Wandering in the wilderness

It was January's final Sunday and alas another granite grey day, which was issuing absolutely no invitation to leave Dove Cottage's cozy confines.

But it was dry, and with the temperature an almost Springlike 13° Celsius, we made the most of what was on offer and went for a short walk to clear away the cobwebs.

You've seen all my outerwear before: comfortable yet stylish Tweed jacket, purple mohair beret and old multicoloured wool scarf. The blue boots, being a kind of waxed leather, might not have been the best choice for what we had in mind, though.

Note the walking stick, which signifies we were about to tackle rough terrain!

We drove down to De Schorre, a recreational domain and nature reserve on the site of a former clay pit, quiet but for a couple of families out for a walk and, at one point, a gaggle of chattering rainproof clad ramblers.

Several times a year, the quietness is shattered by events taking place elsewhere on the domain and for two weekends in Summer, it is the scene of Tomorrowland, the largest Dance Music festival in the world: its deep thumping basses can be heard and felt at Dove Cottage, more than eight kilometers away.

We parked our car in one of the streets backing onto the nature reserve, entering through a small municipal garden, a pond with some benches and a jetty at one end. A half submerged rowing boat, its timbers battered and rotten, was tucked away in a corner under some trees. 

A red metal sign shouted the word STEEN (stone), a reference to the area's brick-making past. It is part of a fragmented art installation, parts of which can be found all over the domain, poignantly telling the history of the brick industry which used to thrive here. Another clue can be found just a couple of meters further along, in the word KLEI, meaning clay.

Traces of the once-flourishing brick industry are still visible in the landscape laid out on the banks of the river Rupel, which is scarred by centuries of clay-digging and dredging.

Some of the old clay pits are now beautiful nature reserves, where nature has once again reclaimed what is hers, the now water filled quarries havens for dragonflies and damselflies, frogs and other amphibians, as well as several species of waterfowl.

Here at De Schorre, sets of wooden steps take you from street level about 25 meters down to the bottom of the former pit, where a network of boardwalks leads you through the wetlands created by months of rain.

At one point, a stream of mud had avalanched onto the boards. Without any means of escape, there was nothing for it but to risk ruining my boots. Remember that this is no ordinary mud, but heavy clay which sticks and tries to root you to the spot.

The red metal panel here reminds you of the fact that during the industry's heyday at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, there were more than 150 factories in the area, making the industry the biggest in the world. Now, only one factory remains active.

The stepping stones on the bottom left mark the start of a so-called "barefoot path" leading into the depths of the wilderness. Where the stepping stones end the path has turned into a stream, so I guess a pair of sturdy wellies would be the appropriate footwear here!

Soon after the boardwalk path ends, you are faced with a ghost of the past in the form of a ruined and graffitied brick building and elevated tracks on tall brick pillars.

This is a landscape full of stories. The stories of the men, women and children, who once worked here in appaling conditions, performing extremely heavy, monotonous labour, for twelve hours a day, earning a pittance. 

It was Jos, who was born and bred in the area, who took this photograph in the early 1980s, showing the factory still in working order.

Close your eyes and imagine dozens of waggons being drawn up the elevated track towards the engine room, carrying the heavy clay from the pits.

Taking the path around the back of the construction, we walked between trees and along some muddy stretches until another piece of industrial archeology came into view.

This rusty red dredger is hanging on for dear life to the reed clad edges of a water filled clay pit, contrasting deeply with the unearthly green of the water. This is a secondary clay pit, excavated by the greedy dredger, and another 25 meters deep.

Flooding means that you won't be able to keep your feet dry while sitting on that bench.

From here, a steady but gentle climb brought us back to our starting point and our car.

Back home, it was time to show you what I was wearing underneath my jacket. You have already caught a glimpse of my frock, which is a 1980s does 1940s number. At least that is what I think it is. The fabric, featuring a blue, pink and orange print on a chocolate brown background, is satisfyingly swishy, aided by its equally swishy lining.

I accessorized with a blue ring and blue beads. I was also wearing tights in the same blue, which you can just about see in the opening photos of this post.

