SOLE MATE It can be hard to find the perfect shoe if you're a woman of a slightly longer than average heel-to-toe distance. Cinderella Shoes, which specialises in sizes 8½ to 12 (or 42.5 to 46 if you're feeling European), now sells its range through Arnotts, and its autumn-winter range has just come in.
Gina Hennessy, who set up the shoe business a few years ago because, as a size 9, she found it next to impossible to find footwear on the high street, says she is finding more and more factories to make her shoes, which range from hiking boots to high heels and take in both narrow and wide fittings. Cinderella Shoes also has a website, www.cinderellashoes.ie; delivery starts at €7.35. If you're also tall and looking for clothes, by the way, try Long Tall Sally, at Clerys in Dublin and on the web, at www.longtallsally.com. Nicoline Greer
TANGO PASSION Last summer, balmy Saturday nights in Dublin meant tangoing in Millennium Walkway, the restaurant-lined new pedestrian lane that links the north side of Millennium Bridge with Abbey Street. Tonight the dancing is not quite in the streets, because of complaints from residents, but the free event,which takes places on the third Saturday of each month, has moved only a few metres. The people at Buddha Bag, which is on the lane, are clearing a space in their shop for dancers, although they plan to leave a few of their huge bag seats around the edges, "for people to dive into", says tango teacher Simona Zaino, an Italian who has lived in Ireland for seven years. After hearing that some of her pupils find it hard to dance all night because of sore feet, she has also organised a back- and foot-massage corner - not to mention a selection of Italian food and wine. If you need more refuelling, why not head for the nearby Enoteca Delle Langhe or Caffè Cagliostro? And if you want to get your dancing shoes on and join them, learn how to do it at Zaino's Monday-night classes (8-9.30pm), for all abilities, at the Carmelite Community Centre on Aungier Street. Each session costs €7. See www.tangofever.net or call 087-9881363. Nicoline Greer
IN THE BAG Polka dots and flowers reign in Pia Thornton's new collection of bags, which range from girlie to funky. Thornton has been selling her creations, whose wooden handles contrast with the luxurious silk, velvet and cotton she uses for the main part of the bags, through shops in Dublin and her native Kerry for eight months. The reaction from friends, who regularly commission bags from her, and other customers has convinced her to go back to college this year, to study fashion, in Cork. (First time round she did interior and graphic design.) That should leave her with even more ideas for bags, each one of which gets made no more than 10 times a season. She will make bags to order if you have an outfit you want one to match, and she does mini versions of all her models, including the Petite Dotty. From Ave Maria, Clarendon Street, Dublin 2; Perfect Pairs, Church Street, Listowel, Co Kerry; www.piabags.com; or 087-6128662. Her prices range from about €100 to about €200. Nicoline Greer
STORYTELLER Jonathan Barry, a Dublin artist who specialises in painting scenes from well-known children's stories, in what some might describe as a charmingly childlike style, has been busy this summer. As well as holding his 12th solo exhibition, he has been working on the illustrations for eight Ladybird books. If you go along to Dublin Writers Museum (www.writersmuseum.com), on Parnell Square, where Barry's exhibition is running until the end of the month, you can see samples from his Ladybird Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk and Beauty and the Beast, as well as new paintings from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Peter Pan. He certainly seems to have found an audience; last year, he says, Sotheby's auctioned five of his pieces, and he hopes that more will go under the hammer there before the end of 2005. Liam Stebbing
ITALY ONLINE We have written before about romeaccom.com, the nifty online reservation service that offers sublets in the Eternal City. Now the company has expanded, northwards into Tuscany and southwards into the Amalfi Coast and Calabria, and has set up a new website, with a particularly good selection in picturesque Positano. You can compare prices for apartments, hotels and B&Bs, browse photos, and in some cases even view floorplans. The beauty of this service is that it gives access to accommodation with personality, often a person's home, for around the same price as a hotel room. If the regional service is as good as the smaller Roman one, then this could be the beginning of a beautiful holiday. Meanwhile, the original website now offers a range of services in Rome, including airport transfer, babysitting, maid, scooter rental, chauffeur, even an audience with the new Pope. For more details, see www.italy-accom.com and www.rome-accom.com/eng/other/services.shtml.
Conor Goodman
BUOYED UP Driving halfway across the country to find surfable waves seems a great idea until you get there and peer over the cliff only to see a perfectly flat sea stretching out before you. What you need is a wave forecast, which is where www.buoyweather.com comes in. It gathers meteorological and other data to predict the swell far out to sea for every coastal country in the world. Irish coasts are included on the UK regional weather page: click on one of the virtual buoys and you get wind speed, wind direction and wave height predictions for the next three days (seven if you pay a fee to sign up). Combine swell with an offshore breeze and get the roof rack out. Nicoline Greer