Wednesday 11 May 2022

Skirts, skirts, skirts

On April's final Friday, we woke up to a cloudy and overcast day, which somewhat put a damper on our plans. The sun would manage to make an appearance mid-afternoon, but unfortunately didn't succeed in making the 15°C the mercury eventually climbed to feel any warmer.

After our customary fruit & yoghurt breakfast, I washed my hair and got dressed while Jos walked into the village to get a newspaper. For many years now, he has been in the habit of bringing back one for an elderly neighbour as well. Lately,though, his morning walk has become just a little longer now that the lady in question has moved to service flat a bit further along.

Upon his return, he slapped together a couple of sandwiches to take on our customary charity shop trawl. Our first stop that day, however, was at his son and daughter-in-law's house as we were looking after their cat Abby that week.


Once there, we took advantage of the lofty proportions and blank expanse of white painted wall of their living room to take a batch of outfit photos.

Tired of my Winter skirts but still too chilly to wear my flimsier Spring and Summer ones, I plucked this pale green circle skirt, which is made of a sturdy cotton, from my wardrobe. Charity shopped in April 2019, I'm sure you won't be surprised if I tell you that it were the rows red and black rick-rack which cinched the deal.



The skirt didn't feature in my original plan, though. I already had the blouse with its full-on flowers and berries pattern in mind but it didn't work with the skirt I'd initially earmarked for it.

The blouse, which is charity shopped Zara, is very slippery and  kept trying to escape from my skirt  even after I'd tucked it into the waistband of the pale green opaques I was wearing. 

I secured its floppy collar with a green hearted brooch, added a string of green beads and completed my outfit with a dark green mock croc belt.



We fed and watered Abby - a.k.a. The Lady of the House - and hung around for a while until the attention seeking madam started attacking a houseplant. Not wanting to be implicated in any further acts of vandalism, we beat a hasty retreat!


My charity shop finds that day included an orange and pink patterned cotton top by Belgian label Mer du Nord and a denim shirt which had been on my list for the longest time. 

Oh, and another King Louie heart patterned cardigan. I already have a red one - in fact, I was wearing it that very day - but at € 4,90 I wasn't going to leave it behind. They differentiate between labels in this particular shop, and King Louie items are usually on the rail of posh labels, where its price tag would have been € 13,90. Clearly someone hadn't be doing their job properly :-)



I also snapped up this King Louie sundress which came with a cheap price tag as well, as it was probably priced by the same person. 

Rather than have Angelica doing the honours, I insisted on modelling it myself!



Back at home, I gave all the old pots in the garden a generous helping of organic feed, inspecting the garden's progress while I was out.

The first of the Lupines - a success story from last year - were showing some colour (top left) while there were plenty of promising flower spikes in our Delphinium (bottom right). There will be a glut of white currants (top right) as usual, although I suspect they will be at their best while we're on holiday and will therefore get eaten by the greedy wood pigeons.

We inherited a patch of Lily-of-the-Valley with the garden and it seems to be a good year for them.
They are called Meiklokjes (transl. May bells) in Flemish, and it's a tradition here (and in France) to give a small posy to someone you love on the 1st of May.  Apparently, the French King Charles IX was given a bouquet of these highly scented flowers on the 1st of May 1561 to wish him luck and prosperity in the coming year. He is said to have been so taken with the idea that he made it a custom to give all the ladies at his court a bouquet of Muguets, to give them their French name, on the 1st of May of each year.



As you can see from the photo on the top left, No Weed May is a great success!

I'd planted out some Sweet Peas the other week, but as they weren't tall enough to tie them to the obelisk they are meant to grow up, I gave them a helping hand with some wooden sticks, which for safety's sake I topped with beads saved from broken necklaces.

Oh, and look: our Honesty seed heads have got a visitor, who was kind enough to pose for me!



Saturday's weather was another mixed bag of sunny spells and clouds, the latter promising but never delivering a well-needed shower.

At 13°C, it was actually chilly enough to exchange the lightweight cardigan I was originally wearing for this chunky knit orange one. 

As I wanted to participate in the May issue of Nancy's  Good buy/Good-bye Book and the month's theme will be bird prints, I dug out this charity shopped long-sleeved top as my contribution. I will update the link to the correct post once it's up.


