So here we are: January 2025, and the start of a spanking new year. If the 60-odd years I've been spending on this planet have taught me one thing, it's that absolutely nothing changes as we yet again hang a fresh calendar on our walls or gingerly crack open a new diary, its pages still virginally blank.
Well, I got news for you: time doesn't give a damn that it's supposed to be another year, it just keeps marching on relentlessly from one day to the next. There's no wielding of magic wands or sprinkling of clouds of fairy dust to make things different or - god forbid - better than they were in December.
I've given up on New Year's resolutions a long time ago, as they usually die an untimely death before the first weeks of January are over. So I just continue to live my life, adapting and making changes as I go along.
Meanwhile, the tale of those final December weeks is still begging to be told, so I'll be starting where I bade you goodbye in my final post, which was on Sunday 15 December.
Yet another gloomy and drizzly day, we were both feeling a bit morose so, after a morning of aimless pottering, we hit upon the idea of driving down to the garden centre to buy a new (fake) tree. But I already told you all about that ...
The day's highs of 8°C might have been a bit too warm for the dress I was wearing that day. It was love at first sight for this wool and acrylic blend vintage C&A dress found at Think Twice in February 2022.
The beads and beret - which once again I wore to hide that day's less than perfect hairdo - were charity shopped as well, while both the belt and the flower corsage worn in lieu of a brooch were picked up on the high street.
The weather continued along the same vein in the working week that followed, the mercury flirting with the low double digits, the drizzle often almost horizontal as a result of a quite unpleasant wind.
Sales at Think Twice's had reached the € 2 mark on Monday At this stage I wasn't really expecting to find anything, but then this groovily patterned 1970s frock was winking at me from its hiding place among a rail of coats.
Then a surprise was waiting for me when I got home on Wednesday. My friend Inneke had found these two brooches among the contents of a deceased neighbour's flat which she and Maurice are helping to clear. Obviously, I was happy to give them a home, which I hope they don't mind sharing with 800-plus brothers and sisters.
I'd taken Thursday 19 December off to accompany Jos to the hospital where he was due to have another batch of tests. To cut a long story short, we were told that he would need surgery as part of his prostate is blocking his urethra. No date has been set yet as I type, so we continue playing a waiting game while Jos is still having to deal with the unpleasantness of a bladder catheter.
Needless to say, we were both feeling quite low and overwhelmed after being the recipients of yet another piece of bad news ...
Having taken Thursday off, I'd promised my bosses to come in for a couple of hours on Friday, which as a bonus did manage to take my mind off things for a while.
When Jos picked me up from the tram at around 1 pm, he told me he was a bit worried about the car, as it kept showing a message that the battery was almost empty. When the message appeared again after we'd driven off, I asked him why it mentioned the word "key" in front of the word "battery". Then the penny dropped that it was the car key battery which needed replacing :-) We drove straight to the garage where the matter was fixed in minutes ... Phew!
Back at home, I walked into town to pick up some Christmas cards from the bookshop, finding a book which I thought would cheer up Jos in the process. It's about how daily life in Belgium changed in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and I'm currently waiting for my turn to read it.
Reading my journal for that weekend doesn't make for much fun. For fear of sounding like a broken record, the weather was simply atrocious. Although on both days the thermometer insisted on temperatures of around 6°C, rain, hail and wind, culminating in a thunderstorm on Sunday morning, made it feel quite a bit colder.
The list of household and other chores which occupied me would make for a yawn-inducing read, so I'll limit myself to the outfits I was wearing.
On Saturday, I wore this groovily patterned vintage wool-blend dress found at Think Twice back in the mists of time. With so many colours to choose from, accessorizing it is a doddle, this time picking up the tiny bits of orange in its pattern with my suede belt, fluffy cardigan, necklace, ring and brooch. The only non-second-hand items were the belt - and my ancient tan boots.
On Sunday, this handmade vintage dress came out to play. It was a charity shop find at our most local shop once upon a time, but due to its - in my eyes, at least - Christmassy print, I only seem to wear it this time of year.
