Wearing, reading and charity shopping

As promised, I'm back with a final November update. And about time too, I guess, as Christmas is almost upon at the time of writing. We put up our Christmas tree two weekends ago, deciding to leave our fragile vintage decorations for (at least) another year and using our small collection of wooden, felted, fabric, resin and papier-mâché ones instead. 

As you can see, it was a good thing that we did! Ever since Bess came to live at Dove Cottage back in 2021, it has become a tradition to post a photo of her shenanigans involving the tree, so here is this year's contribution. She wasted no time in climbing it the minute it was up and I'd finished decorating it with all those tempting toys!

As my blog hasn't actually made it to Christmas yet, why don't we retrace our steps to Friday the 21st of November? On the menu that day was my penultimate visit to Michel, my hairdresser of more than 30 years, who will be retiring at the end of next week. Sob!

I might not have been ready for the silly season yet but the streets of Antwerp were already decked out with garlands of greenery and festive light displays. 

It was a sunny but crispy cold day on which the mercury didn't climb any higher than 4°C.

I was wearing a chevron patterned plaid skirt in browns, oranges and a dash of white, which I wrestled off a charity shop dummy in January 2022. Its companion, an aubergine blouse sprinkled with colourful spots, was an old Think Twice find, its collar kept under control with a sparkly peach-coloured brooch I picked up from H&M in the late noughties. 

For extra warmth, I added a lavender tank top, bought at 70% off in the closing down sale of the Belgian Terre Bleue label in September 2024. To this I pinned one of my Autumn leaf brooches. Then I selected an orange stretchy belt with massive round metal buckle - a cheeky high street buy - to accentuate my waist.

The temperature was down to 2°C on Saturday, when we woke up to the first of the night frost having sugar-coated the plants in the jungle garden.

The sudden cold snap spurred me into action, and I spent the morning unearthing some of my warmer skirts and exchanging a shelf full of short-sleeved knits for long-sleeved Winter jumpers.

Then I walked into the village as I needed to run an errand at Kruidvat, which is the Low Countries' equivalent of Superdrug.

My blue cord skirt was bought in a high street shop in November 2023 and has become a true Autumn/Winter staple ever since. My diagonally striped polo neck, in a slightly darker shade of blue, was a € 5 Think Twice sales bargain one year later. 

Both the belt and necklace were relatively recent charity shop finds. A pre-blog rummage at the indoor flea market yielded the vintage enamelled metal brooch featuring an Edelweiss, a Gentian and a couple of smaller daisy-like flowers.  

Talking of rummages, we drove down to the Went to charity shop in Mortsel after lunch, where I found a Diolen button through skirt, a Nordic style jumper by the Belgian high street label JBC, a black and white patterned orange blouse and some aqua beads.

It had actually snowed overnight on Sunday the 23rd of November, but apart from the odd dot of the fluffy stuff, it had all gone by morning. In its wake, we were left with a gloomy and utterly grey day on which an icy cold wind made it feel considerably colder that the day's highs of 2°C.

As Bess had been having episodes of regular vomiting, which we suspected was hairball related but wanted to be sure, we made an online appointment with a local vet for Tuesday morning. Much to our regret our former vet, whom we'd had since Phoebe's predecessor Poesie back in the mid-1990s, had recently closed her practice. As she used to do house visits, it would be the first time we'd have to take Bess anywhere in the cat carrier we last used when we picked her up from the shelter which, needless to say, we were a bit nervous about ...

Thankfully we were able to take our minds off things by visiting our friends Ingrid and Luc in he afternoon. We hadn't seen each other for a while, so it was nice to be able to catch up.

Ingrid and I were at secondary school together, where we were the one and only punks. Those were the days!

Monday was the start of a three-day general strike in Belgium, with little or no public transport, which meant that Jos not only had to drive me into Antwerp like he usually does, but pick me up again as well. This was easier said than done, as, due to parking restrictions, there is nowhere for him to park the car and wait for me. This meant leaving the office ahead of time to make sure I'd be at our designated pick-up point by the time he arrived.

After a foggy commute on Tuesday morning, this was my view from the office window (above, left): apparently Antwerp's cathedral had gone AWOL!  I'm including the view on the right, taken a couple of hours later, for comparison.

