Shelli's blog: Aunt Sandra's Candy Shop and The Belfast Giants

The kids and I started our day with a really sweet treat. A visit to Aunt Sandra's Homemade Candy Shop. This is their web advertisement.
"WELCOME...

Lucky old us, eh!!!!!!!

We’ve been crunching on Aunt Sandra’s delicious Honeycomb, savouring her super-scrummy Traditional Fudge, and rolling our eyes in delight over her Chocolate Macaroon cake since 1953, when Aunt Sandra first opened her doors on the Castlereagh Road, Belfast.

But its only now, in these enlightened times that we’ve begun to ask some important ethical questions. How well does Aunt Sandra look after her Macaroons? How does she treat her Nutty Lumps? And does she beat her Fudge?

Daft questions you may think but at Aunt Sandra’s we take it all very seriously, and that’s why we welcome visitors out shop and factory. The shop has been transformed to look exactly as it would have in Aunt Sandra’s day, and in the factory you can see exactly how good we are to our ingredients.

Aunt Sandra may have retired, but her tradition of hand crafting the goodies continues, carried on by her nephew David Moore. Come in for a visit and chew over the latest with David – he’s good at the old sweet talk."

We had a chance to peek in the huge kitchen. The candy table is the biggest thing in the room. It is about 12' long and about 4' wide. They were making honey comb on it when we looked in and a smaller table held foot shaped lollies in their molds, getting already for their trip to The Giants Causeway. Aunt Sandra's supplies the sweets for lots of local attractions. The whole workshop was not much bigger than a large kitchen. A huge pile of bagged sugar was on one side of the room and the floor was so sticky. The air felt sweet and sticky.

We all chose a mix of their delicious candy. Then we had a chat with the owners wife. She was happy to take a moment out of the kitchen and tell us about The Troubles. It is amazing to hear how much different things are now in downtown Belfast. She also recommended some places to visit. And was not amazed at our tall of cracking plaster and doors that don't open or close properly in our apartment. Her remark was, nothing can be built well when it is thrown up that fast.

my candy monsters

We live right next door to the Odyssey where the Belfast Giants play hockey, they are part of the Elite Hockey League. Last night was their season premier with a home game opener. We decided to go and see a game.

This is an interesting team most of the players are from Canada, some are from England and three are local boys. The crowds really love their local boys. It was cool to know that they had a player from Williams Lake on their roster.

There is nothing like taking a game that you have watched lots and transposing it to another country, like the Olympics. somethings just look way different. The first thing that made us go hmm was how much beer you can have. They have created a handled holder that allows you to carry four solo cups full of beer comfortably to your seat. Bad thing about a cup with no lid is a great play can end up in someone getting a beer bath. Poor Sabrina narrowly missed that, the guy next to her got really excited at a sudden goal.

Zamboni advertizing

The next thing was the music. It was funny to hear Irish drinking songs played at a hockey game. There were plenty of oldies that we love too like, Ice Ice Baby. lol The Giants song is The Belle of Belfast City (Tell Me Ma) I tried to find a youtube clip to add here but the comments are not so nice on the ones I found. The fighting still continues just in other places.

On the ice the game was a close one. I like those games the best. They keep you on the edge of your seat for 60 minutes of play. The game was tied until 11 minutes of play left. Everyone responded with a groan, could the Giants pull a goal out of their hat in the remaining minutes. Just to keep things exciting they promptly got two penalties and played 2 1/2 minutes down a man, ahh. At 1:11 remaining they scored one of those great goals. The game was tied they were heading into overtime.

Overtime both teams played with just four defenders. The game was the best play of the night. No room for mistakes in sudden death overtime. Belfast quickly sent a puck through the legs of the Tilburg Trapper goalies legs. The poor guys response was sad to see.