Good times, bad times

Now that life is more or less back to normal**, it feels strange to revisit the time, now well over a month ago, when things weren't exactly a bed of roses.

For the sake of the continuity of my blog, however, let's once more hop into the time machine and alight at the end of April.

Only two days after Jos's third - and as it would turn out, final - course of chemotherapy, things were still tickety-boo, with Jos's energy levels still being boosted by the magical properties of the cortisone-like medication he was given right before and after his session.

After a morning of chores on Saturday the 25th of April, I walked into the village for an afternoon of drinks and a catch-up with my friend Inez. 

While I was waiting for her to lock up her e-bike (she'd cycled over from the next village) I was complimented by a passer-by on the skirt I was wearing. It's a vintage Trachten one, a € 5 sales bargain from Think Twice last August. After trying on a couple of tops, I think it found its perfect companion in this charity shopped blouse with its groovilicious caramel, cream, burgundy and lilac pattern.

My accessories were a blend of second-hand and high street finds.

With Sunday's highs of 18°C and oodles of sunny spells, it would have been downright silly to spend the day inside. Instead, we drove to Fort 5 in Edegem, our neighbouring village, for a walk. 

Due to roadworks, we'd had to drive around a bit to find a parking spot, but eventually we managed to grab a space just a short walk from the entrance.

We ended our walk, which took us along and inside some of the atmospheric old fort buildings dating from the 1860s, by soaking up some Spring sunshine on a sun-dappled bench.

My outfit of the day contained no less than two Shrewsbury charity shop finds. I picked up the magenta short-sleeved jumper in June 2024 and the pink floral trainers 5 years earlier.

The skirt came from a long-gone vintage shop in Antwerp. 

Let's have a look at my accessories!

Clockwise from top left: lilac watch and ring from the high street, funky wood and plastic necklace from Accessorize UK, who used to have a branch in Antwerp many years ago, charity shopped pleated leather belt and a dragonfly brooch found on a flea market in Middelburg.  

In the week that followed the chemotherapy side effects started kicking in one by one and, although he was still feeling relatively well on Wednesday, we didn't take any chances and made use of a wheelchair to go for his weekly blood test and consultation at the hospital.

After an interminably long wait, we were finally seen by the doctor, who told us that not only were his blood levels satisfactory, the CT scan he'd had the week before showed that things were stable.

I was wearing my vintage poppy dress that day. I can't for the life of me remember whether it was a charity shop find or a Think Twice one, but it definitely joined my wardrobe pre-blog. Looking back at my previous wears of this gorgeous dress, I always seem to combine it with green accessories, so why break the habit of the last 10 years or so?

My pale pink suede boots were bought in the closing down sale of Antwerp's branch of New Look back in 2019.

I'd taken both Wednesday and Thursday off, as on Thursday we needed to return to the hospital for another check-up, this time for the inguinal hernia surgery he'd had back in January. 

We were running late that morning and were only just in time for our appointment. Expecting the usual delay, we were pleasantly surprised that we were called into the consultant's s office mere minutes after we'd sat down in the waiting room. As everything was looking fine, we were in and out in less than 10 minutes.

A quick look at my outfit, which was all charity shopped over the years, except for the brooch, which was a flea market find. 

The disadvantage of my newly acquired photography assistent is that he or she completely refrained from telling me that my necklace was wonky!  Definitely a he then, I guess :-)

Friday the 1st of May was Labour Day, and thus a public holiday in Belgium.

With Jos being in the full throes of post-chemotherapy misery, the day was spent mostly inside, even if the mercury had climbed to the mid-twenties.

Again, most of my outfit consisted of charity shop finds. This time, the odd one out was my belt with its faux tortoiseshell hexagonal buckle:  a cheeky high street buy back in May 2021.

And then another Saturday rolled along, the afternoon of this moody 23°C day being spent having another meet-up with my friend Inez. We're trying to make this a weekly thing, as it allows us so much more time for drinks and a natter than our former lunchbreak cappuccino catch-ups. 

The dress I was wearing is one of my vintage Diolen Delights and again green was my colour of choice for accessorizing it. I wore a comfortable pair of red shoes by the Portuguese Kiarflex label, charity shopped in the Spring of 2022. This is one of only a handful of pairs of non-sandal shoes I'm able to wear barefoot without causing rubbing and blisters.

The day ended with the thunderstorm which had been brewing all afternoon and which lasted well into the evening.

On Sunday - we were the 3rd of May by now - I woke up with a painful ulcer in my nose, which gave me a headache and meant I could hardly bear the weight of my glasses. I hadn't slept well and needed a steady mix of painkillers to get me through the day.

I still managed to get dressed though, opting for a vintage skirt and Breton top combo, accessorized with an orange belt and necklace to match the orange bits in the skirt.