It was the day of Bess's appointment with the vet, where she was declared to be in perfect health and was given an injection to help her with the hairball issues. Jos reported that she meowed loudly during the car trip - which took all of five minutes - but that she was on her best behaviour at the vet's. 

I walked to the nearest Think Twice shop during lunch break, where I found this amazing vintage dress from a German label called Rawe Rheda. When I posted my find on Instagram that day, I was told by Lynn that she used to have the exact same dress.

And just like that, another week had gone by!

Another gloomy and mizzly day was our lot on Friday the 28th of November, accompanied with a neither here nor there 9°C.

I had a dentist appointment for a check-up at 11 am, but as there were no issues I was in and out in less than 15 minutes.

Back at home, I tackled a couple of minor sewing jobs after lunch, after which we went food shopping.

My outfit was based around the olive green polyester knit vintage dress I found at the vintage per kilo shop back in October. 

Both the chunky knit long-line orange cardigan and the orange fake-snake belt were charity shopped, while the orange and green mottled brooch was a flea market find. My necklace is a holiday souvenir, bought from an antiques centre in Newcastle Emlyn, Wales in June 2017. It seems that it's one of the necklaces I'm reaching for the most.

The rest of the day was spent engrossed in my latest read, Muriel Spark's The Girls of Slender Means. This early 1960s vintage Penguin has been on my shelves for decades but caught my eye as I was rearranging the latter to make some space. I couldn't actually remember ever reading it, so that was my next read sorted.

The novel is set in London in 1945 at the end of the war in a shabby boarding house for young ladies called the May of Teck Club. It follows their lives and love affairs over a period of a few weeks but ends in tragedy. It's a very witty novel which I loved, although I initially had a difficult time getting into it.

There was no improvement in the weather on Saturday.  Apart from a handful of sunny days, it had been a gloomy month of November, but still an improvement on October, which was considered the bleakest month here in Belgium since records began.

As it was once again left to yours truly to provide a daily dose of sunshine, I plucked this teal cowl-necked and pleated dress from my wardrobe. A Think Twice find back in March 2022, I initially left it behind, but as luck would have it, it had been reduced by 30% when I went back for it the next day.

From its groovy colourful pattern, I selected ochre for my fluffy cardigan and tan for my belt, adding even more colour with my beaded necklace and brooch. Apart from the latter, which was a flea market find, all were supplied by the gods of the charity shops.

Speaking of which, the weather dictated that we went for another rummage, for which we selected the shop at the edge of our village.

Here I found no less than three vintage dresses, which I'm sure were leftovers from the infamous Day of the Charity Shops, on which they break out all of the vintage items they've hoarded for months, to be sold at inflated prices. 

There were two modern dresses as well. The burnt orange floral shift dress is by Belgian label Claude Arielle (I've already got a couple of blouses by them) while the tropical patterned one is a King Louie.

My final finds of the day were two more books to add to my already toppling pile. I must be one of the only people in the world who hasn't yet read Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring ... and nor have I seen the film!

So, that's it for now. I've just finished my final day at the office this year and, as I'm only due back on Monday the 5th of January, I'm looking forward to 12 days of freedom from the shackles of time.

All that's left is to wish you all a wonderful Christmas. 

See you on the other side!

Dreamcoat

Coming back home from sunny, blue-skied Bruges on Saturday the 8th of November was a bit of a let-down, particularly since I was plagued by that pesky cold I told you about a couple of posts ago.

Having said our goodbyes to Veronique after breakfast, we were expecting to get home well before midday.  However, as extensive roadworks were taking place in the north of Antwerp that weekend, our Satnav decided to make a detour via Brussels, making our journey just that little bit longer.

I wasted no time in getting our stuff unpacked while Jos went food shopping in the afternoon, but then I started feeling unwell, a tickle in my throat announcing the fact that I was coming down with a cold.

I thought I'd escaped the worst when I felt reasonably well upon getting up on Sunday. 

It was mostly overcast with the odd sunny spell and highs of around 14°C. Still, I didn't leave the house all day, catching up with blogland and gearing myself for the ordeal of going back to work on Monday. 

As for my outfit, I opted for a comfy skirt and blouse combo, with both the grey and red tartan circle skirt and the King Louie blouse supplied by the gods of the charity shops.

