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  • The beautiful home of interior designer Susanne Rützou | These Four Walls blog

    Behind the scenes at Garde Hvalsøe

    October 31, 2019August 1, 2022

    [Advertisement – this post is based on a press trip, but all words and opinions are my own] After a visit to Georg Jensen’s HQ and a look around the…

  • Home tour - a Copenhagen house brimming with vintage Danish design | These Four Walls blog

    Home tour – a Copenhagen house brimming with vintage Danish design

    October 25, 2019October 23, 2019

    [Advertisement – this post is based on a press trip, but all words and opinions are my own] Today I have more from my recent trip to Copenhagen with Georg…

  • A visit to Georg Jensen & a look at the new 'Helix' collection | These Four Walls blog

    A visit to Georg Jensen & a look at the new ‘Helix’ collection

    October 23, 2019

    [Advertisement – this post is based on a press trip, but all words and opinions are my own] You might have seen on Instagram that I was recently invited over…

  • Home tour - a cosy Stockholm apartment in soft shades of grey | These Four Walls blog

    Home tour – a cosy Stockholm apartment in soft shades of grey

    October 21, 2019

    I feature a lot of beautiful homes on this blog, but every now and then one comes along that makes me think: ‘If I was starting my house again from…

  • Home tour - a thatched Danish house with a contemporary interior | These Four Walls blog

    Home tour | A thatched Danish house with a contemporary interior

    October 10, 2019October 7, 2019

    Many of the home tours I feature are the work of Copenhagen-based Norm Architects, and with good reason – I’m continuously inspired by the way the buildings they design are…

  • Home tour - a stunning mix of old and new in southern Sweden | These Four Walls blog

    Home tour | A stunning mix of old and new in southern Sweden

    September 30, 2019September 26, 2019

    It’s home-tour time again and today I’m taking you over to Sweden for a peek inside the beautiful apartment of Felicia Alm. Set in the small town of Landskrona, it’s…

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A heatwave combined with fibromyalgia and the peri A heatwave combined with fibromyalgia and the perimenopause isn't exactly fun... Along with iced coffee, here are four tried-and-tested things that are getting me through the soaring temperatures in the UK this week:

1. Temperature-regulating bamboo bed linen from @laud_sleep. It's super-soft, easy to care for and it really does keep me cooler on hot, sticky nights. 
2. The @duux ' Whisper Flex' fan, which is quiet and energy-efficient yet very effective. It can be adapted to sit on the floor or a table, and it has a remote control. It's also portable and rechargeable, so you can use it in areas without a nearby plug socket. 
3. 'Birch Water & Neroli' cooling facial mist from @findubiety, which I take with me everywhere during summer. It smells and feels wonderful, and all profits go to support my local hospice charity @dorothyhousehc.
4. My traditional Spanish fan, which I've had since I lived in Spain in my early 20s. It's now very tatty and missing a few rungs, but it still does the job. I sometimes get strange looks when I whip it out on the bus in the UK, but it works so I really don't care! 

For full disclosure, I've worked with Duux and Laud in the past, but this isn't a paid or sponsored post and I haven't been asked to share it. These are items that I use myself on a daily basis in weather like this, and I thought other people might find them helpful, too. 

#heatwave #uksummer #summermood #simplehomestyle #seasonalliving
They say the journey is as important as the destin They say the journey is as important as the destination, and that's certainly true of my trip to Bergen in Norway with my friend Becky earlier this month. Rather than fly straight there, we decided to use it as an opportunity to do something that's been on my bucket list for a while - a classic itinerary dubbed 'Norway in a Nutshell', which goes from Oslo to Bergen by public train, boat and bus (including two of the most scenic railways in the world). 

It was a spectacular experience encompassing mountains, plateaus, fjords, lakes and waterfalls, taking us from spring to winter and back again. Here's a taster from the many photos I took along the way, but there's much more on the blog - including tips on how to book tickets, where to sit on the trains for the best views, and where to stay overnight if you have more time than we did and want to split it over more than one day. 

It's a journey that will linger in my memory for a long time, and one I'm very glad I got to do. 

#visitnorway #norwayinanutshell #fjords #divineworldplaces #postcardplaces
More kitchen progress! The cabinet that sits on to More kitchen progress! The cabinet that sits on top of the worktop (which hides the boiler and some storage) is now finished, and the perfect little freestanding island unit has arrived (I wanted something quite gnarled and rustic to contrast with the pale units). We're just waiting for the window blind to arrive and for the electrician to come out and install the pendant light, and the whole room will be done. Scroll through to see a 'before' shot - it's a big change! 

#cottagerenovation #minimalistkitchen #shakerkitchen #neutralkitchens #simpleinterior
From a beautiful evening mooching around Oslo wate From a beautiful evening mooching around Oslo waterfront last week. I was in Norway for a short break with a friend, and we were treated to an amazing spring sunset. It made a wonderful start to our trip, and also an opportunity to catch up with the fabulous @dimakaterina. Our stay in the Norwegian capital was only very brief, though, as early next morning we headed off to do something that's been on my bucket list for a long time. More on that (and a full blog travel guide) later in the week...

#visitoslo #norwaytravel #theprettycities #divineworldplaces #sunsets_oftheworld
Photos from a spring visit to Great Chalfield Mano Photos from a spring visit to Great Chalfield Manor, a 15th-century National Trust property not far from our new home. It's a beautiful, fairytale kind of place, especially at this time of year when the blossom and wisteria blooms. And see if you can spot the image where I may have captured a ghost... I mean, it was probably just a smudge on my camera lens, but a ghost is a far more interesting explanation. And intriguingly it didn't show up on the frames taken a second beforehand and a second afterwards...

#thisprettyengland #wisteriahysteria #visitwiltshire #springgarden #visitthecotswolds

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