Easter Sunday dilemma

It isn't procrastination, nor lack of subject matter which is making my blog run seriously late again.  The thing is that I've been limiting screen time these last couple of weeks. My eyes are having a hard time to adapt, not only to my new prescription lenses, which are a lot stronger than before, but to the change of frames themselves. I'm having good days and bad, the latter quite obviously mostly occurring when I'm at the office. But I'm persevering and I'm glad to report that there's been a definite improvement lately, as I've had the pleasure of enjoying a string of headache-free days this week.

So, Easter Sunday! Time having had its usual tendency to fly, it's now almost two weeks ago since Chocolate Fest. The last of the buy 600 grams, get 300 grams free mini eggs from our local chocolatier, Leonidas, have been consumed. The Easter bunny has hopped away into the sunset for another year.

We woke up to glorious weather with the sun streaming in through our windows, so that wild horses couldn't have kept us inside. The forecasted highs of 16°C made us all giddy, but posed a dilemma at the same time.

Shall we do some long-overdue gardening, or go for a walk? Weighing up the pros and cons, we decided on the former. I still needed the pot up those patiently waiting plants purchased at the garden centre the other week, for starters.

I quickly got dressed in my gardening gear - old cord skirt and jumper plus purple striped Pippi Longstocking knee-high socks worn over an ancient pair of tights - and put on my charity shopped ankle wellies. But oh, those gardening gloves definitely have seen better days ...

In spite of my efforts to protect them from the worst of the frosts, last year's trailing geraniums hadn't survived. The green enamelled cones - which quite possibly once started life as lampshades - they used to live in now being vacant, I planted them up with tête-à-tête daffs. Aren't they a cheerful sight? The flowers started opening one by one in only a matter of days, so they clearly they are enjoying their new homes.

I also did some random pruning and clearing up wherever it was needed most, while Jos made a start with cutting back the rampant ivy.

The back of the garden a.k.a. the courtyard is still a mess of hastily moved pots and ornaments, as well as bags of compost from our bin, the latter unfortunately mixed with building rubble as a result of the wall saga and our neighbour's ignorance.

I was rummaging around to see what could be salvaged when I came across the remains of a terracotta pot in which a Toad Lily (Tricyrtis hirta) was doing its best to keep its head above water. I transferred the poor plant to another pot, added a stone toadstool dug up from the garden during Lockdown and a tiny plastic gnome which was mixed in with our Christmas decorations, et voilà!  Now let's pretend that  non-ribbiting frog is a toad!

Elsewhere in the garden, signs of Spring are definitely in evidence. Our Spirea bush is flowering as never before, white Muscari are popping up among the more common blue, and there are plenty of flower buds in the Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Oh, and the Honesty on the top right had the audacity of growing through the slats in our bench. We gently teased it out to give it - and us - some room!

All that hard work and fresh air had made us hungry, so Jos made us omelettes for lunch, mopped up with thick slices of bread and washed down with a refreshing glass of non-alcoholic beer.

Then, after getting dressed in my proper outfit of the day, we decided go for that walk after all. We didn't stray too far from home though, opting for Fort 5 in the neighbouring village of Edegem. It is one of a string of old forts around the city of Antwerp dating from the 1860s, most of which have been converted into nature reserves and recreation spaces.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones making the most of the balmy Spring weather, so we soon veered away from the narrow path skirting the moat and the children's playground near the entrance. The path we selected took us past the War Memorial (top left), unveiled in 1926 and commemorating 16 resistance fighters which were executed at the fort during the First World War. 

Continuing our walk, we soon came across part of old fort itself: a long row of low brick and sandstone buildings, in various stages of dereliction.

Browsing my previous blog posts on our walks here - the last one incredibly as long ago as October 2021 - revealed that this wasn't the first time we selected this particularly appealing peeling blue door as a backdrop for outfit photos. This time, however, I was wearing matching blues!

And what better backdrop for my red skirt's first outing? Picked up for a pittance at Think Twice back in March, I fell head over heels for its pattern of blowsy indigo and white flowers. 

The white, red and blue spotty blouse by the Belgian Wow To Go label was a charity shop find, as was the blue beaded necklace. 

My brooch, with its leaping stag on a shimmery blue background, is a bit of an oddity. A flea market find back in January 2020, it is actually made of butterfly wings! This kind of jewellery, usually made from the South American Morpho butterfly, was popular from the Art Deco period up to the 1960s.

The final components of my outfit, a blue belt and ring, were both retail buys.

Walking through the gate on the top right and along the echoing and faintly eerie passage on the bottom left takes you inside some of the atmospheric, time-forgotten and heavily graffitied buildings.

The passage ends at a padlocked gate, the gap between its slats offering a glimpse into a spooky, pitch-black, musty smelling interior. 

The fort bridges the moat here, its paneless windows looking out on moss and algae encrusted brick walls. The odd window is still holding on to its weathered wooden frames or shutters, but surely it's only a matter of time before time and tide - not to mention wet rot - dispenses with them completely.

The cobwebbed old light switch was still in working order ... if only it had had a light bulb to feed! 

Twigs and leaves carelessly abandoned by nature have been swept inside by the wind, joining the population of dust bunnies who have taken up residence here in these rooms decked out with bunting of ancient blackened cobwebs.

The narrow winding path along the moat takes you through a long, low tunnel (above, bottom right) to the inner sanctum of the fort, and out again at the other end. Mind your head if you're tall, as even vertically challenged yours truly did have to duck her head at one point.

Here's a view of the spot where the fort bridges the moat. There's the exit of the tunnel on the right, while the arched doorway in the middle is where the passage we entered the fort through ends. Opposite this is the spooky, padlocked and graffitied gate I posed against.

Our itinerary then took us along the moat, where the single track path was a bit of a logical problem on this busiest of days. We nevertheless enjoyed the antics of the local population of water birds and turtles, none of which were prepared to pose for a photo.

All traces of Sunday's sunshine had gone by Monday, which was quite a disappointment. The mercury still climbed to 16°C but without the warmth of the sun it felt quite a bit cooler.

There was nothing for it but to give one of my long-sleeved Diolen Delights another run for its money. This one never fails to cheer me up, with its pattern which is a mixture of huge yellow hued flowers and two borders of sea shells near the hemline.

More yellow was added with a long-line cardigan, opaques and a necklace, while I opted for a contrasting caramel mock croc belt at my waist. The blue of the dress was repeated in the iridescent blue and emerald green peacock feather brooch. 

It might have been a grey and cloudy day, but at least the weather gods had the decency of waiting until mid-afternoon to send more rain our way.

We made the most of the dry spell by ticking another couple of gardening chores off our list. While I cut back the strawberry in its hanging bucket (the red blob in the photo below), Jos tackled some more of the ivy, and unearthed the parking meter from the clutter in the courtyard. A gift from a late friend of Jos's, it spent its working life on the streets of Antwerp in the late 1950s, early 1960s, when 5 Belgian Francs (the equivalent of about € 0,12) paid for 30 minutes' parking. It's going to be a feature in the passageway.

Talking of which, we're in the process of clearing the border in front of the compost bin (see above, top left) and plant it up with some shade-loving perennials. Watch this space!

I'm leaving you for now with this view from the back of the garden towards our house and the passageway, framed by the exuberantly flowering, but oh so transient, Spirea bush!

See you next time!