Another week in paradise

And so January finally comes to an end. If it whizzed by in real life, it seems to have taken forever to catch up with things here. I'm adamant that our slower pace of living, combined with the general quieting down of life in Winter time, has a lot to answer for. But here we are in the year's first month's last week. In hindsight, it was another week in paradise, before dark clouds scudding across the horizon, but how were we to know? 

The week started, as usual, with Monday's office day, which turned out to be quite hectic. I managed to work my way through everything my mailbox offered by doggedly carrying on and skipping lunch break. Anything for that Tuesday off dangling in front of me like the proverbial carrot! I'm not sure how I'll cope when eventually I'll have to return to working full-time again.

The sun, who kept winking at me through the office windows, continued to shine on Tuesday which, in spite of it only being 7°C, felt decidedly Springlike.

Trawling through my blog, I couldn't believe my eyes when it turned out I hadn't worn this dress in about four years! A Think Twice sales bargain, it lacks any sign of a label, so that it's safe to presume it was handmade. It's made from a rather odd fabric, which is quite stiff and coarse, but it is mercifully lined so that it doesn't grate the skin, and I love its groovy pattern.

I added a sepia woven belt, a brown and off-white beaded necklace, my Lena Stein lookalike cat brooch, a rust coloured beret secured with a hair clip, a pair of goldenrod opaques and my beloved burgundy boots.

Everything except for the opaques and the hair clip were either vintage or second-hand finds.

We had to run an errand, driving down to Mortsel - our nearest town of any significance - as we needed a new brush for our vacuum cleaner. Jos also took some of his family heirloom watches to the town's excellent watchmaker for repairs.

While we were there, it would have been downright silly to miss the opportunity of visiting the town's charity shop.

With my brooch collection put on hold significantly due to the absence of flea markets, I was more than happy to come across this heavy silver plated one by Sidney Carron, a contemporary Paris jeweller. Surely € 1, 50 well spent!

The plentiful clothing aisles came up trumps too, with a blue tweed skirt, and a vintage dress in a shiny blue and red patterned polyester fabric.

The rest of the day, so my journal tells me, was spent vacuuming the upstairs room - which was a doddle with the new brush - and employing Angelica to pose in my latest finds.

Then my lovely boss, Victor, called me about a minor, work-related problem, and we ended up chatting about half an hour or so. 

Wednesday was the office day from hell. When I switched on my PC, it turned out I couldn't access my emails or documents, all of which are in the cloud. Calling our IT company, they said it was not just us, but a general cloudburst (my choice of word), and that we could only wait until it was solved. They put me on the right track for accessing my emails via Office 365, but it took forever, especially as it stopped working half way through. Things were back to normal around midday, but I'd lost so much time that there was nothing for it but to go in for an extra half day on Thursday.

I was so knackered when I got home that I spent most of the afternoon on the couch not doing very much at all and consequently no outfit photos were taken. I can't even remember what I was wearing that day!

I was glad to be back to my usual energetic self when I got up on Friday morning, which was certainly helped by the temperature, a Springlike 12°C. The sun was shining, but rain was expected for later in the day.

No need for warm layers, so I wore my recently charity shopped tartan LC Waikiki skirt, picking up the burnt orange in its plaid with a bird print skirt by Steps, the brand the lovely Nancy used to work for. It was charity shopped several years ago, and I was so in love with its print that I willed it to fit in spite of the fact that it's only a size 36. It is a bit tight and slightly gapes in the chest area, but surely that's what safety pins were invented for!

I pinned a tapestry brooch (yes, really) to its frilly collar and added more birds with my green birds-in-flight brooch. The stretchy belt, with its most fabulous of buckles, was a post Lockdown 1.0 retail buy.

My lime green, purple and brown Tweed blazer was a sales bargain from a local boutique more than 10 years ago, and was just perfect for the mild weather we were having that day. I didn't really need the burnt orange vintage beret except for, you know ...  #Coronahair! 