At first sight, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's some kind of psychedelic geometrical pattern you're looking at, but look again from up close, and there they are! Isn't it clever?

I wore the top with the denim midi skirt, another holy grail I finally found at Oxfam in October 2020, and added plenty of orange to tie in with the orange-breasted birds. For good measure, I added more birds by pinning one of my beloved birds-in-flight brooches to my cardigan.



After lunch, we paid the gardening centre another visit and bought some shade-loving perennials for the window box in the passageway and a Clematis tangutica, which has yellow nodding bell shaped flowers from July to October, followed by fantastic seed heads, to replace the deceased Honeysuckle at the end of the courtyard. 

A couple of pots of annuals surreptitiously ended up in our trolley as well. 

Sunday morning saw me finishing the main part of my wardrobe changeover, with Jos helping me vacuum the bags of Winter clothes and put them in his grandparents' linen chest. Only the coats and the shoes to do now!




It was a gorgeously sunny day, so I was out in the garden in the afternoon, doing some chores and generally taking stock, with the sun warming my back. It definitely felt warmer than the 15°C indicated by the thermometer and in our sheltered garden it probably was.

Same as seeing my old favourites emerge when I'm doing my wardrobe switch, it's always a delight to see the garden stalwarts burst into bloom once more.

Small magenta flowers are dotted among the foliage of our ground-covering Geranium sanguineum (top left) and the first of the petticoated Aquilegias "Nora Barlow"are competing successfully with the Red Valerian it is sharing space with. We've had these pretty frilly flowers for almost twenty years and they keep popping up in the most unexpected of places. It seems to be a good year for them as well.

One of the potted Astilbes in the passageway (bottom right) has produced a tiny flower spike and the as yet to flower Phlomis russeliana (top right) I planted two years ago has finally been spurred into action.



I planted up everything we brought back from the garden centre except for the Clematis, whose recently vacated designated space needs some prep before we can do so. As you can see in the below photo, it is already getting used to its future spot.

Apart from the ubiquitous Pelargoniums, we brought back pots of Osteospermum "Purple Sun" (top left and Nemesia "Banana Swirl" (bottom right), which are now living in perfect harmony in a big terracotta pot on our plant table under the awning.



And yes, I was wearing a skirt for three days in a row. This time, it was the turn of this peachy pink one scattered with yellow, blue and green flowers, found at Think Twice many moons ago. 

The green thin knit jumper with its diamond patterned yoke was a charity shop find almost exactly a year ago. My brooch, a posy of pale pink flowers, is modern and bought from a small independent shop near my office in Antwerp. I wore one of my stretchy belts, and added a blue beaded necklace and ring.

My peachy pink suede ankle boots are from New Look, bought at their closing down sale in Antwerp a couple of years ago. 



I'm leaving you now with a view of Dove Cottage's handkerchief sized garden taken from just outside the back door. 

The sense of height is provided by the fact that I was standing on a chair to water the pots of pansies and strawberries hanging from the awning. 

There's a tiny pond  in the foreground and behind the unruly Cotoneaster with its nondescript flowers beloved by bees of all kinds, is a small sunken area. Behind that is a border which goes all the way up to the paved area in front of the bench. That's our Spirea shrub, sorely in need of a haircut, partially hiding the bench from sight.





On the bottom right side of the path you can just catch a glimpse of our giant white currant bush, with the ground-covering geranium sanguineum behind it, followed by a mixed border now ruled over by Red Valerian, Lupines and Aquilegia "Nora Barlow". Behind that is our tiny but grandly named courtyard.

Obviously, this just captures a moment in time, and the garden is looking quite a bit different now, less than two weeks later.

And that's it from Dove Cottage for now! Hope to see you again soon!



46 comments:

  1. Hello Ann, I love that you take sandwiches for subsidence on your charity shop trawls. That shows you mean business are super prepared! I am glad that you found a new light and airy photography studio, complete with resident grumpy faced cat (very cute!). That green circle skirt is wonderful. I do like a circle skirt. Plus your bird top - yes I could see them once you mentioned it - is great fun. I should follow suit and do some wardrobe organisation and vac packing :0 Dove Cottage's garden in springing into life and is looking very lovely. Great idea for the beads - more beads, more intact eyes ;) xXx

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    1. Oh yes, charity shopping is serious business here and definitely needs some form of subsidence :-) xxx

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  2. our maiglöckchen are only starting to flower yet.... your garden is tiny indeed - but in there the life is bursting with green and flowers - very pretty!
    nice to see abby again!
    hugsies! xxxx

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    1. Thank you Beate! Our "Meiklokjes" were early this year. In fact, everything seems to be earlier than usual! xxx

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  3. I love your garden, so alive and colourful.

