linen

A revelation in the bathroom…

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Thanks to a gift from lovely (and very generous) friends, we have had a revelation in the bathroom. They gave us these hammam towels:

P1040035Now, we had seen these before because they seem to be quite fashionable at the moment but to be honest, thought that they didn’t look as if they would be very absorbent or, well, cosy. And those are really the main qualities that towels need to have. But now we had the perfect opportunity to try them out so we did.

And they are wonderful. The thing we hadn’t realised is that the more you use them, the softer and the more absorbent they get! Plus there is the added bonus that they are thin, so they don’t take up much room and they dry really quickly – which makes them ideal for the beach or the gym. (Because that’s what was stopping us getting to the gym – not having the right kind of towel, but that will all change now! Definitely.)

At the moment Achica has some lovely Ikikiz beach sets, like  this one:

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So we are quite happy to have had a revelation in the bathroom and will be using our new knowledge at the gym and the beach too!

Colour dilemma…

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This week we’re having a bit of a colour dilemma, caused by our ongoing love of bed linen.

You might remember that a while ago we got some new bedroom curtains – so that’s got to be an excuse to get some new bedlinen, right? The trouble is that we couldn’t find quite what we were looking for. There were lots that were lovely but nothing quite right. We were trying for something that had a kind of tongue-in-cheek, old school glamour. Maybe dark to offset the cream curtains? Maybe a bold pattern because the bed is the focus of the room? Maybe something heading towards the top even if not actually going over it? And then we saw this (and then, like you’d expect, we waited until the sale to get a bargainacious 50% off).:

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So that’s the cover sorted, but here comes the dilemma – what colour sheets? In the picture the sheets are black, but aren’t black sheets a little… Austin Powers?

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 Each to their own an’ all (and it was a great movie) but that’s not quite the look we want.

So what colour? As a general rule, you can’t beat white sheets but we think white will look too stark.

So what colour? As a general rule, you can’t beat white sheets but we think white will look too stark. Yellow? Hhhmmmm. Maybe it’s time for a lie down while we think about it. We’ll let you know what we decide!

Wild peacock chase

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We have been on a wild peacock chase that didn’t end up on the high street…

We know you’re not the kind of person who goes round looking in other people’s cupboards – we wouldn’t be friends if you were! But if you did look, you would find quite a lot of bed linen in ours. And there’s a reason why that coverlet is still in the dust bag it came in two years ago and has never actually been on a bed. It’s a good reason, too. Really. Just can’t think of it right now…
But anyway, we saw a fabulous duvet cover on Achica a couple of weeks ago. They don’t have them anymore because their sales only last a few days although they do have this rather lovely one from Kingsley


But the one we liked originally was a completely different thing with a very distinctive and dramatic design on it that included a peacock. Searching for ‘peacock duvet covers’ brought up things like this one from Sylvia Cook with a fantastic photographic reproduction of a peacock feather, available from here from Etsy. 


But the one we had in mind was a graphic design rather than a straightforward photograph. And we were sure that the designer’s first name began with a C and the second with an H… Clarissa Hulse  maybe? No luck with a peacock. The closest was this, in a colour called ‘kingfisher’. But a kingfisher is not a peacock.


Do you know, she we thought about it, the designer was almost certainly Italian. A search for Italian bed linen didn’t take us any closer.  Neither did a search for French bed linen.

Then inspiration struck. Once, when something was unavailable on Achica, we tracked down the same thing for sale on notonthehighstreet.com. And, do you know what? We searched for ‘bedlinen’ and there it was! The very one! The absolute same!



The design is called ‘Arrival of the Birds’and it’s by The Lyndon Company, who are based in the UK. So that’s why a search for a peacock design by an Italian or French ‘CH’ didn’t get us far! 

(Really, if you look at the top, in the middle, there are some peacock feathers. Seriously.)