These August days

Where does the time go? Summer's almost over and, looking back, it's all a bit of a blur, one week segueing almost seamlessly and featurelessly into another. 

Healthwise, August was a month of two halves, as the issues caused by my eye problem kept plaguing me on and off and making my stress levels go way up through the roof in the first two weeks of the month. But then, slowly but surely, the good days started outnumbering the bad, and my lazy left eye seems to have finally gotten a wake-up call. In short, even if the problem is still there and isn't expected to go away, my brain seems to have accepted the situation for the time being.

In the first week, the weather gods weren't exactly on their best behaviour, treating us to a seemingly endless string of grey and rainy days and with temperatures very much below par.

At least there were a couple of sunny spells on Friday the 4th of August, when I was finally able to take the day off again. If the mercury climbed to the low twenties, it felt decidedly chillier, so that I needed to layer a cardigan on top of my dress.

The dress in question is another of my Diolen Delights, its pattern a fireworks of white and royal blue flowers erupting on a Summer sky background. 

Apart from the cardigan, more orange was added with my necklace. An off-white stretchy belt with faux tortoiseshell buckle, amber coloured glass ring and one of the ceramic shard brooches I bought from a Ludlow market stall completed my outfit. Oh, and I pinned a royal blue flower corsage to my cardigan to match its buttons. On my feet, my navy blue flapper-style shoes.

It was a day of gentle pottering and well-needed rest after weeks of working full time while not feeling well. In fact, the only outing on the agenda was a quick dash to the charity shop in Mechelen, where I found a pair of as good as new Tamaris shoes in a delicious olive green.

Don't they look gorgeous paired with the lavender cat patterned scarf I got as a present from my friend Inneke for our - well, mostly Jos's - cat-sitting services?  Inneke and Maurice also treated us to a pack of Ethiopian coffee beans and a yummy homemade cake! 

The weekend's temperatures were more akin to Autumn than Summer, starting with a measly 17°C on Saturday and dropping to a bone-chilling 15°C on Sunday with a non-stop succession of showers on both days. We even had to resort to putting on the heating in our front room to keep the chills at bay.

No outfit photos were taken on Sunday, but this is what I wore on Saturday.

My groovilicious maxi skirt was part of a charity shop haul in June 2022, when it was promptly added to last year's holiday capsule. 

For this year's outing, it was accompanied by a Vera Moda blouse, a wide burgundy belt with  unusual metal buckle and a sage green wooden necklace, all of which were charity shopped as well.

The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed I was already wearing the olive green Tamaris shoes I found on Friday!

Rainy days are made for curling up on the sofa with a book, which is exactly how I spent most of that Sunday.

Meet my latest read! Who Was Sophie? by Celia Robertson traces the life of Celia's grandmother who, as young woman, was a promising poet with two volumes of poetry published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press and with a bright future ahead of her. By the end of her life she was essentially a bag lady, paranoid and living in precarious destitution. Her life story is a fascinating yet harrowing read.

As a testimony to the weather deities' fickle nature, the temperatures were on the up again by the end of the next week until they reached a dizzying 28°C on Friday. Just in time for my day off!

The perfect occasion to wear some tried and tested Summer staples, all of which - except for the necklace - were bought on the high street at one time or another. 

I've had both the half-elasticated orange belt and the top with its naive flower print for absolutely ages, so that it's safe to say they've deserved the slow fashion moniker by now.

The blue, organic cotton skirt was picked up in the Mango sales in the Summer of 2021 while the tomato red sandals wormed their way into my wardrobe as a post-Lockdown sales bargain one year earlier. 

The yellow cat brooch came from the wonderful Katshop (linking 'cause I love, as Sheila would say) 

A night of interrupted sleep had left me feeling tired and a bit jittery and I couldn't settle to anything until we decided on a trip to the edge of town charity shop.

It looked as if the goddesses of the charity shops had taken pity on me, as finds were unexpectedly plentiful. 

I'd skipped the bookshelves as browsing them made me feel dizzy, but then I found the Taschen book on the most iconic chairs of the last two centuries waiting for me on a chest of drawers halfway through the shop. Taschen books are always such eye candy!

Other finds included a magenta beaded necklace, a large blue raffia basket bag and a stripy painted wooden bangle.