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  4. Another skirt lover here. They are so easy. A different top or cardigan gives you a whole new look.

    Our tulips and daffs are just poking through here. For April and May I wear lily of the valley cologne/spray water to work. I'm hoping the squirrels haven't eaten too many bulbs.

    Your garden will be lovely.

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    1. Thank you! Keeping my fingers crossed those naughty squirrels haven't devoured all of your bulbs! xxx

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  5. So many wonderful skirts.Your new finds are amazing. I look very long at the picture to see the birds. 😂 Yes they are their. ☺️
    Have a wonderful day, with a very huge hug Tina

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    1. Thank you Tina, yes, I know, it's a very tricky pattern! xxx

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  6. Apologies Ann for missing your latest posts. Your Spring garden is such a treat for the eyes as mine settles down for Winter. Your Clematis are quite exceptional. I always smile when I see Aquilegia Nora Barlow, my maiden name was Barlow and I do wonder of the origins. You once again have found treasures in your charity shops. Gorgeous skirts too , especially the circle one. Hope all goes to plan with your UK trip.

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    1. No problem, Jill! In fact, Aquilegia Nora Barlow was cultivated by its namesake, Lady Barlow (1885-1989), a British botanist and Charles Darwin's granddaughter! xxx

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  7. Oh, some brilliant charity shop finds this week! I love the halter neck sundress. You look amazing! The denim shirt looks like a quality item and will be a great addition to your wardrobe and your denim skirt really showcases that gorgeous blouse - what an ingenious pattern!

    I'm looking for the perfect shirt at the moment as I too seem to have amassed quite a few skirts recently. Whilst I love the idea of crisp and white, items fitting that description rarely stay that way in my care.

    Abby is a beauty, but I fear for that plant - she is wearing a very naughty expression in that photo!

    Love the Lily of the Valley tradition and the No Weed May idea (I might roll that out to the rest of the year :-D) Dove Cottage's garden is so characterful - you should try and submit a little video to Gardeners' World. They love featuring international gardens! xxx

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    1. Thank you Claire! I'm only showing our garden's nice bits though, and wouldn't like people to see the mess tucked away in its corners :-) Hearing you on the white shirts, by the way! xxx

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  8. Oh, I so enjoy seeing your garden, Ann! As a non-gardener, I do appreciate the wild variety of flowers and plants you have. I'm glad you keep that one big bush for the bees.

    Lovely to see mischievous Abby again - that face says, "Where are my people?"

    Loving all the skirts here! But my gasp came with your King Louie dress - wow, that is stunning on you! Your shoulders are so elegant (we ladies of a certain age know what body parts to feature!).

    I love your bird-print blouse - and yes, I should have sent Nancy my bird-print skirt pics, but I whiffed on it. I just don't have the mental energy lately to do all the "extras" of blogging, like responding to comments, participating in link-ups, etc. Trying not to beat myself up about it...sigh.

    Big hugs to you and Jos and Bess!

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    1. Thank you Sheila! I gasped when I saw that KL dress too. Trying it on would have been too complicated so I was glad it fit me ... and that you think my shoulders are elegant :-) xxx

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  9. Love to see some fab outfits and your lush garden!, also love to see Abby again (she's a beauty!, but I'm afraid for the plant!)
    Your green skirt and floral shirt ensemble is so beautiful, I love those colours and styling!
    Lovely finds, particularly the cool sundress, wow!
    Love your chunky orange cardi and the 'geometric birds' top, and the denim skirt (it's so difficult to find a right denim skirt!, yours rock!)
    That peachy pink skirt and boots look fabulously matchy, and love them with green top and cute accessorizing!
    And your garden doesn't look so tiny from my point of view, it's like a forest green for me! ;DD
    besos

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    1. Thank you Monica! I do get that our tiny garden looks like a forest to you when you're used to a balcony only. It is big enough for us, by the way! xxx

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  10. That sundress looks like it was made for you.
    No garden for me this year, but I am very much enjoying watching yours. I hope Abby didn't get into too much mischief .

