, only to discover that the dishwasher is still broken.  Ugh.

For dinner, we ordered dinner from a new (to us) local Chinese restaurant ‘China Garden’.  I ordered chicken curry, a small tub of sweet and sour sauce, Col ordered honey chilli chicken, we got rice, chips and an appetiser of satay chicken.

The food arrived, some was hotter than the rest, the rice and chips needed reheated.  Col’s honey chilli chicken, was tough and elasticated, it was also spicier than we are used to getting.  My chicken curry, turned out to be beef curry, I didn’t get my sweet and sour and neither of us looked too kindly on the chicken satay.

Col didn’t eat his, my curry sauce was nice, but that’s not enough to justify buying dinner, even the friggin prawn crackers were ‘wrong’, they tasted sweet!!! In short, we won’t be back.

After dinner, we put on some TV, and agreed to stay awake for the first game of the Houston Aeros Round 1 play off run, due to start at 1.05am our time.  Around 1.10am we broke out the take-away menus, only to discover that nothing opens beyond 11.30pm on a Thursday.

So, since we were hungry, and set to be up until at least 3am, we stuck on the oven and whipped up some potato waffles and sausage rolls, for a 2am ‘snack’.

We stayed up til 4am cheering on our boys (who have since been kicked out of the Calder Cup run) but it’s all a bit of craic!