HORSE POWER There is something magical about the sea horse. How can something that looks so wrong also look so right? They're graceful, elegant, romantic and faithful.
The male even gives birth. Demand from collectors is putting their long-term survival in serious doubt, however. Seahorse Ireland, a small operation based in Carna, in Co Galway, believes it has the answer. Marine biologists Kealan Doyle and Ken Maher and their team have developed techniques to breed sea horses on a large scale, which should ease pressure on the world's wild population. They can even post aquariums around the world. If you're quick, you could have one of them in time for Christmas. In return for €590, plus about €35 for shipping, they will send you one of a limited number of 60cm (two-foot) marine tanks containing two large coloured sea horses, a clown fish, two cleaner shrimp and two hermit crabs, as well as all the other items you'll need to sustain a marine habitat in your livingroom. It sounds like a good deal, particularly as the package was recently selling for €795. The profits will help fund sea-horse conservation research. You'll have to be prepared, as with all animals, to feed them each day and clean their tank each week, but it's a fair trade-off for a very unusual and rewarding package. Visit www.seahorseireland.com or call 095-32085. Alan Betson
POWER TO THE PEDAL Willie White, the director of Project arts centre, is just one member of the arty set you'll catch pedalling their way around Dublin on fold-up bicycles. He describes his Brompton, which he bought in Edinburgh, as the Porsche of bikes. "Well, maybe not the Porsche. More like the Volkswagen Beetle," he says on reflection. So who else has a collapsible bicycle? The actor Andrew Bennett, who has just finished a run at Project with Loose Canon theatre company, although he "came off his and made himself unavailable for rehearsals". There have also been sightings of the comedian David Doherty and the PR consultant Gerry Lundberg. White's bike folds up into a portable little package no higher than your knee that can be stored neatly indoors. White loves avoiding the traffic, the trauma of waiting for public transport that doesn't materialise and, because he doesn't have to leave it outside, the ever-present threat of theft. And, he says, "frankly, they look cool". Available from Cycleways, Parnell Street, Dublin. See www.bromptonbicycle.co.uk. Nicoline Greer
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES Calling all undomestic goddesses. Does your daily cleaning routine consist of wiping a few crumbs off the kitchen counter? Does your kitchen bin overflow, does your kitchen floor lurk under a layer of grime and do your bookshelves go undusted for weeks? Then you might need Kay Smallshaw's How to Run Your Home without Help, a 1949 guide that has been reissued in a typically stylish edition by Persephone Books. Aimed at middle-class housewives who were faced for the first time with the challenge of living without servants, Smallshaw's book is still surprisingly useful, although fewer people may need advice on "how to take the drudgery out of fruit bottling". It's also very amusing, a snapshot of a world in which the front steps should be scrubbed every week but your hair will be fine if you brush it every day and get "a shampoo every 10 days or so". This perfect present for the slovenly is available from www.persephone books.co.uk for £10 (about €14.50) or for slightly more from other online booksellers. Anna Carey
WELCOME TO THE HOBBIT HOUSE A cottage in the wilds of Wales seems an unlikely choice for a winter break - until you step through the door. Nestling in the hills of Cardigan Bay, three hours from Holyhead, Ffynnon-Oer Uchaff is a house straight out of a fairy tale. It has a kitchen and sittingroom downstairs and, beneath the thatched roof and ancient wooden-pegged beams, two sleeping lofts upstairs. Even if the rain is lashing down and the wind howling outside, you won't want to leave this delightfully cosy little hobbit house. But if you do, the surrounding countryside is beautiful, and Aberaeron, eight miles away on the coast, is a lovely little town with great restaurants and a fantastic second-hand book shop. It's the perfect place for a rural winter break - no child could resist the lofts. Ffynnon-Oer Uchaff, which sleeps six, is one of the enchanting holiday properties owned and managed by Under the Thatch, a Welsh non-profit organisation dedicated to restoring and maintaining beautiful historic buildings in an environmentally friendly way. Book a fairy-tale holiday of your own at www.underthethatch.co.uk or call Greg Stevenson at 00-44-1239- 851410. If you mention that you read about it in The Irish TImes, he'll give you a 5 per cent discount. That would mean breaks starting at about €150 for four nights with two staying. Anna Carey