In spite of having had another sleepless night and being in lots of pain, I dragged myself out of bed on Monday morning and foolishly went off to work. Thankfully, I was able to make a doctor's appointment for that evening, when I was prescribed stronger painkillers, hydrocortisone cream, antibiotics, lots of rest and the advice to take the rest of the week off work.

With wearing my glasses still being an issue there was nothing for it than taking regular naps in between reading bits of Julia Glass's The Whole World Over. I'd read and loved her debut novel, Three Junes, a couple of years ago while on holiday in our cottage in Poperinge, and this one didn't disappoint either.

It took until the Friday of that week until I started feeling myself again and was able to leave the confines of the sofa. With Jos still feeling unwell and not up to anything productive, I caught up on a couple of long overdue chores.

The weather gods weren't particularly on their best behaviour that day so that I was forced to wear a jumper. A thin knit one, but still! My faux patchwork skirt is vintage C&A and again I picked green accessories and wore my Kiarflex shoes.

Not having left the house in days, I was starting to get cabin fever, so I walked into the village to run an errand. As always, I ended up for a quick browse at bargain store Zeeman where I fell hard for these granny square slippers, which obviously had to come home with me.

One final outfit before I call it a day.

Saturday's weather was infinitely better than Friday's, with highs into the low twenties.

No need for a jumper that day. Instead, I chose a red and white floral short-sleeved blouse (from the Belgian Wow To Go label via the charity shops) which I wore with a skirt with the funkiest of patterns, which someone on Instagram once likened to a collection of colourful plates. 

This time, I picked black for my accessories to tie in with the black background of my skirt. Again, the charity shops supplied the majority of my outfit. 

*** I will try to catch up with your blogs soon but please do bear with me as I might have jinxed it when I said that life was more or less back to normal. Earlier this week, Jos fell and hurt his knee, which made us end up in A&E once more. Thankfully nothing is broken or seriously amiss but it will take time to heal, meaning that our little holiday - which starts tomorrow - will be one with a hurdle!

See you soon!

Savouring the good days

No, you are definitely not imagining things, as yes, it's another post from me, the second one in less than two weeks!

In spite of everything that's been going on, life has been pretty good lately, with Jos having regained his appetite and lust for life, and getting stronger every day. This in its turn has freed up some space in my mind which had been taken up by sadness and worries ever since we were informed of the extent of Jos's illness back in February. 

So, here I am sat in front of my computer editing photos, making collages and ultimately churning out a blog post like I've been doing for the past 10 years. It often surprises me how resilient I am and I'm actually quite chuffed with myself at how well I've been coping with the bad hand of cards we've been dealt.

My blog still has a lot of catching up to do as in my previous post I left you on the 18th of April, a rainy Saturday I spent having lunch with a handful of girls I went to secondary school with back in the mists of time.

Sunday the 19th saw a return of some sunshine, although the measly14°C the weather gods threw at us were further marred by a strong and chilly wind.

Nevertheless, with Jos having somewhat recovered from his second course of chemotherapy and with his third course looming like a black cloud on the horizon, we wanted to make the most of this temporary time out by going for a short walk.

But first things first, let's have a look at my outfit. My floral skirt is an old vintage find from Think Twice, while the embroidered denim blouse was charity shopped new with tags in Bridgnorth, Shropshire two Junes ago. My accessories were a mix of charity shop, flea market and high street buys. 

The little lady bug brooch was feeling quite at home among my blouse's embroidered flowers!

 

Our destination for the afternoon was Middelheim sculpture park which, according to my blog, we last visited in October 2025. Surely that cannot be right? 

We left our car on the large car park near the entrance to the part of the park called Middelheim-Laag, where soon we came across Trois Figures Debout (1978) by the French sculptor Eugène Dodeigne (1923-2015). 

Then there was this strange contraption (above, bottom right) I had never noticed before. It's called Sculpture for Film (2024) and it's by Antwerp-based sculptor Katleen Vinck (°1976). Looking it up on the museum's website came up with the following description: 

In this sculpture, you might recognise a bunker, a design for a science-fiction film, or the remnants of monumental stone structures from vanished South American cultures. Yet it is neither a model for a spaceship nor a building. Katleen Vinck compresses thoughts, memories and images into a new form that moves between past and future, between science and imagination, between archaeology and science fiction.

Being one of my favourites, I'm sure Welsh artist Richard Deacon's spaceship called Never Mind doesn't need introduction. 

Proceeding clockwise are Why does Strange Fruit always look so sweet? (1998-2008) by Paris-based Belgian sculptor Johan Creten (°1963), Enclosure (2021) by the Belgian multidisciplinary artist Aline Bouvy (°1974) and Diamond Shaped Room with Yellow Light (1986-1990) by American artist Bruce Nauman (°1941). The latter is deliberately built along a path, offering a clear invitation to enter. But the hospitality is limited. The doorways are too low (I once bumped my head on its lintel), rhere is no roof to protect you from the natural elements, the yellow light is disorienting, and the triangular space feels uncomfortable.