I enhanced the tiny pops of red in my skirt and blouse with a wine coloured beaded necklace and elasticated belt with massive white metal buckle (both charity shopped). I was wearing not one but two brooches that day. The plastic cat brooch got the company of a red-hearted white metal one which I used to tame the collar of my blouse.  

By mid-afternoon it became clear that I spoke too soon. My scratchy throat might have done a runner, I was now suffering from an alternately blocked and leaking nose, lots of sneezing, watery eyes and an annoying and persistent little cough. Not fun at all. 

There was nothing for it but to join Bess on the sofa. 

It was a wrench getting out of bed at an ungodly hour again on Monday, particularly as the day promised to be a mind-numbingly gloomy one. Courtesy of my cold, I was feeling a bit zombie-ish but otherwise ok. As usual, there was lots to catch up on at the office, but I'd managed to get through most of it by the end of the day. 

Which was a good thing as Tuesday was the 11th of November, Armistice Day, which is a public holiday here in Belgium.

Again, it was dark and gloomy and, although the day's highs of 10°C weren't too bad at all, again I didn't leave the house all day. 

My cold was still very much present, but there's no rest for the wicked, as I actually had things to do.

But first things first: I was wearing a burnt orange polyester dress, closing with a zip at the front. The zip pull is missing, but I can't be bothered to replace the zip, especially as it's still in good working order. Replacing the zip pull is out of the question as well, as there's hardly anything left to attach it to. But then I had the brainwave of using a single, orphan earring instead.

The dress's print has bottle green in it, so I piled on the green accessories. 

Just before we were off to Bruges, I was contacted by Patricia, a lovely lady who lives in our village, is into vintage and always buys lots of stuff from my flea market stall. She'd asked if she could come around for a rummage some time and we'd agreed on Friday the 14th; Making use of my day off, I spent it going through my flea market boxes and wardrobe(s), selecting some items I was ready to let go.

More about that later ...

Meanwhile, it was back to work on Wednesday, which was a rare sunny day with a balmy 16°C temperature. As my cold, which had taken a backseat on Tuesday, was back with a vengeance, I went to pick up some cold relief medicines during my lunch break, stopping for a rummage at Think Twice on my way back to the office.

Obviously, there was no way I could leave this gorgeous orange handbag behind!

Although there are no less than five Think Twice (or T2 as they are commonly known) shops in Antwerp, I do not visit them all on a regular basis. Most of my purchases are made in the two shops which are only a couple of minutes' walk from the office. 

A slightly longer walk takes me to the shop in Antwerp's vibrant Kammenstraat which offers a refreshing alternative to mainstream shopping with its array of independent boutiques. In spite of the gloom and impending rain, this is where I was headed during Thursday's lunch break.

My self-imposed coat ban proved to be futile when I came face to face with this stunner of a coat. Nevertheless, I hummed and hawed before deciding on its purchase as it's got a couple of issues. When I finally took it to the check-out, I ended up chatting to the shop assistants. It was at that point that my beloved sage green beret, which I'd taken off in the fitting rooms, must have fallen out of my bag. I only realized I'd lost it when I was going home that night, but I had no idea where. Fast forward to three weeks later, when I visited the shop again and was stopped and asked whether the beret was mine. They'd kept it for me all that time and I couldn't have been happier to have been reunited with it. The girls were duly rewarded with chocolates!

It was only when I got the coat home that I discovered a Bernat Klein tag inside. A bit of research revealed that Bernat Klein CBE (6 November 1922 – 17 April 2014) was a Serbian born textile designer and painter. Based in Scotland, Klein supplied textiles to haute couture designers in the 1960s and 1970s, and later sold his own clothing collections. Here's a link to the Bernat Klein Foundation if you would like to find out more. Please do not blame me if this makes you go down a rabbit hole like I did.

His obituary in The Scotsman was calling him the colour wizard of the Scottish textile industry who brought tweed to world's catwalks. 

And I've got one of his coats for less than € 30!  The photo doesn't really do it justice, but I'll show it to you properly once I've fixed the partly detached lining and slightly wonky hem.

Edit: I've added a close-up of its glorious tweed, taken when light conditions were better.

Anyway, after this short on and off working week, Friday the 14th of  November rolled along in no time.

