There's a light that never goes out

Being a sentimental and nostalgic soul, I'd made it my habit to jot down some poetic musings on New Year's Eve, highlighting the passing of time which is brought home by the end of one year and the dawn of another.

However, as that watershed of a year, 2020, was drawing to a close, I was in two minds whether to continue the tradition I unwittingly started on 31 December 2016. In fact, I'd already decided not to. 

But old habits seem to die a lot harder than I thought. So, although this is basically just another run-of-the-mill post, the first one of 2021 but with its feet still firmly planted in the old year, I just couldn't let the latter go without a proper send-off.

Time has the annoying habit to speed by at the rate of knots, and this year in particular, it seems to have upped a gear, as I simply cannot get my head around the fact that we have turned yet another page and it is now 2021.

There's no doubt that 2020's memories will be forever etched on our brains, written down in indelible ink. Its pages are full of blanks and cancellations and there's sadness and anxiety pressed like wildflowers between them.

Yet most of us managed not just to live through each one of its days, but to make the most of them too, even if our resilience was more than put to the test.

What the new year has in store for us is anyone's guess. In spite of its snazzy new light fitting, even  Idina the Fortune Tellers's crystal ball is leaving her in the dark. And perhaps, that is for the best. 

Before I continue with December's progress, let's have a closer look at Idina's crystal ball! 

Having started life as a Lourdes souvenir snow-globe, by the time we found the sorry thing in a charity shop, it had long ago lost all of its liquid. As it didn't really meet the standards of our collection, it was relegated to the basement, where I noticed it peeking out from a carton while I was having a rummage. Taking it out for closer inspection, I managed to unscrew the globe from its base and remove the plastic Lourdes grotto it contained, thinking I could use the empty shell for a project. Enter a string of the tiniest of LED lights picked up from the garden centre, and hey presto! Doesn't it look magical? 

And now, without further ado, I'm retracing my steps back to the week before Christmas. 

My diary tells me it was a good day, with lots of sunshine and positivity. While Jos went food shopping, I made the most of the sunny aspect and the mild temperature of around 11°C by walking into the village to pick up some toiletries and sundries.

Then, in the afternoon, we put up the Christmas tree, which I already told you about in a previous post.

We almost left it too late to take outfit photos, but it had been such a glorious day that we were able to make use of its waning light.

My vintage red fit and flare dress, with its fireworks of white dots and dashes, was a charity shop find in October 2018. As you can see it has a satisfyingly swooshy skirt!

Unfortunately, you can only catch the merest of glimpses of my floral opaques, but as they are far too gorgeous to be ignored, I added a close-up on the bottom left.

The funky necklace was charity shopped as well, as was the belt, which you might recognize as one of my recent finds. The brooch is vintage and was a flea market find from back in the day when these things still existed ... It's hard to believe it is over 10 months since our last one!

My teal King Louie cardigan with its heart-shaped ajour pattern also came to me by way of a charity shop. I have them in several colours and regularly keep coming across them, and other King Louie garments, on the charity shop rails. Not always in my size, unfortunately.

The weather gods blessed us with another mild and sunny day on Friday.

After breakfast, we drove down to the big Oxfam charity shop in the nearby town of Wilrijk. Situated on a busy thoroughfare, it is usually hard to find parking space, and we were actually just about to give up when a car parked right in front of the shop backed out of its spot.

By the time Jos made it into the shop, I'd already found and tried on the blue, red and pink floral blouse on the right, which is by Belgian retro label Wow To Go.

Going through the rails once more, I couldn't believe I hadn't seen the blouse on the left the first time around. It's from H&M's 2018 William Morris collection and it's based on the latter's Snakeshead design.

They had a buy two, get one free sale on belts, but unfortunately only the one on the right made the grade, so that I couldn't make use of it.

The other belts were picked up at our local charity shop where we made a brief stop on our way home.

That just leaves me to show you what I was wearing that day. 

I paired a vintage chevron striped wool skirt in black, brown and bluish grey with a brown based blouse featuring a groovy ochre yellow, blue and dusky pink print. The latter is vintage too, from the Swedish Janstorp label. It is quite tight-fitting, but not uncomfortably so, and zips up at the back.

I wore another one of my King Louie cardigans on top and accessorized my outfit with an ochre yellow beaded necklace and a reddish brown leather belt.

My legs were kept warm with a pair of burnt orange opaques and I wore caramel coloured ankle boots.

Have you noticed the lovely lady who lives in my brooch? She has blue eye-shadow and an elaborate pleated hairdo and is wearing a hat and a fur stole!

The rest of that Friday was spent pottering around the house, which included adding leftover baubles and strings of battery operated fairy lights to a Kilner jar (top left) and a vintage glass jug (bottom left). We also put on the fairy lights inside the pendulum clock turned vintage Barbie display case for the occasion.

I couldn't wait to wear the William Morris print blouse, which is what I did on Saturday!

Browsing through my skirts for a likely candidate to pair it with, my eyes soon alighted on this sumptuous blue velvet ankle length one. I thought its floral Arts and Crafts style pattern fit the bill just perfectly!

At my waist, I wore the bottle green moc-croc belt I'd charity shopped on Friday. 

I added a necklace made up of plastic discs in degrading sizes to tie in with the wine coloured bits in the print, and pinned a vintage gold-tone brooch with red flower hearts to my blouse, where I think it looks quite at home!

Although the day had had a sunny start, the sky soon started darkening, and rain was our lot from midday onwards. 

This meant another day of pottering - darning a pair of Jos's socks my diary tells me - followed by reading and catching up with blogland.

And that is exactly what I'm going to do once this post is published.

I hope you have all made it safely into 2021. Happy New Year! Surely this year can only be better!