Another favourite which I cannot help but photograph again and again is Henry Moore's King and Queen (1952).

Nearby is a striking group of fountain sculptures whose collective name is Adrift, dates from as recent as 2023 and are a creation of the French artist Camille Henrot  (1978), who had a solo exhibition here in the summer of 2022. 

While Jos was taking a breather and resting his feet on a bench, I wandered into the direction of Het Huis (transl. The House), a half-open pavillion designed for temporary exhibitions and opened in 2012.

For the past couple of years it has been home to Birdcalls by the American artist Louise Lawler, in which, using her own voice, she sounds out the names of twenty-nine well-known artists.  

The angular steel-and-concrete pavilion is by the Ghent-based architecture practice Robbrecht and Daem and definitely invites some creative photography. 

We walked back to the car park along the Rhododendron-lined meandering path skirting the very edge of the park.

The weather continued in the same vein on Monday and Tuesday, which would be my only office days that week. 

This is what I wore on Tuesday. Although someone once quite poetically described its pattern as balloons flying up into the evening sky, it are actually stylized flowers which constitute this short-sleeved vintage dress's pattern. It has graced my wardrobe ever since I laid eyes on it in a charity shop in March 2017. 

I took my lead from the pink flowers for my accessories: a charity shopped chunky wooden disc necklace and a stretchy belt with rectangular buckle picked up from a bargain shop on our village's high street. I can't remember where the pink-hearted turquoise felted flower corsage came from but a quick search on my blog revealed this wasn't the first time I pinned it to this particular dress! 

My visits to Think Twice - so much part of my lunch breaks in what sometimes feels like a past life - have been few and far between lately, but I finally made it to one of their shops that day. I was promptly rewarded with this deliciously patterned skirt.  

Daily hospital visits were on the agenda for the rest of the week, starting with Jos's weekly Wednesday appointment to see if his bloods were satisfactory for the next round of chemotherapy to go ahead. It was during this particular consultation that it was unanimously decided not to go ahead with the planned surgery but to go for a 4th and final round of chemotherapy instead. 

But he still had to go through with his third course, for which we returned to the hospital in the early morning of Thursday the 23rd.

My blouse is from the Belgian Who's That Girl label and found on the nightwear rail in a charity shop a couple of years ago. The denim skirt was charity shopped as well. I picked it up from Oxfam in October 2020. A holy grail at the time, I later found another denim skirt which I actually preferred, so that this one was relegated to the back of my wardrobe. 

I'll explain why in a minute, but let's have a look at my buttery yellow accessories first. All were either flea market or charity shop finds. Literally nothing new here!

Now, back to the skirt! The reason why I wasn't reaching for it were the fake back pocket tabs which rather annoyingly refused to lie down. Enter a packet of buttons (brats) which were a present from Claire (who used to blog at Winter Peach Photography) the last time we met. Ta-Da!

What with Jos being given strong, cortisone-like medication in the days immediately before and after chemotherapy, he was actually feeling on top of the world, and didn't even need to be taken to and from his chemotherapy session at the day hospital in a wheelchair. 

Striking the iron while it was hot, Jos promptly made an appointment with his hairdresser on Friday morning. Then, at noon, we were back at the hospital for a CT scan. Again, no wheelchair was involved in taking him through the endless warren of hospital corridors to his appointment.

The sun kept playing hide-and-seek with the clouds all day but with no rain and highs of around 20°C there was no reason to raise one's fist at the weather gods. 

Another one of my Diolen Delights came out to play that day, its playful floral pattern featuring a mix of blues and greens and putting paid to that silly old adage that blue and green should never be seen.     

I opted for different shades of blue for my accessories, which include a navy belt with cream buckle which used to belong to my late Mum. I do wish my Dad had kept more of her things after she passed away back in 2001.

Before I'm bidding you goodbye once more, here is some of my reading matter of the last couple of months. Found together on the local charity shop shelves during one of my last visits, I loved the escapism offered by Jojo Moyes' Me Before You and its sequel. Not something I would generally go for, but I'm still not up to anything more taxing.

Thank you for reading. 

I'll try to catch up with your blogs soon and hope to be back with another post before we go on a little escape of our own in two weeks' time.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future

Now that, courtesy of my tripod, I no longer have to depend on Jos for outfit photos, I've got quite a backlog of them gathering dust on my phone.

We've also been able to go for a couple of short walks in the limited time right before and after chemotherapy when Jos was being spared the worst of the side effects, meaning that I've got some photos of these to share as well.