It might have been gloomy and mizzly outside, I had no intention of leaving Dove Cottage's cozy confines anyway. I spent the morning compiling a rail of clothes, making sure to include some coats and jackets, as that is what Patricia was after in particular.

We chatted over cups of coffee while she was browsing and adding more and more items to her pile of likely candidates. After trying things on, she ended up buying two coats, three jackets, three dresses and some blouses!

My dress, with its glorious mix of abstract stripes on a burgundy background, is an old Think Twice find acquired pre-blog on a Friday afternoon shopping trip with my friend Inez. 

Although the stripes invite it to be accessorized with almost any colour you can think of, I often opt for turquoise, even if that colour doesn't actually appear in the dress's print. The flower embossed belt and the turquoise-rimmed floral brooch were charity shop and flea market finds respectively. The necklace, however, was a sales bargain from the high street last Summer.

Although at 16°C it was still unseasonably warm, it was a dismal and utterly wet day we woke up to on Saturday.

I spent the morning pottering around upstairs, folding away the unsold items in the flea market boxes which live in the built-up cupboard in our bedroom.

It was almost inevitable that one or two things ended up back in my wardrobe, case in point being the dress I wore that day. I know, what was I thinking?

My accessories were having a hard time competing with the dress's exuberant flower garden pattern. In the end, I opted for off-white in the form of a beaded necklace, vintage flower brooch and chunky plastic ring. 

We were itching to go for a rummage at the charity shops after lunch, but as Opnieuw & Co., our local chain of shops, were having a Christmas event which we wanted to avoid at all cost, we drove to the small charity shop in Reet instead. And no, I didn't find a single thing!

Back at home, we went to feed our neighbours' cats Bobby, Billie and Pip, as their personnel was off gallivanting around Paris.

This was followed with a cuddling session with our very own pampered little feline!

Yet another dismal day awaited us on Sunday, but as it looked set to remain dry, we were adamant to go for a much needed head-clearing walk. The temperature had halved over night, leaving us with highs of just 8°C, which were much more appropriate for the time of year.

Our walk took us to the park in the nearby town of Boom, which is only a 15-minute drive from home.

The earthy, musky-sweet scent of Autumn leaves greeted us once we stepped through the gates, and surely there's nothing like a good old crunch through a deep pile carpet of them to lift the spirits.

 

Apart from the odd dog walker, the utter greyness of the day must have kept people at home, so that it wasn't hard to imagine being somewhere far away from humanity, with only the trees in their Autumnal splendour and the resident waterfowl for company.

There's a brook running through the park, interspersed by one or two shallow waterfalls whose frothy cascades of water adds to the magical atmosphere of the park.

Much to our delight, when we got home it was still light enough for outfit photos without having to rely on harsh artificial light, which I'm sure is the bane of many of us at this time of year.

My dress, which is yet another old Think Twice find, is a thin yet deceptively warm one in a wool and polyester Trevira blend. Its dark green background is enhanced with swirls of orange and greyish green. A sage green long-sleeved t-shirt was layered underneath.

Again, I used a brooch (picked up from a flea market in Carmarthen, Wales) to tame its collar. Both my necklace and belt were charity shop finds.

There's nothing much to tell you about the working week that followed, apart from the fact that it remained gloomy and mizzly, with temperatures between 5 and 7°C.

There was the usual cappuccino catch-up with Inez on Tuesday, followed by a round of the rails at Think Twice, where I fell for this green and yellow tweed skirt.

Then, on Wednesday, I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in person in at least 40 years. He'd moved to Spain many years ago and we lost touch. However, we subsequently reconnected on Facebook in 2009, which is why we instantly recognized each other when we were both walking along Antwerp's main shopping thoroughfare. 

I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

So, that's if for now. I'll try and squeeze in a final November update before Christmas. 

See you soon!

More Bruges wanderings and a fairy-tale castle

This is the view which greeted us upon waking up on our second morning at B&B Het Soetewater. The morning fog was about to make way for another unseasonably warm and sunny day. The sun was gently illuminating the trees standing guard in their Autumn finery at the back of the meadow, the resident sheep playing hide-and-seek with the lingering veil of opalescent mist.

 

All traces of fog had disappeared into thin air by the time we were ready for breakfast, leaving a bright blue, almost cloudless sky in its wake.

