Sunday to Sunday

By the time this post is published, our bags will be packed and our team of catsitters will have received the necessary instructions on how to wait on our spoiled little madam!  By this time tomorrow we'll be ensconced in our happy place in Poperinge for the second time this year. We're fully determined to enjoy every moment, no matter how many spanners the weather gods decide to throw in the works, 

But a promise is a promise, so before I go, here's a quick catch up of what I've been wearing, buying and doing in the week after our day trip abroad.

When we woke up to a mix of clouds and showers on Sunday the 27th of July, we thanked our lucky stars for the breezy yet sunny weather we'd been treated to in Middelburg. Still, with the day's highs of 22°C, we couldn't really complain about the temperature, which was more or less the same as on Saturday.

I was wearing a thin knit short-sleeved orange jumper - a sales bargain back in the Summer of 2022 - which I combined with my recently charity shopped midi skirt with its Art Deco style pattern. 

While the jumper tied in with the tiny bits of orange in the skirt's pattern, I paid homage to the browns with my accessories. These included a charity shopped beaded necklace, my stretchy belt with hexagonal faux tortoise-shell buckle (a cheeky retail buy) and a butterfly brooch picked up from a flea market.

Monday was a dark, grey and dismal day, its highs of 21°C unable to do away with the cotton wool which seemed to have lodged in my brain.

Thankfully, it wasn't too busy at work, so that catching up with last Friday's emails was a doddle for once. 

My lunch break took me along Antwerp's main shopping thoroughfare, where shop windows were touting the last of the sales bargains. It was almost inevitable that I'd succumb to this pair of steeply reduced green Miz Mooz shoes!

Although initially presenting a sunny outlook, we were treated to a thunderstorm accompanied by torrential rain just as I was about to go on my break on Tuesday. Typically, the rainclouds had decided to depart elsewhere in the afternoon, when sunny spells were again the order of the day.

My outfit of the day - which I would rewear on Wednesday - consisted of some old favourites, starting with a denim maxi skirt I found in the Shropshire Cat Rescue charity shop in Shrewsbury in June 2022.

And yes, it is a skirt, although the wind was doing its best to make it look like a pair of wide-legged trousers!

The crazily patterned top is vintage but my memory fails me as to whether I picked it up from Think Twice or a charity shop, although I'm pretty sure it was the latter which provided the white pleated leather belt, originally from Esprit.

I decided on shades of green for the rest of my accessories, but while the carved plastic heart brooch matches the fern green bits in my top almost exactly, the grassy green of my necklace is a little out of tune. Still, it manages to more or less match the green of the jungle-like foliage in the passageway, so there's that!

More often than not, Wednesdays are synonym with a cappuccino catch-up with my friend Inez during my lunch break. Our place of choice being the coffee bar in the nearest Think Twice shop to my office, it is almost a given that a quick trawl of the rails is part of the deal.

The shop having just opened their doors to the new collection after the sales, the rails were full to bursting with new stuff.  This blue, diagonally striped box-pleated midi skirt wormed its way into my wardrobe.

Drum roll please! My blog has finally reached the month of August!

The month didn't go off to the best of starts, though. The weather gods insisted on presenting us with a day filled with showers, which made it feel quite a bit cooler than the 21°C shown on the thermometer. I mean, I even felt the need to wear long sleeves!

But I just love a Breton top, particularly when it comes in this lovely shade of fern green. Its colour was hard to pin down with my camera, but is closest to its actual colour in the outfit photo.

The flower-sprinkled silk blend skirt was a recent Think Twice sales bargain, as was the belt, which I've been reaching for a lot since I found it back in June. 

My glass ring was bought on the high street, while both the necklace and brooch were vintage finds.

What with the abysmal weather keeping us inside Dove Cottage for most of the day, we decided to go for a rummage after lunch, driving over to the three-floored charity shop in Duffel.

While Jos repaired to the coffee corner with a book he'd selected from the shop's shelves, I descended into the basement, which is completely devoted to clothing and textiles. After trawling the aisles and filling my basket with any items which tickled my fancy, I made my way to the fitting rooms.

It was only when I was about to try things on that I noticed the short-sleeved button-through maxi dress (above) and the pleated maxi skirt (below, top and bottom right) had exactly the same floral pattern! After some dilly-dallying, I declared them both fit to take home. Both the dress and skirt are from a JBC, a Belgian chain of high street shops.

The 100% cotton tiered off-white skirt sprinkled with lavender flowers is by Lollys Laundry, a Copenhagen-based Danish fashion brand founded in 2007. 

Both skirts have been worn in the meantime, but I've as yet to wear the dress.

My final find of the day was this delightful mustard floral patterned blouse with frilly yoke, which I can see myself wearing with the Lollys Laundry skirt. Incidentally, it's by Kaffe, which is yet another Danish label.

Rain continued to play havoc with our plans on Saturday, when the temperature dropped to just 19°C.

After catching up on chores and photographing my latest finds, we had some errands to run. As these took us past our most local charity shop, it would have been downright silly not to stop for a quick browse.

But let's have a look at what I was wearing first. I'm not blaming you if your eye is instantly drawn to the wide violet belt, which I'd picked up from the charity shop in Duffel on Friday. I'd omitted showing it to you since I knew I'd be wearing it straight away.

I hadn't worn this vintage faux-patchwork patterned dress in absolutely ages, so that it was long overdue an outing. It's from a label called Carol Caroline, for which, apart from a couple of 1970s references, I drew a blank online. I've got a wonderful short-sleeved jumper from the same label as well (see here) which, admittedly, has even been more neglected than the dress. I know, too many clothes, too little time ...

My other accessories were a beaded necklace in a similar shade to the belt and a brooch, which is often mistaken for vintage but which I bought from H&M in the early noughties.

So what did I do? Buy even more clothes, obviously :-)

I couldn't resist the yellow cotton blend long-line cardigan with its garlands of embroidered flowers and was seduced by the silver and blue leaf pattern of the top, which is by the Dutch Anna Scott label.

I also found this silky blue floral trousers, which much to my joy was exact the right length for me. It was only when I wore them on Sunday that I noticed it was considerably shortened by its previous owner, which must have been as vertically challenged as me!

I wore them with a green short-sleeved thin knit jumper (an old sales bargain from Sweet Soda), a wooden beaded necklace from Accessorize and a charity shopped flower embroidered denim jacket.

We'd slept late-ish, but as we'd woken up to sunshine and wanted to make the most of the forecasted highs of 23°C, we wasted no time in going for a walk.

Our destination of choice was Den Brandt, part of the cluster of parks which also comprises the sculpture park, and which is in fact directly opposite one of the entrances to Middelheim-Laag.

You've been here with me many times before, so I'll just whizz you through. As usual, we entered the park via the picking garden, where we went straight for the Gautam Buddha. Among the gifts he'd received was a selection of apples, flowers and herbs, as well as the usual array of lost objects. It seems he'd got a letter as well ... I wonder what was in it. We were briefly tempted to find out but didn't want to invade his privacy.

Rusty limbs oiled and stretched and heads duly cleared, we returned home, ready for another week's worth of August days.

But that will be for another time, as our next set of adventures beckons.

See you at the other side!