I can't remember whether the faux-ivory carved beads were a charity shop or a flea market find, but my tall red boots definitely were the latter. The eagle-eyed among you may recognize the brooch as one of those I got from my friend Inneke earlier that week.
Monday 23 December was my last working day of the year. For some reason, my bosses had insisted that we come in, although the office turned out to be dead. This prompted both my colleague and me to cheekily run a couple of errands during office hours in order to beat the hordes of Christmas zombies which would descend upon Antwerp's shopping streets by lunch time.
The day started and ended with rain with a couple of sunny spells in between. On the left is the sight that greeted me when I stepped off the metro's escalator that morning. By late morning, the sight of the sun bathing the cathedral's tower in an eerie white light while dark clouds were gathering behind it, prompted me to whip out my phone. The heavens opened just a I was waiting at the tram stop in front of my office, and had become quite torrential while it was taking me home.
Grey and mizzly, with highs of around 8°C, Christmas Eve was spent doing nothing much at all, our only outing being a trip to a small local supermarket for some last-minute shopping, where things were much quieter than we'd thought it would be.
One of the perks of not having to go into work is the time I can spend playing around with the contents of my wardrobe, which that day resulted in a happy mix of old and new items.
Both the blue cord skirt and the tan mock-croc belt were retail buys which have more than earned their keep in my wardrobe. My vintage blouse is actually a jumper and blouse in one, with a knitted bodice and cuffs and flower patterned collar and sleeves. I picked it up from Think Twice for just € 1 in the Autumn of 2019.
The tank top recently came home with me from the charity shops while the brooch I pinned to it was found at Shrewsbury Antiques Centre in June 2019. The blingy perspex ring was, again, a retail buy.
Apart from editing photos and making a couple of collages for my next post, most of the day was spent on the sofa, totally engrossed in my latest read, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, and the only one of her novels which was still in my reading pile.
That night, we had the first part of our traditional Xmas gourmet for dinner. For those who are not familiar with the concept, gourmet is kind of a thing in the Low Countries, involving a variety of tiny pieces of meat one fries individually in tiny frying pans on a raclette-like device. As we are currently without a proper dining table and it would be too fiddly on our small-ish kitchen table, Jos just fried up all the pieces in a large frying pan, and we enjoyed them with potato salad, a selection of veggies and home-made cocktail sauce. There was enough for two meals, so we'd be eating the remainder on Christmas Day.
We were treated to the same un-Christmassy weather on the day itself.
After sleeping in and enjoying a leisurely breakfast while still in my pyjamas, I stood in front of my wardrobe and assembled this outfit, which might very well be a contender for favourite outfit of the year.
The vintage, flower patterned velvet skirt was yet another old Think Twice find, which I combined with a vintage 1980s jumper I rescued from being sold at our flea market stall by my friend Inez. What was she thinking?
The massive orange suede belt was last Summer's sale bargain, the ring was a flea market find and the brooch with its blingy threesome of cats came from a Shrewsbury charity shop last June.
My outfit was bookended in purple with my bargainous Western-style ankle boots and mohair beret from Think Twice. It might have been Christmas, but I wasn't in the mood for washing my hair!
As a Christmas treat, we'd picked up these mini Yule logs from the supermarket the other day. Yummy!
Another tradition we are trying to keep up is going for a walk at Middelheim on Boxing Day. Unfortunately the weather gods weren't being supportive of our plans and sent us another grey and rainy day.
As we were champing at the bit to escape the house after those two days of inactivity, there was nothing for it but to go for another rummage at the charity shops.
These two wicker handbags jumped into my trolley mere minutes after entering the shop in the nearby town of Mortsel.
I also couldn't resist these glittery gold-tone ankle boots by Schmoove, a French brand founded in 2001. With boots on their website retailing at well over € 200, the € 5,90 I paid for these are nothing short of a steal.
Flush with our success, we then tried our luck at our most local shop, where I found these two almost matching items.
The unlined cotton jacket (it's not a shirt, as I first thought) with its turquoise and purple Paisley-esque pattern will have to wait until the weather's warmed up, but I've already worn the wooden necklace with its row of pansies and leaves.
I'll be back with more Twixmas tales and other news in my next post.
See you soon!