The pink in my frock's print lead me to choose a pink cropped cardigan with a drawstring at the waist. I must admit I had forgotten all about it and found it shoved at the back of my wardrobe while looking for something else entirely. The large brooch featuring the 1920s flapper girl seemed like the perfect companion.

I'm taking my outfit to Patti's Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style. Do have a look at what all the other visible girls are wearing!

Back to the 80s

The weather has been behaving atrociously for the last couple of weeks and those interminable miserably grey, non-stop rainy days almost made me go out of my mind. Added to that, the fact that I've been all alone in the office and only had myself to talk to was enough to drive me up the wall!

A welcome little ray of sunshine appeared on Tuesday last week, with the arrival of a parcel from the lovely Gisela at Miss Magpie's Musings.

She'd bought two dresses at a vintage fair in Bath, but as alas they didn't fit her, she kindly send them to me!

First up is this colourful Arnel pussy bow frock. As it's sleeveless it will be put aside for the warmer months, unless I come up with a suitable jumper to wear underneath. Watch this space!

There was a sparkly Scottie dog brooch too!

I wore the other dress on Saturday. It is handmade and fully lined, with the lining cleverly sewn in, and with its batwing sleeves - a first in my wardrobe - it seems to have come straight from the 1980s.

I remember having a grey batwing sweater dress back in the day, complete with the ubiquitous shoulder-pads of the era, which I wore to death, accessorized with a massive red belt. It's hard to believe now that this was my only dress!

The dress was somewhat similar to the white one shown below, tapering towards the hem, but the belt was more structured, and with an angled buckle.

Funnily enough, there are no photos of me wearing it. Well, there are hardly any photos of me from that period, full stop!

I was in my twenties in the eighties, and they were turbulant times.

In no particular order, I left home, lived in semi-squalor, was on the dole, found a job, did some serious growing up and kind of lost my way a bit both at the start and the end of the decade.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see that perm

It was a happy, carefree and crazy time, but kind of bittersweet too, if only because with hindsight I know I wasn't always happy in my own skin and frightfully insecure.

Back to the old house ...

For a couple of years in the early 1980s, I lived on the second floor of a house in the north of Antwerp, built in 1912, up four flights of creaking stairs. The house (the first one in the photo) hadn't moved with the times, with cracked linoleum, the most basic of mod cons and an old-fashioned coal stove by way of heating.

It was at the dead-end of a dead-end street backing onto a railway embankment, and I remember the chugging of pass-by-night freight trains lulling me to sleep.

By day, the soundtrack was mostly provided by The Smiths and almost all the memories I have of that time have a Smiths song playing in the background.

But I digress. Isn't it amazing that a whole chunk of the past can be conjured up just by wearing a particular dress?

I had a whale of a time accessorizing the dress and added a burgundy belt, tights from the market stall in rusty red, lilac beads and a purple beret. The brooch I chose was an early plastic one in dusky pink, which I think went rather well with the vibe of the dress.

Due to the massive sleeves, a fake fur cap-sleeved vest was a better option than a cardigan. This offered the opportunity for another brooch, featuring tiny embroidered flowers in an oval frame.

On top went my brown fake fur collared jacket, which is going into its third season, and I added a burgundy crushed velvet scarf.

Comfortable burgundy boots and a tapestry handbag in the same colour completed Saturday's outfit.

Oh, I forgot one accessory. Let me introduce you to my new bicycle! In burgundy, to complement my outfit.

It was mostly paid for by Ecocheques, which are a kind of vouchers most employees get here in Belgium every year. With these vouchers, you can purchase energy saving devices and all kinds of environmentally friendly stuff.

Yes, you can buy stuff at the charity shops too, but it's far more satisfying to spend it on one, more expensive, piece.

As my old bike was rusty beyond belief, I opted for a new, old-fashioned style, one.

Now, my dress might be a similar design to the sweater dress I had in the 1980s, but with one big difference: the material isn't stretchy at all, so the dress's tapered shape felt a bit restricted when riding a bike.

But I did it, even if it was just for a test ride around the block.

And to show it off on my blog, obviously!

For those who are interested, thanks to Fiona, who kindly alerted me to its absence, I now have a Followers button on my blog! Not being very tech adept, it's a miracle that my blog ever made in online at all!