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    1. Thanks Goody! Abby is definitely a mischievous little thing, but then again, so is our Bess! xxx

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  11. I love how theose flat-faced cats look like they are scowling! What a funny naughty girl!

    I like the outfits! Hidden birds! That pink skirt is especially spring-y!

    sorry if the comments are a bit garbled, my text is not showing up while I am typing so I am typing blind!

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    1. Thanks Laura! Abby is a naughty girl indeed :-)

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  12. forgot to say yhe garden is loking great!

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  13. Beautiful garden and lovely outfits :-)
    Beauty and Fashion/Rampdiary/Glamansion

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  14. How lovely to see your garden as a whole! Is there more or is that it? If that is it, then my garden (which I think of as tiny) is bigger than yours! Your garden looks a a riot of planting and I'm loving that you have bench as well. I am so envious of your Honesty seed heads; my plant is doing well with lots of foliage but nowt else so far!

    Fab skirts and outfits. The skirt with the rick-rack was a fabulous find indeed. I had to look very hard to find the birds on the blouse even though I magnified the photo; it was only when I moved it really close to my eyes could I see it! I can't believe you have peach coloured boots, too.

    Garden centres and plant nurseries are honeypots...

    Have a great weekend.
    xxx

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    1. Thank you Vronni and yes, apart from a tiny bit outside our back door and the passageway next to the kitchen, yes, that's it! xxx

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  15. Oh look at Abby standing against the plant, so cute! She's a beauty...... but she can't compeed with Bess of course. Yeah a denim blouse! Looks good on absolutely everything. That green skirt is a fab one too and I love the blue and green combo of the top and the necklace. I always wanted sweet peas in our garden they have such gorgeous colours. Enjoy your weekend! We are going to Friesland tomorrow for a few days!

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    1. Thanks Nancy, and of course Abby cannot compete with Bess :-) I love Sweet Peas! xxx

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  16. That pale green circle skirt is stunning. I love all of your outfits. Spring is in the air. So lovely to see your garden.

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  17. I love spring and summer when everything grows. Green is my favourite colour right now. ;-)

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    1. I love this time of year too, before the weather gets too hot and scorches everything! xxx

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  18. I really like your Saturday outfit - that top is such a unique print, it is so cute that it's birds up close!

    It's a shame that shirt in the first outfit wouldn't stay in place, it does look very nice with your skirt! Congrats on your awesome thrift finds too, especially that dress!

    Hope you are having a good weekend. It's another rainy day here!

    Away From The Blue

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    1. Thank you Mica! We've had a couple of rainy days too by now, although of course it's different when it's Spring! xxx

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  19. Lovely outfits - I haven't had a denim shirt in years! I'm loving your blue coat too. Beautiful flowers :)

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    1. Thanks Nikki! I hadn't had one in years either. Now I'm still on the lookout for a denim dress! xxx

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  20. Such pretty skirts. The denim skirts pairs so well with everything.

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    1. Thank you Hena, and I agree on the denim skirt! xxx

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  21. Oh my word, darling Abby is utterly gorgeous! Those have to be some of the most piercingly stunning amber eyes I have ever seen on any animal in my whole life.

    What a lovely treat that you got to kittysit her for a while.

    I hear you on the weather front. We have been experiencing a colder than usual May here. Some afternoons do climb up decently high, but the evenings and early mornings still (seriously) call for heavy coats - and just three mornings ago, I could see my breath as vividly as though we were back in January. Summer always finds it way back though and, no doubt, we'll soon be longing for these milder temps big time once the dog days kick into high gear.

    Autumn Zenith 🧡 Witchcrafted Life

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    1. Thank you Autumn! I know, hasn't she got the most amazing eyes? Oh, and I do hope Summer finds its way to your part of the world soon! xxx

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  22. Some great King Louie bargains there!
    Your garden is beautiful xx

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  23. That sundress is an utter dream on you! King Louie is a lovely label! I love the pretty garden centre pictures.
    I forgot what a beauty the cat is!!! She's so pretty!!!xx

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    1. Thank you Kezzie! Abby is definitely a beauty but quite haughty :-) xxx

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