White wilderness

Saturday the 20th of January dawned dismal and grey until suddenly late morning the sun managed to worm her way through the layer of clouds. 

Knowing I wouldn't have time on Sunday, I fiddled around with collages for my next blog post and put together some possible outfits for the week ahead.

By then, the sun was out in full force, although she didn't manage to push the mercury beyond freezing point. So, once again, woollens to the rescue!

My chunky knit skirt with its brown, caramel and off-white chevron pattern is an old Think Twice find and tends to only come out of my closet on cold Winter days. This time, it found its perfect companion in a vintage bottle green wool jumper, its front panel higgledy-piggledy striped in off-white, sage green and burnt orange. The jumper too was picked up from Think Twice, while the white faux fur gilet I layered on top to further combat the cold was a charity shop find.

Accessories were kept to the bare minimum with an ivory coloured carved beaded necklace and a brooch consisting of a spray of cream leaves and brown berries, both of which were flea market finds.

While having lunch, we brainstormed about possible walking destinations. Obviously there was no way we would be staying inside on this rarest of commodities, a crispy cold yet sunny Winter's day.

Having exhausted the possibilities of most of the local parks, we were somewhat at a loss, and had already reluctantly settled for another visit to Antwerp's Park Den Brandt, when I suddenly had a Eureka moment.

Why not go for a long-overdue walk to the ex-clay pit based nature reserve in Terhagen? Surely, with the frost and snow of the last couple of days, it wouldn't be too muddy?

Incessant rain turning the paths into a sticky clay-based mud-fest had kept us away for many months. In fact, our last visit was on a glorious Spring day back in May, its highs of 23°C a total contrast to today's.

We parked our car in the village of Terhagen in front of the former entrance of De Beukelaer, one of the many brickmaking factories which used to provide the area's livelihood. The brick entrance gate dates back to 1939 and was beautifully restored in 2012.

Once past the gate and down a set of slippery steps, there is a choice of two paths: one leading between trees to the right and another to the left. The latter eventually takes one to an open area from where a narrow up-and-down path leads past one of the water-filled former clay pits into the heart of the reserve.

Jos claimed that we always take a right turn - which admittedly we might have done once or twice - so I indulged him and off we went. However, we had to turn back almost at once as the path became increasingly muddy. Taking the snow covered path on the left, we were momentarily confused when we arrived at the aforementioned open area, where the usually quite obvious path we needed to take insisted on a game of hide and seek in drifts of snow. Then we found it snaking between the trees on the bottom right in the De Beukelaer collage.

On the right path again, we continued our walk, crunching through solid snow, with only the odd muddy patch to negotiate.

To our left, we caught glimpses of the water-filled pit, now a wide, white expanse of ice and snow.

Everything was eerily quiet in spite of not being all too far from the inhabited world. There were hardly any fellow walkers out and about either, which was a bit mind-boggling on such a lovely Saturday afternoon.

It was only when, after a short but stiff climb, we arrived at a huge sandy plain, that we spotted the odd, far-off dog walker. The plain, reminiscent of the Sahara on a hot Summer's day, is a reminder of the fact that once upon a time this was actually the bottom of the sea. Jos remembers hunting for shark's tooth here when he lived nearby as a boy.

We circumnavigated the partially snow covered plain and were just about to return to the path we'd come on, when a woman walking her dog warned us that it was quite slippery going down and that she'd almost landed on her bum. Having a life-long trauma from slipping on ice and breaking my arm as a four year old, I wasn't very keen. Still, we decided to risk it and, taking great care and making use of our walking poles, we safely got back on track.

An alternative route would have meant making quite a detour. Not to mention the magical sight of the sinking sun illuminating the skeleton trees and the naughts and crosses pattern in the sky.

No outfits photos were taken on Sunday, as we had January's edition of the indoor flea market to go to and were running late picking up our friend Inez.

By the time we'd finished trawling the aisles of well-stocked stalls, I was too exhausted. My cold, which had thankfully taken a backseat on Friday and Saturday, was back for another round, and I simply had no energy left when we got back home.

I'd left my camera at home as well so, rather than taking you for a spin through the aisles, here's a peek at the treasures which came home with me.

Not having purchased even a single brooch in December, I now came away with no less than nine.

I didn't pay over the odds for any of them, my most expensive purchase being the agate one (above, bottom right) bought from one of the regular sellers, a very nice French speaking lady I purchased lots of lovely brooches from over the years.

Another favourite is the one on the bottom left, which I think looks like half a walnut shell. 

The large cameo came from another regular seller, an older lady who lives in the next village to ours and who presides over a table heaped with all kinds of costume jewellery. She always strikes up a conversation, mainly about her health problems. By the time I managed to extricate myself, Jos and Inez had almost reached the end of the aisle.

I fell head over heels for the wooden brooch with its hand-painted flowers. It was the first one that caught my eye and has already been worn in the meantime.

I can never resist kitschy plastic brooches, like the tiny blue cock and the olive green mouse, whose eyes turned out to be very hard to get into focus, and which I think gives the poor thing a bit of a squinty look!

Mid-century celluloid souvenir brooches are another weakness of mine. I've got quite a few of these in my collection, mainly of German origin. I suppose this is where the gnomes are from as well, but it's rather unusual to find a Belgian one, in this case a souvenir from the seaside town of Blankenberge. 

I actually gasped when I spotted the red and white knitted coat several aisles away, and instantly made a beeline towards it with Inez in tow. Once I tried it on, there was no going back, particularly after Inez declared that she would never speak to me again if I didn't buy it. It's got a hood too. And pockets!

The weather gods cranked up the weather thermostat to around 10°C in the week that followed, treating us to a melange of rain and sunshine, often in one day, and mostly accompanied by a blustery wind.

After a false start on Monday, I gradually started feeling better each day, testimony of which is that I had the energy to walk to various Think Twice shops for a rummage during my lunch breaks.

I'd completely missed their January round of sales, but was happy to browse their newest collection.

Quite by coincidence, both of my purchases that week, on two consecutive days and in two different shops, featured diamond patterns. The purple and white dress, which came with its matching belt, is vintage, while the yellow, white, brown and pink short-sleeved jumper is from UK retro label Miss Fortune.

Oh, and I was unable to resist the Paisley patterned maxi dress, which was 70% off at a high street shop.

As I couldn't possibly say goodbye without showing you a second outfit, here's what I wore on January's final Friday.

Its main components were retail buys, starting with the caramel button-through cord skirt bought at full price in October 2021 from the same shop where I got the bargainous maxi dress from. It's become a firm favourite which has more than earned its keep in my wardrobe.

The blouse is by the defunct Belgian Wow To Go label, and snapped up from an outlet shop in November 2022. Like the skirt, it has featured many a time on the blog!

My zebra striped necklace (part of a set with a ring) was last year's flea market find, while both the burgundy belt and my squishy deer brooch were charity shopped.

Was there anything exciting on the menu for January's final weekend? Find out all about it in my next post! 

Hope to see you again soon!