LIGHT WORK You can count on Terroirs, Sean and Françoise Gilley's wine and food shop in Donnybrook, Dublin, to come up with stylish and unusual gifts. The delicious all-butter Breton biscuits from Pont Aven won't last long, but, when they're finished, at least you'll have the pretty box, decorated with a Gauguin painting, to show for your €8.50-€14.50 expenditure. These pretty Point à la Ligne petits-fours candles look good enough to eat; they cost €16.50 for six on a silver tray. Terroirs, Morehampton Road, Dublin 4, 01-6671311, www.terroirs.ie. Marie-Claire Digby
FROM EAST TO WEST Jennifer Goh's interior-design shop, in Carrick-on-Shannon, is packed with the spoils of regular trips to Mongolia, Burma, China and Tibet. Goh, who was born in Malaysia of Burmese and Chinese parents, and raised in Vancouver, arrived here after meeting an Irishman in Canada. She believes her shop is so popular because "prices aren't excessive and the furniture can blend easily with lots of different interiors". Everything is antique, not reproduction, with versatile pieces such as lacquered chests that can be used for linen, clothes or crockery (from €2,500) and altar tables that can be put in a hall or behind a sofa (from €1,500). Jennifer Goh, Landmark Court, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, 071-9622208. Eoin Lyons
PAPER ROUND The Paper Potter is the perfect gift for the person you know who is green in both fingers and mind. The wooden mould transforms old newspapers into seedling or cuttings pots. They are far sturdier than you might think and will last for about six weeks. Once you are ready to plant, just stick the whole lot into the ground – the paper will biodegrade. The wood for the mould comes from 100-year-old beech trees planted by Gertrude Jekyll, an Edwardian gardener, in the English village of Nether Wallop. It takes about a minute to make each pot, and it is "a cinch to do", says Thomas Quearney of Mr Middleton Garden Shop, on Mary Street in Dublin (01-8731118, www.mrmiddleton.com), which sells Paper Potters for €19.95. Nicoline Greer
FROM EAST TO WEST Jennifer Goh's interior-design shop, in Carrick-on-Shannon, is packed with the spoils of regular trips to Mongolia, Burma, China and Tibet. Goh, who was born in Malaysia of Burmese and Chinese parents, and raised in Vancouver, arrived here after meeting an Irishman in Canada. She believes her shop is so popular because "prices aren't excessive and the furniture can blend easily with lots of different interiors". Everything is antique, not reproduction, with versatile pieces such as lacquered chests that can be used for linen, clothes or crockery (from €2,500) and altar tables that can be put in a hall or behind a sofa (from €1,500). Jennifer Goh, Landmark Court, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, 071-9622208. Eoin Lyons
BOOKWORMS Encouraging your child to read is a gift that lasts a lifetime, so one of the best things you can give a child for Christmas is a book. If your knowledge of what's available goes no further than Harry Potter, however, help is at hand. A Twist in the Tale, which has just opened on the first floor of the Powerscourt Centre, off Grafton Street in Dublin, caters for children up to the age of 14. It has a section for boys and a Princess Corner, for girls, as well as a great range of early learning books and themed Christmas books. The space is small, cheery and brightly decorated, with a mini table and chairs. To mark the opening, the Noel Lambert Puppet Theatre is giving a free performance of Dinin and the Naughty Dog at the Powerscourt Centre at 3.30pm on Thursday. For more details, phone 01-6709946. Eimear McKeith
SING FOR YOUR SUPPER Not many restaurant staff receive fan mail. The waiters and chefs at Chai Yo, a Japanese restaurant in Dublin, get letters from customers who want to thank them for adding an unusual ingredient to their meals: singing. At the end of the night, Bovie Deleon, the restaurant's manager, leads renditions of The Cure's Boys Don't Cry, a particularly upbeat version of The Fields of Athenry or Fame – song is a key part of eating out in the Philippines, where many of the staff come from. The centrepiece of the restaurant is a big metal teppanyaki cooking table upstairs, where chef Marlon Medina stir-fries meat and vegetables like Tom Cruise makes cocktails. He uses it like a stage, cutting seafood in a flurry of clanging knives, juggling lemons and plucking eggs from the air as if by magic. There's a high chance you'll be clutching your belly because of the amount of delicious food constantly flowing in your direction, but you're more likely to be clutching it as you double over with laughter at the post-meal performance. Chai Yo Asian Restaurant, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2, 01-6767652. Nicoline Greer