Back to nature

When in doubt, throw in a little orange! This was the style tip given by my fabolous blogging friend Natalia in one of her latest posts.

In fact, it were the splashes of bright orange, not to mention the big orange buttons and round belt buckle, which sold this dress to me. Forget about the dress's other colours, lovely though they are, it's the orange that makes it stand out.

As summer decided to make an appearance last weekend, I chose this sleeveless dress to do our weekly charity shopping trip on Saturday.

I picked up some of the other colours of the dress with a green necklace and a lilac pair of shoes I've had for many years, but sneaked in more orange by choosing an orange ring and flower brooch!

The spotty orange cardigan lasted only a couple of minutes, as it was far too warm, but long enough to show you my second brooch, a vintage green Scottie dog playing the drum, bought at Cardigan Antiques Centre a couple of years ago.

We didn't have a huge haul at the charity shops, but enough to keep us happy.

At our first stop, I picked up some jewellery: three brooches (the cream rose is vintage Yves Rocher and made in France) and a green glass bangle. There was also a gorgeous green vintage slip, which will be one for winter as it's got a thermal lining. And an über cute Babushka set!

Shop number two yielded the Emsa butter dish (orange!) from the same range as our salt and pepper shakers.

We found some more things at our last shop too: a man bag for Jos (he'd been looking for a decent one for ages) and a handmade skirt for me. It was rather short, above the knee, so I nearly left it behind when I noticed the generous hem allowance.

I was able to let it down about 5 centimeters, to a length I'm much more comfortable with.

And there were  two scarves as well. Not that I need any more scarves. I just can't resist rummaging through them in the chazzas, where they are going real cheap.

Sunday was another gorgeous summer's day, perfect for being out and about and doing a nature walk.

We hadn't been to Het Broek in Blaasveld, one of our favourite walking destinations, since winter, so that's where we went.

At least, that was the plan, but it was fraught with obstacles and we nearly called the whole thing off. Twice!

First of all, getting there wasn't easy, as we stumbled upon roadworks and had to make quite a detour.
Then, once we had parked and were ready to go, it turned out that there was a running event going on, with hordes of runners clogging up the usually peaceful paths.

As usual, we'd brought a picnic and, as it was nearly noon by then, we plonked ourselves down at a convenient picnic table, where we were joined by some creepy crawlies!

After some deliberation, we decided to go ahead anyway, as the number of runners seemed to be petering out.

Once past the pretty little whitewashed chapel with its blue and white painted door, we came upon a side turning leading away from the main path and any straggling runners.

The enticingly winding path brought us to a delightful meadow bordered by trees. 

Here, we had the place to ourselves, so we sat down on a bench and enjoyed the peace and quiet of our surroundings.

I was wearing a red and white polka dotted button through skirt which I picked up at Think Twice last year. It has pockets too!

For contrast, I chose a navy tone on tone cotton blouse from H&M - charity shopped, obviously - to which I pinned a vintage Edelweiss brooch from the Brooch Lady.

Other accessories were a white vinyl belt, some cheap 'n cheerful bangles, and the wicker and red leather handbag brought back from Wales this year.

We continued our walk and ended up at the visitor centre which lies in the heart of the domain.

Even here it was quiet and in fact, apart from a couple of people enjoying a picnic at one of the benches, there wasn't a soul to be seen.

We spent some time in the company of the resident animals, including a pair of bronze beavers and a family of exquisitely carved wooden ducks.

Nearby, there's a children's play area, and as we had this to ourselves as well, we had some fun posing in a wooden throne carved out of a tree trunk. It was far too high for me, but luckily there was a conveniently placed foot hold.

Quite a magical place to sit and stare!

There were a couple of smiley faces to be discovered among the rooms in this insect hotel, although the one on the bottom right seemed to be watching our silly antics open mouthed!

On our way back we took a turning which brought us to one of the large ponds. It was covered with the remains of what must have been a glorious carpet of water lilies in early Summer.

A gull was blatantly ingnoring the no fishing sign while the air was buzzing with bees who couldn't get enough of the plentiful wild orchids.

We were so glad we persevered with our plans in spite of the initial hurdles, getting in some practice for our lazy limbs at the same time.

Tomorrow we are off for a week's holiday in Belgium's west country. Let's hope the weather behaves for us this time!