Summer in the city

Once again I'm rudely interrupting my travelogue's gentle flow for a news flash on what else has been happening in my life. In hindsight, the month of July has been a bit of a muddle and if it weren't for the daily scribbles in my journal I would have been at a loss as to how I spent my days.

But first of all, I've got a bone to pick with the weather gods for sending us such a mixed bag of generally under par weather, not to mention the highest number of rainy July days in 35 years!

From the hot and humid temperatures in the month's second weekend, they took a tumble to a much cooler 23°C after overnight rain on Wednesday the 12th of July.

Apart from the fact that I had an appointment with Michel, my hairdresser, during lunch break, there's nothing much to tell you about this run-of-the-mill office day, but at least I can show you what I was wearing! 

My chambray skirt, picked up from a Shropshire charity shop in June 2022, was accompanied by another charity shop find, a crepey King Louie blouse with irregular shaped blue, green, red and black dots and a dainty tie neck. A search on my blog revealed I paid € 5 for it, but not where or when, so let's keep it at back in the mists of time!

Except for my green glass ring, my accessories were all retail buys, including the cute squirrel brooch, which I bought from a small independent shop in Antwerp. I was originally wearing a necklace as well, but I'd removed it at the hairdresser's and had forgotten to put it back on.

My way back to the office took me through a small shopping mall, where I promptly fell head over heels for these yellow suede tasseled sandals in an outlet shop. They were mine for € 24, but due to the deteriorating weather they're still awaiting their first outing.

A mix of clouds and sunny spells was our lot on Thursday, when the temperature dropped another degree, to 22°C. For good measure, we were treated to a shower the mere minute I was back in the office after lunch break.

It was super quiet at work, in every possible sense. Not only was work the slowest it had been in months, I was on my own as my colleague was on holiday and would be for the next three weeks. Even the eternal drilling noise emanating from the Art Deco skyscraper under renovation across the road had quietened down due to the building trade's annual leave. Not that I minded that very much!

On top of its swirls of orange flowers on a neutral brown-ish background, it was its generous dagger collar which seduced me when I spotted the dress on Think Twice's rails a couple of years ago. 

Shades of blue were added with my brooch and belt, while I picked a brown glass ring from my Better Maid party dish which houses them. I started out wearing a matching brown necklace but its closing mechanism had caused a rash in my neck, so it's currently residing in the naughty corner!

I couldn't help but notice how well the Crocosmia flowers in our garden matched the dress's pattern!

Speaking of the garden, the weather hasn't exactly been conductive to do much in it apart from watering the plants under the awning. Everything else has had to fend for itself, with varying degrees of success.

The Clematis climbing the wall near the end of the garden path is entertaining us with the most fantastic seed heads, while in the passageway there's an abundance of fluffy pink featherlike Astilbe and purple Salvia flower spikes.

Once again the sun had to share its limelight with a layer of clouds on Friday, when the temperature shifted a gear and climbed to a delicious 26°C.

It was another quiet day at the office, so I played hooky by taking a longer than usual lunch break and having coffee at the new Think Twice coffee shop with my friend Inez.

My dress of choice was my beloved deckchair striped linen blend dress, which was a € 3 Think Twice bargain in August 2021. Its companions were a yellow charity shopped ring and necklace and a suede belt by Belgian label CKS found in a pop-up outlet shop back in October.

The plastic elephant brooch was treasure hunted in a posh vintage shop while on a day trip to Middelburg last Summer.

My tomato red sales bargain sandals came out to play again, their colour matching red-tipped Salvia 'Hot Lips' almost exactly! 

Saturday was mostly taken up with flea market preparations such as pricing and labeling my rail of clothes and making a selection of jewellery and other items considered worthy of selling.

Meanwhile, we kept one eye on the weather forecast, hoping that the weather gods would be kind to us on Sunday.

After being led to believe all week that it would be a cloudy but dry and warm-ish day, we were dismayed to see that a couple of likely showers had suddenly appeared on the horizon.

Thinking on our feet, we quickly fashioned a plastic cover-up for our clothing rail from a pair of redundant vacuum bags, so that we were prepared for any sudden downpours.

When we reluctantly dragged ourselves out of bed at 6.15 on Sunday morning, our street was already a hive of activity. However, the advantage of being able to set up one's pitch right outside one's front door is that there was no need to rush, so we took our time getting ready and having breakfast before putting up our stall about one hour later.

I sold my first dress quite early on, to someone who didn’t bat an eyelid at its € 10 price tag. If that sounds ridiculously cheap - which I fully admit it is - you wouldn't believe the amount of haggling which usually precedes a sale. People seem to expect you to give things away virtually for free ...

The day's forecasted highs of 23°C were tempered by a blustery wind and a distinct lack of sunshine, so that I never took off the cardigan and denim jacket I'd layered over my recently acquired Virginie maxi frock.

We might have been prepared for any showers - which eventually arrived in the afternoon - but we hadn't bargained for the blustery wind, which toppled our rail of clothes on more than one occasion.

Although we didn't exactly make a fortune, we sold several pairs of Jos's hardly worn non-Clarks shoes, some of our Lourdes memorabilia, miscellaneous stuff which had been cluttering up our basement and, evidently in the wake of the Barbie movie hype, quite a few of my vintage Barbie clothing set doubles. 

Oh, and I sold some of my clothes as well, although not as many as I would have liked. I lost count of the times I was told how fabulous they were but that they didn't have the guts to wear so much colour, or that I should be selling these at vintage markets rather than fleas. Well, perhaps I'll do that one day when I'm retired and have more time on my hands.

Anyway, we closed shop at about 4 pm when the crowds were starting to thin out. And about time too as we were tired on our feet and crashed on the sofa once we'd lugged everything back inside.

I continued feeling a bit out of sorts and slightly light-headed in the week that followed, which I initially put down to tiredness caused by the rather full-on and much too short weekend. 

Things turned out to be a bit more complicated than that, though. I'm trying to limit my moaning to the bare minimum and keep my blog the happy place it always was, but suffice to say that it involves the problem I'm having with my left eye and the increasing level of stress this inevitably causes.

But there's always solace to be found in the bounty provided by nature, so I'm taking you along on my lunch break walk to Antwerp's Botanic Garden on the Tuesday of that week.

On a gorgeously sunny day such as this, most of the benches were occupied by people spending their lunch break in this small but perfectly formed green haven smack dab in the middle of the busy city. At this time of year, they were joined by the handful of tourists who had made the effort to seek out this hidden gem.

Still, I was lucky enough to find a bench in the shade from which to watch the world go by and take in the sights, sounds and scents of the garden at the height of Summer.

Bees were buzzing around a patch of Globe Thistle (Echinops) and the resident koi fish were rippling the surface of the pond.

My particular favourite of the flowers in bloom were the striking, vibrant purple, trumpet shaped ones belonging to Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea).

The exotic white and orange floral pattern on this midnight blue dress never fails to cheer me up either. Another Think Twice bargain, it followed me home in July 2019.

Apart from the orange beaded necklace from a Welsh antiques centre, I kept to neutral shades for my accessories. These included a stretchy belt with hexagonal faux tortoiseshell buckle and my super comfy rose gold Gabor sandals, both of which were retail buys.

Flitting among the flowers is the enamelled butterfly brooch which was a flea market find in 2017.

And that, my friends, is all I've got time for today.

I can't wait to take another trip in the time machine and immerse myself in the penultimate episode of my travelogue. 

Will you join me again in a couple of days?