Muddy paths and natural highs

Isn't it typical how often a dark and rainy day off is followed by a gorgeously sunny one when you're stuck at work? Case in point was two weeks ago on Wednesday, when not only the sun was out in full force, she came accompanied by temperatures up to 17°C as well.

In between ticking off my office tasks, I stood watching Antwerp bathing in glorious sunlight from my 5th floor office windows, noting how empty the street leading away from the city's main shopping thoroughfare was. Not really surprising, perhaps, with only non-essential shops open, but it's still quite a rare sight on a late weekday morning. There wasn't even any traffic about when I clicked that shutter -- or whatever you call its equivalent on a phone - and for once the eternal clanging of the trams had stopped, so that it was eerily quiet as well.

 

The almost Spring-like weather tempted me outside during lunch break, when I masked up and went for a walk around the block, picking up some coconut body butter at a health and beauty shop along the way.

It was strange walking in there and seeing the products considered as non-essential and which therefore like forbidden fruits they weren't allowed to sell, covered up in black plastic film. There was a man in front of me in the queue at the till who was rather disappointed he couldn't buy the perfume he'd taken the tram from one of the suburbs for especially.

I was rather disappointed as well, in my case with Thursday's weather! Not only had the temperature plummeted to about 10°C, it was mostly cloudy with scattered showers all day.

I pottered around the house, doing this and that but not very much at all, while Jos went food shopping. We put everything away upon his return, by which time our faintly rumbling stomachs demanded that we had lunch.

Then, as we were in need of more bread mix, we drove down to the garden centre which, as you can see below, has a very extensive home-baking department.

Masking up is a must, but so is dressing up in my book, especially when you're going on an outing. Isn't it weird that even the most mundane things can be considered an outing these days? We were only buying bread mix and some candles, for heaven's sake!

Although so far November had been a mix of bright sunny days and miserable grey and rainy ones, the one constant had been the mild temperatures for this time of year, which had hardly crept into single figures. 

I'd been eyeing my fur-collared jackets with longing, so I deemed the sudden drop in temperature the perfect excuse for wearing my favourite of all. 

My vintage, Austrian made green woollen jacket is graced with a super snuggly faux fur collar in delicious caramel colours. To further combat the relative chill of the day, I wore it with a dusky purple beret and a purple, flower embroidered, crushed velvet scarf. The latter was a lucky € 0,50 find at an indoor flea market many years ago.

Underneath the jacket, I was sporting a funkily patterned rust and brown tie-collared dress from Think Twice, which I wore with curry-coloured opaques and belt.

The slightly bothersome tie collar was tamed by a pansy brooch from a small antique shop inside Cardigan Market, with a peachy pink flower corsage accompanying it on the dress itself. My burgundy cardigan is King Louie via the charity shop and the caramel ankle boots were last year's high street buy.

As a result of the eternal mask wearing, I have been struggling with my lipstick routine, often going without when I know I'll have to mask up at some point. Our newspaper's weekend magazine came to the rescue about a month ago with a test of several long-stay lipsticks, declaring Maybelline's Superstay Matte Ink as one of the best. I'm glad to report that that they seem to work for me too so that I now have them in a choice of colours.

November's fickleness presented us with a crisp and sunny day on Friday on which  - lo and behold - we finally got the first of the single figure temperatures, dipping towards 8°C.

As the forecast for the next couple of days was looking pretty dire, we wasted no time in going for another walk, driving down to Jos's old playground again.

After parking our car, we took the path leading into the opposite direction from Saturday's, leaving us a bit mystified when we soon emerged onto a busy road, where we passed a small red brick chapel. Peering through the glass of its firmly locked door, we could make out a well-tended red brick altar presided over by an Our Lady of Lourdes lookalike. To minimize reflections, I asked Jos to stand directly behind me so that I could take a photograph.

We didn't have to walk along the road for very long until we found a waymarked path leading off it, initially skirting the backs of some houses, until we seemed to enter the nature reserve again.

The path soon offered an enchanting view across a wild and partially water-logged valley - a former clay pit - with a lonely chimney, a relic of the area's not all too distant brick-making past, towering above the tallest of the trees.

In her comment on my previous post, Vronni was wondering whether this always was a nature reserve, to which the answer is a definite no.

Once upon a time, the area was a hive of industrial activity, complete with the typical back-to-back housing where people eked out their living, until it was spontaneously taken over by nature after the decline of the brick-making industry in the early 1970s.

Only as recently as 2016 has this 31-hectare nature reserve been acquired by Natuurpunt, the Flemish nature conservation charity. The reserve is a habitat for rare species such as the natterjack toad, the crested newt, the sand martin and the little bittern, which is the smallest of the wading herons in Europe. It is also a potential habitat for beavers.

Walking with a constant photographer is a bit of a waiting game at times, and I can often see Jos disappearing from view as he walks on without a backward glance, until he finally notices I'm not following in his track!

Eventually, we emerged upon the famous sandy plain again, from where a path leads tantalizingly uphill. A magical world waits at its end, where a small detour takes you to a water-filled clay pit, the remains of a dredger leaning precariously towards its reflection in the water.

The perfect spot for outfit photos, starting with my outerwear. This is my old cream, fudge and baby blue plaid coat, picked up for a pittance in a charity shop back in the mists of time. It was accompanied by a fuzzy purple beret and my frilly turquoise scarf. The boots are yet again my old, almost worn-out ones. Little did I know it would be their final outing!

My dress is vintage textured polyester, from the Finnish Karelia label and it has - oh joy of joys - pockets! Not just pockets, mind you, they are lined too! 

I chose contrasting burgundy for my opaques, belt and necklace and pinned a wooden duck brooch to my dress's collar. The brooch in question is now gleaming as never before, as I forgot to remove it before chucking the dress into the washing machine! 

My teal cardigan, which repeats the print in my dress, is another charity shopped King Louie one.

We started uphill on the path in question, which is deeply rutted as a result of being used as a mountain bike trail. Difficult to walk on even in dry conditions, we were now soon ankle deep in slippery muddy clay, which tried to suck us in and clung to our boots, making them heavier with every step.

We weren't even half-way before the path became virtually impassable and we had to turn back, worrying about having to get into our only months-old car with our mud-encrusted footwear.

Walking through wet grass did not seem to make it any better, but then we came across a patch of mosses, whose sponge-like texture managed to clean off most of the mud in a jiffy. 

Back at the sandy plain, the sky started darkening as clouds gathered dramatically, blocking out the sun's final efforts of the day.

Time to go home and get cozy! 

And my boots, they sadly turned out to have suffered more than I'd bargained for, so that they were no longer wearable and I had no choice but to throw them out.

Saturday started with some initial sunshine, which soon vanished into thin air, developing into another grey and miserable day.

After breakfast, I got my cleaning skates on and tackled the bathroom and most of the kitchen surfaces.

We were once again in double figures, so I chose a lightweight blouse to go with my zig-zaggy skirt. The latter is from Forever 21, of all places, bought at the very shop before I started shopping mainly second hand. It's still getting regular wears after all these years, so that's alright, I suppose.

The skirt isn't the only high street buy in my outfit. It is joined by my Accessorize necklace, which has also passed the test of time.

My dark green blouse with its sprinkling of lilac and purple flowers growing upon a trellis was picked up from Think Twice. I echoed the colours of its print with my woven belt, brooch and ring, throwing on a burgundy long-line cardigan to play along with my ancient ankle boots when I stepped outside.

Sunday's weather would be even worse, but November provided us with a further handful of sunny days later that week. But that, my friends, will be for next time. 

Do stay safe and positive, wherever you are!