all this for a £1?

whilst foraging for hotels in london for under a £100 i came across the hoxton hotel: urban lodge and their famous £1 hotel room deals. got and email from them saying that they are releasing a 1000 rooms at 12pm this friday - 500 at £1 and 500 at £29. what a bargain!

9 years?

ok, so the celebratory budget went completely out the window - but it was such a fab weekend and definately worth it.

with the hotel being based in central london we decided to treck in by train -funny how a journey you commute so often can be so different with good company and no time pressures. and the hotel -it was fabulous! the fox and anchor in farringdon (london) is a little pub, much longer than it is wide and very traditional in style. the pints are served in cute metal tankards and the menu, though i'm sure is delicious, is also suitably traditional and meaty (unsuitably vegetarian!).

my first inkling that the room would be fab was the slightly camp tone of the barman and the grin on his face when he gave us our room key - 'ooooooh, the market suite?'. yes, i know i said our budget was a £100 but the only rooms available were the barbican (cheapest room) and the market suite....so we decided to spoil ourselves. the bedrooms are up a narrow flight of stairs which are seperate from the rest of the pub, and our suite was the first door that we came too. first into the bathroom (a little unusual a layout, but the bathroom was so gorgeous it just didn't matter) - the copper bath was as amazing as it looks. and huge! there is a picture of me in it (which i'm not quite brave enough to post) and i look like a small child - definately enough room for 2. and being copper is kept the heat in so well so you could swim in it until very very wrinkly. i am most definately saving up for one of these when we eventually get to buy our own house.

you can just about see in the top picture that the suite stretches back into a sitting room area and then the bedroom, both seperate from each other. and for that extra excess you can pop out to the private terrace to guzzle your wine and devour your icecream (we didn't get around to doing that, too much wine and icecream at the restaurant....). an extra touch that was appreciated by the boyf was the bose sound system (he'd come prepared with an adapter cable just to make use of the sound system with his mp3 player) and the flat screen tvs in both the sitting room and the bedroom. completely unnecessary but felt very luxurious.

after a very long lie in - you see, i'm not used to spending money so i need to feel like i'm getting my monies worth - we collected the bill (deliberately deciding not to look at it - we were already beginning to feel very guilty after all the talk of recession on the news....) and trundled across to the curved angel for a cooked brekkie. ravenous pigeons were getting overexcited about left over toast and we managed to grab a picture of the melee - love the curved wing of the pigeon in the top left hand corner.

after detouring by the offices of my new job (only 4 weeks before i start!) and briefly via a very crowded oxford street topshop (where boyf spotted trinny and susannah) we headed across to borough food market. we'd never been there before but had heard great things about it from all who had mentioned it. the smell of swiss cheese floated around the market and i stomped off, nose aloft, to trace its source. i was crossing my fingers for a kasespaetzle stall (if you haven't heard of this dish, it is amazing, i'll blog the recipe soon) but stumbled on a raclette stall - my second favourite swiss dish. turns out that everyone loves raclette, the queue was 18 minuetes long and snaked down one side of the market. even the stall holders looked a little shocked at the passion for raclette.

the food at the market really was delicious, a complete onslaught of mouth watering smells and the slightly panicked crush of hungry people bustling their way around the stalls. i recommend fasting for a few days leading up a visit to the market and gorging yourself on the delights there - after our raclette dish we were disappointed that we could not fit more food in our bellies, bar a warm cup of apple juice with cinnamon - yum, just like hot ciderless cider!

and then onto home. my purse is aching from cash that seemed to ooze out of it over the weekend and the 'recession' is weighting me down with the guilt of having had a weekend of excess. but, 9 years really is something to celebrate - many people have married, divorced, married (and possibly divorced) in the same time. with a little luck and a lot of hard work from the both of us i'm so happy to say that my partner is my best friend. here's to another 9 years - wonder what we'll be doing then?

earrings...

new earrings! these lampwork glass beads are a really fab colour, i love the dusky purple shade. so much so i've changed the banner in my shop to a seasonal dusky purple....maybe i'll change the blog banner too and have a round the seasons colour kaleidoscope of blog and shop banners!

