Strange days indeed

In the first weeks of my blogging career back in March 2016, on the day following the terrorist attacks at Brussels airport, I published a post called Could Life Ever Be Sane Again.

Part of the lyrics to a Smiths song called Panic, this kept playing over and over in my head in the days following the attack, as it expressed exactly how I felt: a kind of numbness mixed with disbelief and above all, a feeling of powerlessness, a reality check in a time when daily realities seemed to be ever shifting.

How very apt that post title would have been now!  As if on cue, it has wormed its way back into my subconscious ever since the dreaded Coronavirus has reared its ugly head. The situation has become pretty dire here and it's hard to stay positive when faced with the relentless scaremongering the media bombard us with, causing panic and paranoia all around and seemingly throwing all common sense overboard.

For the last couple of days, I feel as if I'm about to lose my sanity. Numb and powerless, I can only stand and watch as reality is shifting yet again, and Belgium is going into the first stages of lockdown. Strange days indeed!

Ironically, I also wrote a post called My Corona back in 2016.  I'm not joking! It's here and it's about my grandfather's typewriter!

On top of that, sunny spells are still rarer than hen's teeth these days, but at least there's a cure for the rainy day blues!

And if wearing colour doesn't kiss it all better, it certainly goes a long way in making me feel marginally better and, perhaps, anyone seeing me wearing it too.

Giving preference to those items which haven't been worn yet this Winter, I unearthed this 1960s purple floral shift dress from my wardrobe. Yet another old Think Twice find, it has a dropped collar and a row of tiny decorative self fabric buttons at the yoke.

Trying to keep a sunny disposition was aided by adding yellow in the mix, a first for this dress which in the past I always wore with either pink or mustard.

I was surprised at how well the purple seemed to work with the amber yellow of my tights, cardigan and necklace. And look how the pansies in my brooch are bringing the colours together! As a final touch of sunshine, I added an orange flower corsage to my long-line cardie.

In February's final week, the weather had been particularly fickle.

One afternoon at the office, I looked up from what I was doing to see a flurry of snowflakes drift by my window. Much to my relief, the snow didn't stick, but it still managed to cause even more disruption than usual to Antwerp's feeble excuse for a public transport system.

On my way to the bus stop the next morning, I was sufficiently entranced by the delicate morning sunshine illuminating our village church that I took a photo with my phone's camera.

I did the same the next day when we were once again treated to the usual foggy drizzle. What a difference a day makes!  

The weekend, as weekends tend to do, couldn't have come sooner. 

You've already seen Saturday's purple and yellow attire at the start of this post, but not my outerwear.

I didn't have much use for my Princess coat this Winter, so I'm taking the opportunity of any chilly day to give it an outing. Recently, I was asked why I'm calling it my Princess coat. Well, at the time it made its first appearance on the blog, back in December 2017, somebody remarked that it was a coat fit for a Winter Princess, and so the name stuck.

That Saturday, we did our usual round of the charity shops, where I found a fabulous pair of hardly worn brown boots, with a kind of decorative elastic panel at the back. Their heels have just the right height for them to be wearable for me, so in our basket they went.

Next up was a pale green suede belt with the most gorgeous buckle. You'll see me wearing it in my next post!

A handful of necklaces also made their way into our shopping basket. Surely a girl can't have enough of those?

People have been asking me about the background fabric I'm using to photograph most of my jewellery finds. This is actually a quilted plaid I found in a charity shop years ago, consisting of  large alternating pink and white printed rectangles. The quilt covers our antique linen chest and its position in front of one of our upstairs windows offers the perfect light for photographs as well. I love the faded grandeur of the fabric, the faded bit greatly helped by the fact that it's one of Phoebe's favourite sunbathing spots!

Enter Sunday the first of March, and a brief respite from all the rain. I don't remember if it lasted all day, but I don't think so, as we didn't leave Dove Cottage's confines.

The dress I was wearing that day, with a repeat later that week, was a re-discovered one and no, I haven't got the slightest idea why it was neglected for so long. I don't think I wore it at all for at least two years!

It's got a generous pleated skirt which invites a spot of twirling, a tie collar, which I tamed by pinning a multi-coloured stone brooch to it, and bishop sleeves closing with two red buttons at the wide cuffs.

If I remember correctly, it also came with a self fabric belt, but I used a grey leather one with an oval leather covered buckle from my collection instead.

Everything I'm wearing here came from my existing wardrobe, except for the pinkish pearly brooch, which was twinkling at me at Think Twice a couple of weeks back, and the boots, which are the ones I picked up at the charity shop on Saturday.

Well, that's it for now. I'll be returning with one more post of outfits and finds before entering an enforced period of charity shopping abstinence, as all shops except for those selling food - and toilet paper, if it's not sold out - have to close in the weekends until the end of the month. As for flying visits to Think Twice during my lunch breaks, I somehow don't think I'll have the heart for them.

But it will pass, I'm sure it will. Do stay safe and healthy in the meantime!