Hot days and heirlooms

Can you believe we've made it to July? I certainly can't, especially as I'm writing this on a grey and rainy day, which doesn't really match the date on the calendar.

In spite of the fact that we've been living in a kind of vacuum due to the pandemic putting our normal lives on hold and playing havoc with our routines, the months haven't exactly passed at a snail's pace.

On the contrary, whole chunks of time seem to have vanished into thin air, the weeks speeding by at an alarming rate.

In my last post I left you on Sunday before last, so here I am at the start of yet another whirlwind week.

I'm swiftly skipping Monday, which was a hectic office day, keeping me busy all through lunch break and leaving me exhausted by mid afternoon. Catching up on all those emails and having to deal with the inevitable problems while keeping up with my routine jobs isn't exactly a walk in the park.

But with my in-between Tuesday dangling like a carrot in front of me, I managed to make it to the end of the day.

With the mercury on the rise, it was a balmy morning we woke up to on Tuesday and, with all the cotton frocks I'd ironed on Sunday, it was like having a whole new wardrobe to choose from.

This 1970s handmade cotton dress came from Expo 58, a vintage shop in a town about an hour's drive from Dove Cottage. Selling everything from housewares and decoration to clothing and accessories, it is a delightful shop well worth a visit. The only thing keeping us from visiting it more often in normal circumstances is its relative distance from where we live.

The dress, with its frills at the sleeves and yoke, is a delight to wear on a warm Summer's day, and look how perfect the white piping on the sleeves and yoke are lined up!

The carved bangle (which is plastic and not Bakelite) and green bracelet were both charity shopped while the beaded necklace and the poodle brooch were retail buys. I can't remember where I got the necklace as I've had it for eons, but the brooch is from the same shop where I bought the owl brooch featured in my last post.

We had our fruit and yoghurt breakfast outside in the courtyard, then sat chatting and enjoying the garden with cups of coffee (Jos) and ginger and lemon tea (me).

You can see the honeysuckle in full bloom behind me, attracting bumblebees and hoverflies by the dozen. Our newly planted Agapanthus seems to be thriving too, and so does the dark pink Cosmos we got from the outside garden centre the other week.

Lush and green are the main words to describe our early Summer garden, the new mingling happily with the old. There's the rambling patch of wild strawberries (top left) and the lush foliage of the trailing geraniums which survived the winter (bottom left), where a beautiful moth, reminiscent of a withered autumn leaf, was resting for the day.

There's promise in the myriad of buds of Scabiosa 'Barocca' (top right) while our non-ribbiting frog is keeping watch over our Lilliput pond (bottom right).

There are yellows and oranges galore as well, including the first of the climbing Nasturtiums I sowed back at the end of April. I'd kind of given up hope they would ever flower ...

Coreopsis, Iceland poppies and Gazania, all providing little pockets of instant sunshine!

I pottered in the garden all morning, while Jos ran some errands, then we had an impromptu lunch of sandwiches with chunks of salami and English vintage Cheddar sitting in the shade right outside our back door. I jumped for joy when I discovered the Cheddar in the organic village shop, as our supermarket only stocks a rather bland variety.

Those are non-alcoholic beers, by the way, Affligem Blond 0,0% and the non-alcoholic version of Brugse Zot: just two of the vast selection available here.

After lunch, I decided to give the dresser in our dining room the once-over, taking the opportunity to rearrange a couple of things and show you some more of our treasures.

The dresser is a treasure in itself, an heirloom from Jos's grandparents. Originally a dark stained cherry wood, it was painted purple by Jos and his late ex-wife when they were first married in the late 1960s, and then stripped to its current bleached wood shade in the 1970s.

Look at those gorgeous details! 

The doily and button wall hanging was a handmade gift from my lovely friend Lynn.

A collection of pocket watches, most of them heirlooms from both sides of the family, is displayed in tiny tissue filled terracotta pots under a sturdy glass cloche.

The 1930s Art Deco style clock was a gift from my friend Inez and is still in perfect working and chiming order.

The wooden trinket dish on the bottom is a bit of an oddity. Picked up for € 0,50 in a charity shop a couple of years ago, it is hand-painted with the flags of the Allies of World War II. The other side bears the inscription Aandenken der Bevrijding, which translates as Memento of the Liberation.

I thought it rather sad that an object of such poignancy and historical value had ended up in the charity shop, so naturally it had to come home with us.

The two antique letter balances were UK antique market finds with several years between them. 

The rectangular glass disk (top left) caught my eye in a charity shop in Belgium's west country last September, while the medal it's holding, a souvenir from the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, was a flea market find. The small enamelled copper dish on the bottom left holds a lady's fob watch we found when we were clearing the parental home.

A collection of old black and white family photographs takes pride of place on the dresser.

The larger frame in the middle holds a photograph of Jos's parents. The smaller, Art Nouveau style ones contain my Great Aunt Josephine and her husband Joseph on the left, and my maternal grandparents on the right.

These two frames, including their photographs, came from the parental home as well, but used to live at my paternal grandparents's home before that. 

On the right is my paternal grandmother with her mother. Her father is in the photo on the left. This rather grumpy looking man in his bowler hat, posed in front of a greenhouse, used to be a gardener by profession. His name was Fonske, short for Alphonse, and this rare portrait of him was always treated with due respect, as we believe he is where I got my green fingers from! 

The mercury kept climbing in the direction of 30° Celsius on Wednesday and Thursday.

The latter's afternoon was spent with a trip to our car dealer, as we have been thinking of buying a new car. Apparently, now is the ideal time to do so, as crazy reductions are being offered to shift their unsold stock. To buy, or not to buy, that's a dilemma.

The dress I was wearing for the occasion is another 1970s handmade one. Its explosion of flowers is joined by pale yellow rickrack at the neckline and near the hem.

I wore a burnt orange beaded necklace, an ivory coloured squirrel brooch and my new belt with it.

Mission accomplished, we took these outfit photos in our garage, making use of the recently repainted "photo studio" for the first time. It was quite hot and sticky in there, so that fan certainly wasn't just for show!

We only ventured outside again when the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon and the heat trapped inside our garden walls had somewhat lessened.

With the last rays of the sun bathing our garden in a golden glow, it is time to say goodbye once more. But don't worry, I'll be back with new adventures in a couple of days.

Stay safe, positive and fabulous!