Nothing like a bit of a rummage to soothe my slightly frayed nerve ends, so off we went, visiting the Oxfam shop in nearby Wilrijk for a change. 

By the time Jos had found parking space, I'd already put these floral textured suede Tamaris ankle boots in my trolley. I know, I'm on boots and shoe roll: this is already the 4th pair I have found in less than a month! The boots are black rather than the navy blue they appear to be here. This is the best my camera was able to deliver.

Clothing was 50% off, so I was surprised that the lady trawling the aisles and heaping up her trolley without even looking at sizes (obviously a reseller) had missed this King Louie dress and red slubbed Colours of the World jacket.

I also found this cardigan from the Italian il Duomo label for Jos, which he wore immediately after its cycle in the washing machine on Saturday.

It was a grey and utterly wet day, the rain metamorphosing into melting snow by the early afternoon. The temperature had dropped from its Springlike heights to about 7°C, which still wasn't nearly cold enough for the snow to stick. It just added to the general dampness of the day.

It's nothing short of a miracle that we were able to make outfit photos outside at all!

The groovilicious blue on off-white textured polyester dress is one of my favourite cold weather frocks. Wearing it never fails to cheer me up, especially when combined with yellow, which this time came in the form of one of my fluffy cardigans and a beret.

The brown belt is ancient and features embellishments in a multitude of colours, including blue and yellow! My necklace and cameo brooch added a 4th colour, a fresh, Springlike green. I wore bright blue opaques and the blue Western style mid calf boots I charity shopped a couple of weeks ago.

The day was spent adding more stuff to the donations bag, as we'd read on social media that our local charity shop would be doing collections on Monday. 

We folded and put away that morning's washing, hanging up things that don't go into the tumble dryer on a drying rack in the spare room. 

I then caught up with blogland, commenting and finishing a new post, after which we made Chili con Carne for dinner, following by watching the first part of The Pembrokeshire Murders we'd recorded earlier that week.

Sunday was January's final day and, in total contrast to Saturday, bright sunshine ruled the sky. It was crispy cold, though, the mercury barely climbing above freezing point.

We were raring to go out, so plans were made while having Sunday's bacon and eggs. After weighing the pros and cons of our options, we settled on a walk in the park in Duffel. 

I was delighted to find several varieties of Hellebores (Helleborus orientalis, more commonly known as Lenten rose) flowering abundantly. Their cup-shaped nodding flowers centred with crowns of contrasting creamy stamens, are of a delicate beauty. We have planted some in our garden back in Autumn, but obviously being in their first year, it is still touch and go. We can only hope they're feeling at home in Dove Cottage's little plot and will one day be as prolific as those in the park.

Having only taken you there on Christmas Day, there's no need to introduce you to the castle ruins, so I just snapped some details of its weathered wrought iron gates and peeling coat of arms.

I don't know the first thing about fungi, but find them intriguing, and I particularly loved these orange jelly ones.

Me and my twin were wearing our green fur-collared coats and bright yellow hats and scarves, courtesy of our blogging friend Monica.

Now let me show you what I was wearing underneath that coat!

My woollen skirts and jumpers have come out of hiding, and you'll get to see more of each as the temperatures dropped to freezing depths in the weeks to come.

It's always a joy reacquainting myself with this vintage Tweed A-line skirt, in green speckled with tiny red dots. My jumper is vintage and green as well, with dashes of cream, sage and burnt orange. They are such a perfect match that I'm wearing them together at least once every Winter!

The delicious Welsh wool waistcoat with its suede pockets and belt, were a gift from Vix. 

My legs were kept warm courtesy of my bottle green knit tights with their yellow and wine red plaid pattern. Back at home, I swapped my snow boots for a pair of sage green pull-on ankle boots.

The necklace, with its green centre stone, was charity shopped the other week, while the Miracle brooch was a flea market find in November 2018. I wonder how I would remember all of this if it weren't for my blog.

Once again, that's it for now. See you in a couple of days! In the meantime, stay safe, sane and sensational is still our mantra!