Colour me velvet

Every once-in-a-lifetime-or-so something beautiful happens, like a baby being born or a totally amazing hotel coming in under budget for work. I don't know how it happened; the planets must have been aligned in a Banana shape because my two work homies (Simon 'T' Jenkins and Karis 'awesome' Baker) and I got to stay in the most hip and happening hotel in Manchester. It was like a freak of nature, how could an amazing hotel like this come in under budget? Were there some weird secrets lurking in the darkened corridors (or as it turned out, behind a chiffon veil...)? Well, we were going to find out.

We found the hotel without a hitch. We had so many questions: 'just how unique is it?', 'what will my room be like?', 'what if I like your room better than mine?!', 'what if I want to swap!?', 'why am I so high maintenance?!' (erm, maybe the last few were mine...). We checked in one by one. Simon was whisked away into the elevator. Karis was next (minus the elevator). Then me (also minus the elevator). The lovely reception lady, Louise, took me to room number 15. I've never seen anything so unbelievably gothic and sultry.

But what is that behind the purple chiffon? Is it some kind of lovely collage? Let's take a peek shall we?

It's a naughty picture!!! My goodness! Have you ever seen anything like it? I love how it's so raunchy they had to cover it up with some shmexy, purple chiffon. I ran to Karis's room to find out what delights her room held and golly gosh! I thought my wall art was something, check this baby out!:

Simon, our resident photographer, documenting the rooms piece by piece.

Erm, what? A saint, with a devil on it's shoulder? And a knife? And a three headed dragon beast? My giddy-aunt. This place was crazy! Simon's room was relatively normal in comparison to ours. But he did have a monkey lamp:

A monkey in a monkey suit holding two lamps - brilliant!

So, the first night was great...apart from the noise - noooooo! At 4am I was woken up by crazy people talking and laughing in the early hours. Don't they know that night time is for sleeping? Luckily, the lovely reception lady, Louise,  was super awesome and upgraded me to a balcony room so I was sure to get an excellent night's sleep. Saweeeeeeet!

My new room, in all it's glory.

A giant bath and a rubber ducky! What more could you want?!

Where would a room at Velvet be without crazy, sexy artwork?

My balcony, complete with statue.

And if all that weren't enough, we got free cocktails in Velvet Bar too! Yumsies. My favourite moment was when Simon said "cocktails? Yeah, I don't want anything too girly. [Enter waitress.] I'll have the Pear Drop, please." Excellent 'non-girly' cocktail ordering Dr Jenko!