Feet firmly back in the here and now, I will tell you all about last weekend's finds in my next post.

Bertha's wardrobe

Yesterday, it was exactly 112 years ago that my maternal grandmother, Bertha, was born.

She arrived in this world on the 6th of May 1905, and must have caused quite a stir, as she'd brought along her twin brother, Augustinus, who would go by the name of Gust.

The twins were my great-grandparents' first borns and they were joined in 1909 by a little sister,  who sadly didn't get to see her first birthday.

Although my grandmother sometimes alluded to her being a twin, I'd no idea what had happened to her brother, nor that she'd once, however briefly, had a little sister.

Bertha & Gust

Many years ago, my Dad gave me several boxes containing photographs and documents belonging to my Mum's side of the family.

Among these was my great-grandparents' "marriage booklet" (called trouwboek in Flemish), which is a kind of marriage register every couple tying the knot here in Belgium is issued with. In this booklet, all children resulting from the marriage are officially entered, with their full name(s) and date of birth. It also mentions the date of death of any children still living at home.

It is from this booklet that I learned of the existence of the little sister, and that Bertha's twin brother had died in 1931, aged 26. When I asked my father if he knew what had happened to him, he said that Gust had died as a result of an accident at work, but that was all he knew really.

It was also from my Dad that I learned that just before the First World War, my great-grandparents acquired a plot of land in our village (I have the original deed, found at my dad's a couple of months ago) and were making plans to build a house. When war broke out, however, they abandoned the project, and fled to neutral Holland, living with family relations of my great-grandmother, Aloysia.

In Holland during the First World War
Bertha is the girl in pigtails in the middle row

According to her "praying card"  (called bidprentje in Flemish, a small memorial card, which is distributed to all those who attend a funeral), she was actually born in Ossendrecht, Holland, and it is possible that she was at least part Dutch.

My mum on my great-grandmother's lap around 1937

My grandmother sometimes mentioned her Dutch relatives and I vaguely remember some of them being present at her funeral.

In one of my boxes of photographs are several portraits, printed on carton, mentioning the name of a photographer in Bergen op Zoom, Holland.

The lady on the right is my great-grandmother, Aloysia.

When the family eventually returned after the war, the house was completed, and it was there they, and later my grandparents, continued to live, until the house was sold by my parents after both my grandparents had died in the late 1970s.

I have many happy memories of that house, where I had lunch every weekday and spent many a Wednesday afternoon (school half day), until right before my grandmother - the first to go - died in 1974.

It was there, in one of the attic rooms, that all the photographs were kept in a chest of drawers, along with a beautiful, shiny conch shell.

By the time I came along, my grandmother's health had seriously deteriorated. She - like my mum after her - suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and painfully hobbled along aided by crutches. Later, she even slept on a pull-out couch (bought from a mail order catalogue: how peculiar that I remember that part) in the front room, as she was no longer able to get up the stairs. As she wasn't very mobile and hardly left the house, she had gained quite a bit of weight, which is mainly how I remember her.

It is me she is holding in the photo on the left. Taken in 1962, it is hard to believe that she was just one year older than I am now. The photo on the right was taken in my parents' house in the late 1960s.

My Dad used to tell me that Bertha was reputed to have been quite a beauty when she was young, pointing to a couple of framed photographs on my grandparents' mantlepiece, depicting a glamorous lady in old fashioned clothes, which he claimed was my grandmother!

Now, back to Bertha's story, or at least what I know of it, as it all seems to be shrouded in a veil of mystery.

Let's fast forward to my grandparents' wedding photograph.

Bertha married my grandfather, Alphonse, in November 1934, when she was 29 and he was 31.

I often wonder at the fact that they married so late in life. It's so sad that there's nobody left to ask. How I would have loved to talk about all this with my Mum, who wasn't very forthcoming on the subject of her own accord.

It strikes me that the couple isn't smiling in their one and only wedding photograph. The wedding group, all dressed in black, look as if they have gathered for a funeral, cowering in the bottom of the photograph, with that great big sky above them and washing drying on the line at the edge of the frame.

