Nuggets from the Notes App #2

Welcome back to the inside of our smooth, smooth brains

Oct 30, 2025

Welcome to Nuggets from the Notes App, a collection of things we’ve loved, coveted, bought and thought over the past few weeks.

Things we coveted but did not buy

The stupidly ugly shoes

Sarah: I know what you’re thinking. An Ugg Mary-Jane? Have they lost their minds over there in Australia? Has Sarah also taken leave of her senses? Well, yes, to both! You know the way sometimes you see a baby or a small animal so cute that you could almost eat it? That’s how I feel about these monstrosities. They’re horrific. And it’s taking every ounce of my willpower not to buy them. €135 from Brown Thomas.

Emer: Speaking of questionable shoes, my eye has been caught by the Croc Mary Janes. Crocs are truly an enigma. I see them on a toddler and I recoil, thinking about how sweaty they must be. But then I see them on a Cool Girl and I want to be that Cool Girl. The Croc Stomp Mary Janes are my fave but they seem to be sold out everywhere in the world. The Cool Girls got there first.

I would also accept the Classic Mary Janes. Disappointingly, only the childrens’ version come with sport mode capability but I’m not beyond squeezing into a kids’ size 5.5. Zalando have them for €45.

The drip every pet deserves

Sarah: No, this is not an Oasis cover band, it’s a trio of models showcasing the new Adidas pet collection (although that schnauzer is definitely giving big Liam Gallagher energy). Only available in China at the moment which is devastating even though I do not own a pet.

A Speedarner for sustainable queens

Emer: Have I ever darned a sock in my life? No. But do I devote time to other sewing projects? Also no. My mother made the folder cover I needed to pass Home Economics in First Year. I swiftly dropped the subject entirely in favour of science, where I spent months and years learning about seaweed sex and cathodes. Anyway, I really think owning a Speedarner for mending clothes could turn my life around. It costs 80 British pounds from Ministry of Mending.

The jeans of my dreams

Sarah: Hey, I didn’t see you there. I was too busy thinking about the Topshop Horseshoe high-rise barrel jean in washed black. Thinking about how perfect they are, the tops I would wear them with, and the shoes and boots, and all the places we would go and adventures we would have together. No biggie. €74.99 from Asos but maybe I’ll find them on Vinted some day.

The mesmerising Candle Factory

kinkfab

A post shared by @kinkfab

Emer: This is exactly the kind of thing I would buy and never use. A candle holder that reuses the wax. Luckily, it seems to just be a prototype from Australian design company Kinkfab, otherwise I would have already purchased one for myself and one as a Christmas gift for Sarah, which would have paired disastrously with her candle-obsessed six-year-old. Might stick with some Sómas lovelies instead.

The Irish stationery brand that slaps

Sarah: I am low-key obsessed with stationery – the smell, the feel, the joy of putting a stamp on something handwritten and sending it off to a friend. Pawpear is a gorge new-to-me brand of colourful cards and prints all designed and created here in Ireland. Shop the latest collection here.

Nuggets for your health

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and unless we’re mistaken there hasn’t been much hype about it this year. Sadly, one in five Irish women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime and early detection saves lives. Be honest, when was the last time you examined the girls? Thought so. Here are some tips from the HSE on how to self-check (ignore the extremely naff illustrations if you can). Now go and do it for the love of god.

Nuggets for your eyes and ears

Emer: Carl Kinsella’s first book of essays At Least It Looks Good from Space, “a catalogue of modern, millennial and personal catastrophes”, is out now. He is a very warm, funny, insightful guy and he also narrates the audiobook. A great listen for your next walk/roadtrip/house clean.

Sarah: As a certified Nosy Bitch with a new book out next year I’m so curious about the inner workings of the publishing industry. This long, long read from Canada’s The Walrus shed some light on why debut authors sometimes get juicy advances and then are left for dead if their book isn’t a massive bestseller. “Countless factors contribute to how well a book sells, and there are many points in that chain at which things can break down. If they do, much of the responsibility converges on the writer. That a publisher bet on them and lost means it will be harder to secure the next deal. No matter the reasons for the flop—a tiny marketing budget, staff turnover at the press, cutbacks in culture coverage, backlash toward a hot literary trend—the writer carries the failure on their record.” Ouch!

Emer: My current favourite Irish content creator is Verona Farrell aka Second Hand Huns. She’s by no means new to social media (she has 800k+ followers across TikTok and Instagram) and she’s a columnist for Vogue Scandinavia. She does amazing fashion and trend content but what I’m really loving is when she sits down to do her lists. In Things Type A People Do That I Enjoy she details “people that pack outfits, not clothes” and “having an extra bottle of wine in the fridge”. It could never be me.

Lovely things we ate and drank

Sarah: Pizza would probably be (one of the courses on my) death row meal. And, just to be clear, in this hypothetical situation I’m on death row for a crime I didn’t commit. I didn’t murder a child or anything. We are spoiled for choice when it comes to pizza in Dublin these days but I especially like Rascal’s in Inchicore for the buzz and excellent beer selection. I got a margarita with jalapeños on this occasion because I was feeling spicy. The garlic dip is 10/10 too.

Emer: Me and my pal Esther (she’s on Substack too) were jaunting around in the Nissan Juke recently having one of our favourite conversations, what are you having for dinner? We both realised our respective cupboards were fairly bare but we did have the ingredients for a classic meal: egg, chips and peas. Friends, it was so delicious I had it two days in a row.

Sarah: One of my fondest memories of our family holiday in France last summer was eating fresh baguette every day absolutely slathered in French butter, the kind with the big salt crystals. I’m salivating just thinking about it now. Not that Irish butter isn’t amazing, it is, but the French are on to something with the crystals. Anyway! I nearly fell into my trolley when I spotted this in Lidl the other week. Reader, I had it demolished in five days. My arteries are crying but so what, right?

Emer: As you may have guessed from last week’s post, we went to the homophobic Chick-Fil-A just outside Belfast (we went on an adventure to see Yousuke Yukimatsu and stayed in a very agreeable Ramada Hotel which Sarah’s husband kept calling the “Ramadan Hotel”, much to my delight). The hotel didn’t include breakfast so before heading back to Dublin we had a starter of a Gregg’s sausage roll and then headed to Lisburn Services. I have to say, the chicken nuggets were moist and delicious and the waffle fries were very pleasant.

Dinner the previous night was in The Dumpling Library, right beside the Ramadan Hotel. There was an excellent and delicious meal deal which included your choice of cocktail. We were thrilled with ourselves even though the gig didn’t start until 1am and we were ancient and afraid.

Sarah: A few years ago I won second place in the Stoneybatter Bake-Off (part of the annual Stoneybatter Festival) and yes I’m still dining out on it. My bake that day was rosemary biscuits (the fact that I had grown my own rosemary had clearly impressed the judge, Father Ted’s Pauline McGlynn.) The rosemary bush has turned into a tree now so my six-year-old and I decided to put a dent in it last week by re-creating the biscuits. And they’re bloody delicious. This is the recipe we used.