Wearing, reading and charity shopping

As promised, I'm back with a final November update. And about time too, I guess, as Christmas is almost upon at the time of writing. We put up our Christmas tree two weekends ago, deciding to leave our fragile vintage decorations for (at least) another year and using our small collection of wooden, felted, fabric, resin and papier-mâché ones instead. 

As you can see, it was a good thing that we did! Ever since Bess came to live at Dove Cottage back in 2021, it has become a tradition to post a photo of her shenanigans involving the tree, so here is this year's contribution. She wasted no time in climbing it the minute it was up and I'd finished decorating it with all those tempting toys!

As my blog hasn't actually made it to Christmas yet, why don't we retrace our steps to Friday the 21st of November? On the menu that day was my penultimate visit to Michel, my hairdresser of more than 30 years, who will be retiring at the end of next week. Sob!

I might not have been ready for the silly season yet but the streets of Antwerp were already decked out with garlands of greenery and festive light displays. 

It was a sunny but crispy cold day on which the mercury didn't climb any higher than 4°C.

I was wearing a chevron patterned plaid skirt in browns, oranges and a dash of white, which I wrestled off a charity shop dummy in January 2022. Its companion, an aubergine blouse sprinkled with colourful spots, was an old Think Twice find, its collar kept under control with a sparkly peach-coloured brooch I picked up from H&M in the late noughties. 

For extra warmth, I added a lavender tank top, bought at 70% off in the closing down sale of the Belgian Terre Bleue label in September 2024. To this I pinned one of my Autumn leaf brooches. Then I selected an orange stretchy belt with massive round metal buckle - a cheeky high street buy - to accentuate my waist.

The temperature was down to 2°C on Saturday, when we woke up to the first of the night frost having sugar-coated the plants in the jungle garden.

The sudden cold snap spurred me into action, and I spent the morning unearthing some of my warmer skirts and exchanging a shelf full of short-sleeved knits for long-sleeved Winter jumpers.

Then I walked into the village as I needed to run an errand at Kruidvat, which is the Low Countries' equivalent of Superdrug.

My blue cord skirt was bought in a high street shop in November 2023 and has become a true Autumn/Winter staple ever since. My diagonally striped polo neck, in a slightly darker shade of blue, was a € 5 Think Twice sales bargain one year later. 

Both the belt and necklace were relatively recent charity shop finds. A pre-blog rummage at the indoor flea market yielded the vintage enamelled metal brooch featuring an Edelweiss, a Gentian and a couple of smaller daisy-like flowers.  

Talking of rummages, we drove down to the Went to charity shop in Mortsel after lunch, where I found a Diolen button through skirt, a Nordic style jumper by the Belgian high street label JBC, a black and white patterned orange blouse and some aqua beads.

It had actually snowed overnight on Sunday the 23rd of November, but apart from the odd dot of the fluffy stuff, it had all gone by morning. In its wake, we were left with a gloomy and utterly grey day on which an icy cold wind made it feel considerably colder that the day's highs of 2°C.

As Bess had been having episodes of regular vomiting, which we suspected was hairball related but wanted to be sure, we made an online appointment with a local vet for Tuesday morning. Much to our regret our former vet, whom we'd had since Phoebe's predecessor Poesie back in the mid-1990s, had recently closed her practice. As she used to do house visits, it would be the first time we'd have to take Bess anywhere in the cat carrier we last used when we picked her up from the shelter which, needless to say, we were a bit nervous about ...

Thankfully we were able to take our minds off things by visiting our friends Ingrid and Luc in he afternoon. We hadn't seen each other for a while, so it was nice to be able to catch up.

Ingrid and I were at secondary school together, where we were the one and only punks. Those were the days!

Monday was the start of a three-day general strike in Belgium, with little or no public transport, which meant that Jos not only had to drive me into Antwerp like he usually does, but pick me up again as well. This was easier said than done, as, due to parking restrictions, there is nowhere for him to park the car and wait for me. This meant leaving the office ahead of time to make sure I'd be at our designated pick-up point by the time he arrived.

After a foggy commute on Tuesday morning, this was my view from the office window (above, left): apparently Antwerp's cathedral had gone AWOL!  I'm including the view on the right, taken a couple of hours later, for comparison.

It was the day of Bess's appointment with the vet, where she was declared to be in perfect health and was given an injection to help her with the hairball issues. Jos reported that she meowed loudly during the car trip - which took all of five minutes - but that she was on her best behaviour at the vet's. 

I walked to the nearest Think Twice shop during lunch break, where I found this amazing vintage dress from a German label called Rawe Rheda. When I posted my find on Instagram that day, I was told by Lynn that she used to have the exact same dress.

And just like that, another week had gone by!

Another gloomy and mizzly day was our lot on Friday the 28th of November, accompanied with a neither here nor there 9°C.

I had a dentist appointment for a check-up at 11 am, but as there were no issues I was in and out in less than 15 minutes.

Back at home, I tackled a couple of minor sewing jobs after lunch, after which we went food shopping.

My outfit was based around the olive green polyester knit vintage dress I found at the vintage per kilo shop back in October. 

Both the chunky knit long-line orange cardigan and the orange fake-snake belt were charity shopped, while the orange and green mottled brooch was a flea market find. My necklace is a holiday souvenir, bought from an antiques centre in Newcastle Emlyn, Wales in June 2017. It seems that it's one of the necklaces I'm reaching for the most.

The rest of the day was spent engrossed in my latest read, Muriel Spark's The Girls of Slender Means. This early 1960s vintage Penguin has been on my shelves for decades but caught my eye as I was rearranging the latter to make some space. I couldn't actually remember ever reading it, so that was my next read sorted.

The novel is set in London in 1945 at the end of the war in a shabby boarding house for young ladies called the May of Teck Club. It follows their lives and love affairs over a period of a few weeks but ends in tragedy. It's a very witty novel which I loved, although I initially had a difficult time getting into it.

There was no improvement in the weather on Saturday.  Apart from a handful of sunny days, it had been a gloomy month of November, but still an improvement on October, which was considered the bleakest month here in Belgium since records began.

As it was once again left to yours truly to provide a daily dose of sunshine, I plucked this teal cowl-necked and pleated dress from my wardrobe. A Think Twice find back in March 2022, I initially left it behind, but as luck would have it, it had been reduced by 30% when I went back for it the next day.

From its groovy colourful pattern, I selected ochre for my fluffy cardigan and tan for my belt, adding even more colour with my beaded necklace and brooch. Apart from the latter, which was a flea market find, all were supplied by the gods of the charity shops.

Speaking of which, the weather dictated that we went for another rummage, for which we selected the shop at the edge of our village.

Here I found no less than three vintage dresses, which I'm sure were leftovers from the infamous Day of the Charity Shops, on which they break out all of the vintage items they've hoarded for months, to be sold at inflated prices. 

There were two modern dresses as well. The burnt orange floral shift dress is by Belgian label Claude Arielle (I've already got a couple of blouses by them) while the tropical patterned one is a King Louie.

My final finds of the day were two more books to add to my already toppling pile. I must be one of the only people in the world who hasn't yet read Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring ... and nor have I seen the film!

So, that's it for now. I've just finished my final day at the office this year and, as I'm only due back on Monday the 5th of January, I'm looking forward to 12 days of freedom from the shackles of time.

All that's left is to wish you all a wonderful Christmas. 

See you on the other side!