My Mum was born almost exactly one year after the wedding, and I particularly love the photograph of Bertha proudly showing off her little girl in her pram!

But I keep getting diverted.

Among the myriad of photographs I inherited are quite a few showing my grandmother - pre-marriage, I suppose - posing in different outfits and locations, always dressed to the nines.

In some of them, she is posing with her equally stylish friend.

The garden was a favourite backdrop, while both the photographs below, where she is posing on her own (left) and with my grandfather (right) are taken in our village, which is only just recognizable today.

She really had quite a wardrobe and I presume she made most of it herself. There was, after all, an ancient Singer in a corner of my grandparents' dining room.

The bottom line is that I might very well have inherited my passion of clothes from her, along with her name, Bertha, which, her being my godmother, is my second name.

I wonder what she would have thought of this Polyester Princess lark ...

How the leopard got his spots

The problem with weekends is that I'm always trying to cram too much into them.

There's never enough time for even half the things I want to do. Before I know it, it's Sunday night, and what have I done? Surely, someone has pulled a prank on me and fiddled with the hands of the clock?

My diary is quite full-on for the next couple of weeks, with two housewarming parties, a birthday party, several flea markets and a charity shopping event in the month of March only.

In fact, last Saturday was a one-off, the diary's page for the day blank, to be filled with spontaneity!

Time for some reading, perhaps?

Or at least browsing through some 1970s Country Life magazines found at my dad's.












Now, if the weather would have been fine, we might have used such a day to go for a walk.

But no, it turned out - again! - to be grey and rather cold, one of those days when it's up to me to provide some colour.













OK, the colour is almost all beneath the coat!

Ta-da! I don't think anyone can be grumpy for long wearing this coral polka-dotted Trevira dress!

I added a navy cardigan and tights as well as navy booties, and a shiny wide navy belt, which is part elasticated.

One of my favourite brooches, dating from the 1940s, and a string of red, white and blue plastic beads completed my outfit.

We did a quick round of the charity shops, but since there's a retro event coming up, there wasn't much to our liking.

We did, however, return with a pile of books.

Not that we need any more books, or indeed have the space for them, but since I've rekindled my passion for vintage paperbacks, I keep finding treasures. Apart from the Roald Dahl Penguin,which dates from 1963, they are all from the late 1940s, early 1950s.

They were € 0,25 each, including the April 1952 issue of Argosy magazine.

Speaking of books, we still have a boxful of my dad's to re-home. We've given the bulk of his books to charity, but still ended up with more than enough.

The Ellery Queen magazine, dating from 1953, fits in with my collection, while the one on the left, which was published in 1964, made me smile. Exercising without moving a muscle: now, that sounds right up my street!

This mottled old book, full of Christian advice for the family, is from the early 1900s. I was drawn by its fabulous Art Nouveau style cover design. Isn't it beautiful?

What else did I do? Being appointed the family photo archive keeper, I freed some cupboard space to store the boxes and folders full of photographs and assorted documents.

The sketchbook yielded a few surprises.

At first, we were mystified as to who could have done these wonderful fashion sketches, but then we spotted my dad's initials beside the date on some of them. Who would have thought? He was twenty years old at the time, and I guess he did them from magazine illustrations. I'm thinking of framing a couple of them.

On Sunday, while we continued our clearing of our dad's house, we came across a photo album which belonged to Great Aunt Josephine, my paternal grandmother's sister. She and her husband were quite well off, and I have several pieces of her jewellery, including a string of pearls.

I was admiring some photographs of her wearing a leopard fur coat, when my brother said he'd seen that coat in a wardrobe up in the attic.















Indeed, a couple of minutes later, he returned with a leopard fur coat but, although it had almost certainly belonged to her, it wasn't the actual coat she was wearing in the photos. I would have been surprised if it were, as the photos date from the late 1930s. There's no label to identify the coat's age or provenance, but as she died in 1983, it is surely older than that. Maybe late 1960s, early 1970s?

I'm not in favour of real fur coats, but this one, which fits me perfectly, and has a family connection to boot, I will keep and probably wear once in a while.

There, that's another weekend gone by ...

What did you do with yours?