Totally tropical loos, Portuguese style

After a chilly day yesterday where I headed across London and back again by bus, tube and train I thought we could do with some warming up. And as there's not been an entry in the Loo Series for a while, I'm combining the two with a tropical loo from Porto. It was on the last night of our week in Portugal and the anticipation of the cabbage plate was still real.

Our hotel was a bit out of town and it was nice to see a different part to Porto. We arrived at the hotel late and it was the type of hotel that in its heyday would have been fantastic and super swish. It was perfectly clean and adequate but let's just say its heyday was a good few years before our arrival, which was a shame. 

We headed into the local town in search of a restaurant and stumbled upon what turned out to be the fanciest restaurant we'd eaten in the whole of our holiday.  I'll come onto that, but first let's concentrate on the loos.  In the Ladies I found myself sharing the space with this in bloom bird of paradise, beautiful isn't it?  

The decor was relatively plain with painted walls and what I first thought was wooden floor tiles on the wall. On closer inspection I discovered the wooden tiles were actually ceramic tiles, and that gave me a whole new appreciation of them. As that seemed less odd than having flooring on the wall - and yes, they were pretty effective.

The sink was a snazzy affair too, all angles and I was rather taken with it. Above the sink was a forest of pink orchids and it amused me to spot myself in the mirror through them, and when I realised my flamingo t-shirt felt right at home I couldn't help but smile to myself.

I said before it was probably the fanciest restaurant we'd eaten at, and of course by the end of our holiday our dress sense had relaxed too. While my flamingo top and white jeans felt perfectly fine in the loo, in the restaurant, which was full of LBDs I felt decidedly underdressed.

Oh well.

And look at that pudding, it was that kind of fancy restaurant.

Not in a bad way though, the glassware was a hit, but the dubious starters I was on my guard.

Back to the loos. The shared lobby entrance to the loos was something special too, a chair, mirror, some pictures and plenty of clocks.  And some more of those ceramic woodgrain tiles, this time on the floor.

So tropical loos, a flamingo top and plenty of time - that all makes for a great space, I'd say!

Feathers, berries and glitz at Homesense

Back in August Homesense invited me along to take a look at some of their Christmas range. You might think it strange to immerse yourself in all things festive at that time of year - and it is - but the weather did its best to make it feel like winter, as it was on one of those days where it rained and rained, and rained... so we didn't need to stretch our imagination too far at all!

You only need to glimpse at these pictures to see there is much loveliness in the Homesense Christmas range, but choosing, now that's the difficult thing - but they've put together this fun quiz to help you identify which festive trend is the one for you.

I loved the black feather wreath above and the jewelled bird that adorned it.  You'd think something that rich would work best on a plain background but the almost William Morris-like wallpaper worked equally well.  In contrast the white and gold plate setting appealed just as much, I'm not quite sure what that quiz will make of me!

I'm not one of these people that completely change their Christmas decorations each year, I much prefer to add to my collection each year and as in the rest of my life there's often quite a bit of colour. And I'm fine with that. These metal stars are something I'd happily add to my collection, I think they could be most versatile and used throughout our house. My trouble of course is convincing MOH we need more decorations, though he's often the first to say that our living room doesn't feel that Christmassy. Hmmmn.

The feathered bird wreaths were great though, and there's plenty of colourways to match your theme.

This year I'm very tempted to go with more rustic and natural elements and eucalyptus leaves are high on my wishlist.  Whether I go for the natural or glittery sort, or home-glittered sort I'm not sure yet, I'll see how it goes.  I'm planning to use some greenery from the garden and this could be the first year I take some trimmings from the small Christmas tree.

The pink glittery bird is clearly no fool, he (she?) has found a wreath that will see them through the festive season!

These lights made an impression on me too. I think MOH would rather have the drinks trolley though if I'm honest. I'm fine with the drinks, but could happily skip the trolley element - I wonder in years or months to come if I'll prove myself wrong with that last statement?

So plenty of glitz and quite a few feathers and berries in the Homesense Christmas range, I think I may need to pop along just for another look, and maybe to see what pops into my basket.

Do you have a theme to your Christmas decorations, or like me make additions as you go?

* Thanks to Homesense for the invitation to view the Christmas range.

A new light that's right at home

Recently I took MOH along to a blogging event at Habitat to celebrate their new lighting range, which is definitely worth a look. I'm a big Habitat fan, and remember spending my teenage Saturdays mooning over their items. Back then I suspect my focus was on smaller items, but over the years, it's a shop I continue to go back to regularly.

The event, complete with its own hashtag #HabitatLightClub, was a great night out and it's not every day you can say you went to a club in the basement, in the light department of a Tottenham Court Road shop, now is it?  Well we did, and ssshh don't tell anyone we don't do clubs very often now, but we had a great night, and look out for a post next week on some of the light range and more from the store.

But before that let me show you the light we left with.  And yes, that was the other reason for taking MOH along as his parcel carrying skills are second to none.  Which was handy as the Bobby Metal floor lamp is made of sturdy stuff, it was easy to carry home but after I'd trekked him to Charing Cross apparently he was starting to feel it.

But you need some weight in a floor lamp, don't you?  

This weekend MOH realised his other job, and that was to assemble it. It was relatively easy, but I took one look at the picture instructions and tactically retreated to do something, anything - me and picture instructions really don't get on.  But he did a fab job, and with a lightbulb sourced more quickly than I expected it wasn't long before we were in business.

What I hadn't realised when I'd selected the light was how well it fits into our colour scheme. The grey, the almost brown red and the yellow, I know it sounds horrendous doesn't it, but look at the picture below and you'll see just what I mean.

And yes, that throw is an earlier Habitat item, which still is very much in use.

Here's a closer look at the weighted base, and I'm loving the knobbly shadow that's formed around four o'clock.  And to show it's not just the throw that's full of colour, the rug is too!

So with my lamp raring to go, there was only one thing for it. 

Yes, to get comfortable and stuck into my crochet again!  I'm not sure if I've followed the pattern for this square exactly right, but I'm liking the effect so it's staying, and will be part of the yellow Granny Square blanket that's underway.

What do you think?

* This is a collaborative post with Habitat, but all views and opinions are my own.