available in my etsy shop.

feeling a little under the weather today, all blocked up and snuffly - think felt and sewing is in order. for some reason sewing felt make me feel all relaxed and snug. and maybe some oxidising later, at least i wont be able to smell the stinky liver of sulpher solution! have a fab necklace in mind - just brought some lovely white enameled leaf beads and thinking that they would look lovely strung onto an oxidised chain with some little bright green cysoprase briollettes - must make it soon.

thoughts on the mini moo card mosaic frame?

ooh, i've been wondering what this would look like since that teaser email came round a few weeks ago. having recently framed loads of my moo business cards this looks like a nifty way of showing off your favourite moos (as a perfectionist, i just had to line up all my bcards in a straight line which took ages and LOTS of minor tweaks!). also, i know lots of people who love the moo cards but probably wouldn't get round to framing them - so good gift idea! this video gives a really good idea of how it works, and moo claims that you it's pretty impossible to make a layout that doesn't look guide. however, i can't quite work out what the miniframes would look like and what material they would be made out of? any ideas? just wondered if it was card or plastic....

also, if you buy a frame before 19th October 08 you get 35% off mini moo cards with this code: 45TR32

if you've see these up close do let me know your thoughts on it!

a (nice) stay in london for under a 100 quid?

with our 9 year anniversary coming up (wait - has it really been 9 years? cripes) we decided we fancied a short trip away to celebrate. not always having made the most of our london location whilst we actually lived there, i quite fancy a weekend of shopping, eating, drinking with the bloke and then a stay at a hotel. but needing to scrimp on the celebration expenditure, we've set a budget for £100 a room per night at a central ish london hotel. hmm....this has turned out to be much trickier than i thought - finding a london hotel for under £100 with more character than a holiday inn is.....well blooming difficult! i've been scouring the internet for the past few days and have come up with a few london hotel finds all with their own bit of character and charm, here are the best looking 3 i've come across:

1 - the hoxton: urban lodge

i like the location of this one, spitalfields market and brick lane curry houses are two of my favourite london places (check out 'beyond retro' if you're in the area - awesome vintage shoes). really good reviews about this hotel too. it might look a little more 'business trip' than what i'm looking for but the location and prices look really good. and a pret a manger breakfast - i'm in. aaaaaaand, if you pop your name down on their mailing list you can get nights for as cheap as £1 - what a bargain.

Rooms from £59

2 - fox and anchor

based in faringdon, the fox and anchor is a b & b and a gastro pub that is close to smithfield market (for all those meat eaters out there). the food at the pub sounds good, but i dont think i saw a single vegetarian dish on the menu. oh, except for the mashed potato side - rubbish! in a recent review, the barbican room was listed as £95 at weekends (not including VAT) but i wouldn't be suprised if the smithfield room shown at the top of this post is a tad more - it looks fab. and that bath - oh!

Double room £95 (not inc VAT)

3 - the pavilion

photo by mohairpink

the interior design at this hotel looks fab. this self proclaimed 'rock and roll' hotel has a different theme for each room ( around 20 in total), ranging from baroque inspiration, to chrome and mirrors. a quick google image search shows pictures of pete doherty mid breakdown in one of their hotel rooms and the hotel is a favourite for magazine photo shoots. from looking through the website...i did begin to wonder what other 'shoots' took place.....first off, the owner 'danny in his lambo' looking a bit (porn) movie starish.....then the 'fashion shoots', starting out with classy fashion style photos and then scrolling down to.....well....lad mag shots. but i bet there were a host of other photos not suitable for the hotel's website! i think my suspicions were confirmed by one reviewer on tripadvisor.com who found a used sex toy in their bedroom. eww! ah, well - good for a dirty weekend but i think i fancy something a little more 'pretty woman' with a biiiiiig bath and FRESH laundry. would love to hear your views if you've been there, i am tempted but have heard some mixed reviews (poor cleanliness, minature showers).

Double/Twin rooms around £100 per night

still very much on the look out - please please let me know if you've stayed in some fab luxury

hotels on a budget.