Before making our way to the breakfast room in the main part of the B&B, we briefly wandered around the garden to admire the dried papery flower heads of the hydrangeas and the Michaelmas daisies which were still in their prime.

So, breakfast! You'll be glad to hear that Jos's appetite had returned, so that he was finally able to sample some of Veronique's delicacies. As you can see, he could hardly wait until I'd taken a photo of our breakfast table!

We'd decided on a day of two halves, starting with a morning of wandering around Bruges.

After once again leaving our car at the 't Zand car park, we now proceeded to walk into the opposite direction, taking a left turn instead of a right like we did on Thursday.

We had no agenda for our wanderings, our only aim being to soak up the atmosphere of this picture perfect UNESCO World Heritage city, which on this gloriously sunny November day, with its dome of cerulean blue sky, was looking particularly dreamlike.

And so it was that we found ourselves at the Leeuwenbrug (or Lion's Bridge), which crosses the peaceful Speelmansrei canal, where two almost pussycat-like lions are gazing towards the Belfry. 

The current bridge dates from 1627 and was built by Bruges master mason Jan de Wachter. In 1629, the parapets were decorated with two lion statues crafted by sculptor Jeroom Stalpaert, their front paws proudly resting on a shield bearing the gothic B of Bruges.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the lion on the western parapet was pushed into the water and replaced by a new one. In 1955, the second lion was replaced due to the poor condition of the stone.

Recently, the shields have been restored to their original appearance. During annual maintenance, it was determined that they were in urgent need of restoration. While cleaning, two different shades of blue were discovered. After further investigation, supported by a historical photograph from the image bank, it became clear that the darker shade of blue was the correct finish, so that the decision was made to repaint them in their authentic colour.

Soon our wanderings were making us thirsty, so we found a nice little café, called Salé et Sucré, where Jos enjoyed a glass of his favourite alcohol-free beer, while I opted for a cappuccino. 

Jos's beer came accompanied with a bowl of crisps which he devoured in no time. If that isn't proof that he'd regained his appetite, I don't know what is.

No matter how many times we've been here, Bruges continues to wow us. 

We ambled into the direction of Jan van Eyck Square, named after the world-famous master painter.

From the 13th to the 15th century, this was a lively port area where traders assembled from all over Europe. Bruges was the trading hub between the Hanseatic cities of the far North, England and Germany, and the main trading centres in France, Spain and Italy. 

In the Middle Ages a toll was levied here.  Pieter van Luxemburg, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, used this money to rebuild the Old Tollhouse in 1477 (above, bottom right) and the late Gothic porch is therefore decorated with his polychrome coat of arms. The narrow building jutting out to the left of the porch is the Rijkepijndershuis, the guild house of the dockworkers.

Jan van Eyck square ends rather abruptly at the stone parapet of the Koningsbrug (King’s Bridge) which backs the majestic Spiegelrei canal, looking particularly splendid with the blue sky reflected in its gently rippling waters. 

Wandering through Bruges means revisiting old favourites, like the quirky Papageno sculpture (1980) in front of the Royal City Theatre (1869) with its neo-Renaissance façade.  The sculpture, which is by the Belgian sculptor Jef Claerhout (1937–2022), pictures the Papageno character from Mozart’s opera ‘Die Zauberflöte’ (The Magic Flute). See here for some close-ups.

There are some sculptures at the back of the theatre as well, by Jozef De Looze (1925-2011), one of which you can see in this collage), but we had yet to spot this tiny bronze frog, which sits almost unobtrusively on the railing around one of the flower beds at the front of the theatre. I squealed in delight when I finally found the little fellow.

Midday had come and gone? but instead of finding a place to have lunch, we grabbed some cheese and ham rolls and a drink, which we planned to have at our afternoon destination.

A mere 10-minute drive took us from the 't Zand car park to Loppem Castle in the village of Loppem, which lies to the south-west of Bruges. Those of you who have been here for a while might recall our previous visits, in August 2021 and April 2024. 

We parked our car in the leafy car park which lies at the end of a long and narrow cobbled drive, where we had a makeshift picnic amid a flurry of drifting Autumn leaves. 

Boasting the turrets, nooks and crannies you would expect to find in a neo-Gothic building, Loppem Castle seems to have been lifted straight from the pages of a book of fairy tales.