However, with Jos's stamina once more in decline, time kept on running away from me again, quietly slipping into an uncertain future which neither medicine nor Mystic Meg's crystal ball is able to shed a light on.

On this sunny and summery bank holiday, though, I've finally found a minute to myself, so please allow me to take you along as I travel back in time to Mid-April, when I was still getting to grips with my new assistant's foibles.

A full update on how Jos is currently doing will follow at the end of this post. If you are itching to find out, why don't you head over there, but promise me you'll retrace your steps later. All is well, or as well as can be, but there's been more than one change of plan.

April's third week brought a mix of clouds and sunny spells with temperatures ranging between 15° and 18°C.

Tuesday's outfit featured a floral extravaganza of a vintage skirt, found at Think Twice back in the mists of time. It is part of what is now called co-ords, its companion a wide-lapelled short-sleeved jacket. See here.

The green and white striped blouse came from Think Twice as well. Snapped up in February 2022 it was a much more recent addition to my wardrobe. 

My wooden beaded necklace and painted metal flower brooch were charity shopped, while the  pink suede belt was a cheeky high street buy in the Summer of 2023.

Wednesday's outfit was based around the first of the short-sleeved frocks of the season. Not that you'd notice as I completely forgot to take off my orange King Louie cardigan for the photo.

Sprigs of delicate yellow and orange flowers and fresh green foliage are sprinkled liberally across a background of palest green in this vintage dress which unfortunately does not photograph well. 

Here's a close-up of its floral pattern as well as the sparkly bee brooch - a flea market find - I pinned to its collar.

A special shout-out to my green suede Van Dalen ankle boots. One of my best charity shop finds ever, they have been gracing my feet since February 2021. That is, until a year or so ago, when they suddenly started giving my grief. I admit I only wore them for the photo, having worn a completely different pair for work.

Speaking of charity shops, I briefly nipped into Oxfam during my lunch break that day, and found this Missoni-esque cardigan, which is by King Louie.

Due to total neglect, our garden is currently akin to an impenetrable jungle. Not for long, though, as we've got a gardener coming to take care of it later this week. Fingers crossed I'll soon be able to make my mark on it again.

I was overjoyed to see that some self-seeded honesty and the indestructible bluebells still managed to show their pretty faces among the tangle of ivy and other rampant climbers.

We woke up to sunshine on Friday the 17th of April. Sadly, by the time I'd done the weekly shopping and ticked a couple of chores off my list, any trace of blue sky had disappeared behind a layer of angry looking clouds. 

As Jos was finally emerging from the fog brought by his latest course of chemotherapy, we were determined to go for a walk regardless. Thankfully, in spite of initial misgivings, it looked set to remain dry. 

Our destination for the afternoon was the park in nearby Duffel, which has lots of parking space at its edge. Circuiting the biggest of the parks's ponds, I was drawn to the cheerful sight of this border of red, white and yellow tulips.

Now, let's have a look at what I wore that day. 

My floral vintage skirt was yet another Think Twice find. From its orange, green, grey and white pattern, I picked orange for my short sleeved v-neck jumper found on the high street a couple of years ago.

The pattern's mossy green bits were highlighted with my triple-strand beaded necklace and suede belt, which were both charity shop finds. 

My vintage flower basket brooch came from an antiques shop in Shrewsbury.

The rain clouds, which had kindly held off their liquid load on Friday, returned with a vengeance on Saturday. 

Thankfully, no outdoor activities were on the menu that day. 

Instead, I had lunch with some of the girls I went to secondary school with. Some of us hadn't seen each other for a mind-boggling 47 years! Such a shame there were only five of us ...

My outfit that day started with the red skirt I'd charity shopped earlier that month. After a couple of false starts, I paired it with a blouse I'm sure most of you have seen here before. Originally from high street label Zoë Loveborn, it was a flea market find in October 2016.

Both the stretchy belt and the vintage brooch were charity shop finds.

And here's the update I promised you.

First of all, Jos's originally planned surgery isn't going ahead, as he isn't considered strong enough for such a complex procedure. As it would only buy him a year - half of which he would have to spend recovering - it was unanimously decided that it wasn't worth the risk. 

Instead he was offered a 4th course of chemotherapy. However, the side effects he suffered after his 3rd course were even worse than before and kept him housebound for the better part of 3 weeks. As he was slowly losing the will to live, he opted to stop treatment for now, particularly since the CT scan he'd had just after his 3rd course showed that things looked, as his doctor said, quiet.

He has now been given a 4 month pause, after which he'll get another scan to see what's what. 

During these months, we are planning to spend as much quality time together as possible and will be going on a couple of short holidays between now and Mid-September. In fact, we've already booked the first of these in just under 4 weeks, when we will be returning to our cottage in Poperinge for a couple of days.

Hope to see you again soon!