The shop's rather confusingly arranged clothing rails yielded a golden yellow denim jacket by H&M and a labelless forest green long-sleeved blouse, most gorgeously patterned with roses and crane birds.

On Saturday the temperature had dropped to a more bearable but still delicious 24°C. 

Again, one of my beloved Diolen dresses made it out of my wardrobe. Although I couldn't possibly part with the majority of my painstakingly collected vintage frocks, I find myself not wearing them as much as I used to. 

This mustard one is among my favourites, though, and is still getting regular outings. It's got a blue sister, which I wore earlier this Summer.

It would be downright silly not to make the most of such a perfect Summer's day so, after lunch, we walked to the garage to pick up our car and drive to Middelheim. 

According to my blog, we hadn't been to the sculpture park since March, so that it was long overdue a visit. One of the reasons for our 5-month absence is that the park is currently being overhauled and that consequently there seems to be no rhyme or reason to its layout as a lot of the art is on the move.

By the end of this year, a total of 224 works of art will have been given a new home in the park or the adjacent open-air depot. Some parts of the park will be upgraded in close partnership with the city of Antwerp's department for green spaces, so that the new themed presentation will bring art and nature even closer together.  

We started out in Middelheim-Hoog (or High) where we walked under a canopy of trees, whose dappled shade turned out to be rather confusing for my eyes. As we walked back towards the avenue bisecting the two parts of the sculpture park, my eye was caught by this fountain. It was designed by Belgian architect and sculptor Jacques Moeschal (1913-2004) for the patio in the Belgian pavilion at the Montreal World Fair in 1967, where its water play was visible from different levels. 

Crossing the avenue and walking into the part of the park called Middelheim-Laag (or Low), we briefly sat down on a bench, from where we spotted another, unfamiliar looking, water feature in the distance.

This striking new fountain sculpture is called 'Adrift’ (2023) and is by Camille Henrot (Paris, b. 1978), a French artist, to whom the Middelheim Museum dedicated the solo exhibition ‘Wet Job’ last summer. 

The fountain is surrounded by the formal Hortiflora garden, which was incorporated into the park in 2012. 

Rather less formal is the wildflower meadow behind the Het Huis exhibition pavilion (above, top right).

The transparent green notice board shows the future layout of this part of the park, when Never Mind (above bottom right and below) by the Welsh artist Richard Beacon (Bangor, b. 1949) and dating from 2017 will be joined by a handful of other top pieces from across the park.

I loved how the green screen has added a nostalgic time-machine quality to the spaceship-like sculpture!

Taking a short-cut across another meadow, we passed Envelope (below, top right), a fruit-like sculpture which lies pleasantly relaxed in the landschape in the afternoon sun. Dating from 1996, it is by British artist Tony Cragg (Liverpool, b. 1949), who created packaging, in this case an empty envelope with air on the inside and air on the outside. Not my words, but the artist's!

The Column Pavilion (1984-1992) is by Belgian architect Charles Vandenhove (1927-2019) and is both a work of art and a pavillion for exhibiting smaller open-air art. There was actually a figure hiding inside which we confess to never having seen before.

Across the pond, we spotted some menacing figures (above, bottom left), so we quickened our step towards the exit. I haven't been able to find out who they are and by whom they were created, but I promise to sneak up to them next time we're there.

Taking Richard Deacon's time machine to the near future, we ended up one warm and sun-drenched week later, on Friday the 18th of August.

With 28°C forecasted for the day, I thought it was high time this fabulous cap-sleeved zigzag patterned dress got an outing. Charity shopped almost exactly two years ago, it's from the London based Louche label. Not only is it an absolute joy to wear, its joyous pattern is guaranteed to put a spring in one's step.

I made use of almost all its colours for accessorizing it, starting with the blue pleated belt, which yet again was a charity shop find. 

My yellow tiled necklace is making another appearance - the third in this post alone - and I added an orange ring and green swallows-in-flight brooch.

And yes, my tasseled yellow sandals from the outlet shop finally made it on my feet! 

We found a perfectly matching spot for outfit photos as well. Aren't those sunflowers at the museum garden down our street a joy to behold? 

Well, that was it for now. I didn't manage to include all my August outfits and outings in one post, so I'll be back with more after our September getaway. To say I am looking forward to the latter must be the understatement of the year!

See you on the other side!