The castle has been in the van Caloen family since the 18th century, but has seen a number of changes over the generations. The current castle, which replaced an older, original manor house, was completed in 1863 and is considered an excellent example of Flemish neo-Gothic style. 

In 1856, the English architect Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875) was commissioned by the future inhabitants, Baron Charles van Caloen and his wife, Countess Savina de Gourcy Serainchamps, to draw up plans for the castle. Later on, supervision of the building work was entrusted to the Belgian architect Jean-Baptiste Bethune (1821-1894), who gave a slightly more Flemish character to the building. 

Unlike many castles which evolved over the centuries, Loppem Castle was constructed in a single phase and, even though it was occupied by its owners for generations until 1940, the interior has remained almost completely untouched, with the original neo-Gothic architectural features and furnishings still present and correct, and thus maintaining much of its original design and charm.

The castle's entrance hall or vestibule was definitely built to impress. With its grand staircase and its vaulted ceiling, it is where guests were received and where van Caloen and his guests played billiards.

The stunning encaustic floor tiles were produced by Minton Hollis from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

Reaching up 17 metres from the floor, in polychromed wood with six bosses decorated with family coats of arms, the ceiling is a faithful copy of the 14th century vault of the gothic hall in Bruges' city hall.

The grand staircase's banister is composed of a hundred exquisitely crafted panels featuring native plants, animals and hunting scenes.

On the first floor, the two-storey, single-nave family chapel, with Jean-Baptiste Bethune's stained-glass windows depicting the family's patron saints, can be admired.

The chapel is housed in the prominent, corbelled sandstone bay crowned with octagonal spire at the front of the castle.

 

During World War I, the castle played a crucial role in Belgian military history. In October 1918, King Albert I of Belgium and his government used the castle as their temporary headquarters while planning the final offensive against German forces. It was here that key decisions were made about Belgium’s post-war future, adding an extra layer of significance to the castle’s legacy.

The castle and the park became the property of the Jean van Caloen Foundation in 1952 in order to protect the future of this exceptional heritage site. The park was opened to the public in 1974. One year later the castle was made accessible as well. Visitors cannot only enjoy the unique interior but also discover an important painting and sculpture collection.

The floor above the main Entrance Hall is where much of the art collections are on display;

Collecting started at the time of Charles van Caloen and Savina de Gourcy Serainchamps. They bought all kinds of art and antiques with which they decorated their castle: paintings, Chinese porcelain, glassware, hunting paraphernalia, Etc. 

The greatest collector, however, was their grandson Jean van Caloen. The collection he amassed is impressive. In addition to paintings and sculptures, he bought medieval manuscripts, master drawings, prints, ivory, alabaster, pottery and even baking moulds. His son Roland van Caloen was also a passionate collector, especially of Asian and African art.

There's so much to see that repeated visits are required to take it all in, so that it definitely won't be the last time we were here. If only it was to see my favourite object, the Waffle Angel! 

I was most disappointed upon learning that this wood, polychrome and gilt kneeling angel has nothing whatsoever to do with waffles or waffle-making. Made in Italy between 1425 and 1450, he or she was used to store relics.

While Jos was taking a breather and resting his feet on a bench, I strolled through the English-style park with its winding paths, ancient trees and intriguing red painted octagonal pavilion.

In 1866, a neo-Gothic building was constructed in the garden for Joseph, Charles' and Savina's eldest son. Named "Le Petit Musée” (the little museum), its was where the young Joseph could indulge his interest in art and house his collection of objects.

The castle and garden are actually on an island which can be reached by two separate bridges and, with the weather still holding, but the first of the clouds on the horizon, I crossed the one at the west side of the garden. Viewed from the lane at the back of the garden, the castle was looking particularly picturesque framed by the lake and the Autumn clad trees.

At the east side of the castle, another surprise awaited in the form of a German bunker (hidden behind the topiary hedges in the photo on the bottom left), built during the First World War as a shelter for the German officers who occupied the castle from the end of 1917.

The remainder of the day's blue sky had now been completely obscured by a layer of grey and, although rain didn't seem to be imminent, we decided to call it a day and return to the B&B.

As this was our last day, and we'd be going home on Saturday morning this, alas, is the end of my tiny Bruges travelogue. 

It'll be business as usual as from my next post onwards.

Thank you for reading and for your all of your lovely comments!