Seaside nostalgia

I have a bone to pick with the weathermen!

In the week before our holiday, they all raved about the gorgeous late Summer weather we would be having, and I'd already mentally packed a suitcase full of Summer frocks. By the end of the week, however, things had quite literally cooled down considerably. They even managed to squeeze in a rainy day in the middle of our holiday!

Now, what to pack? Even if we were only going for a week, I needed to consider all options, including the fact that they might easily have got it wrong again. Panicking, I chucked in all kinds of everything, including lots of cardigans and a variety of things to layer underneath. For good measure, I packed not one but two raincoats!

The sky we woke up to on our first morning held a definite promise of rain, and indeed, even before we finished breakfast we could see the first raindrops making tiny concentric circles in the pond.

In spite of the inconclusive forecast, it looked set to be an utterly miserable, grey day, the kind that drains everything of colour.

Not to be deterred, we decided to go to the seaside as planned, so I provided some colour of my own by wearing a sky blue patterned dress and orange cardigan. As a nod to our destination, I added a sailing boat brooch.

It rained on an off while we were on our way to the small seaside resort of Westende. Parking our car in a free car park in De Panne, the seaside town nearest to us, we continued our journey on the coast tram, which travels all along the Belgian coastline, getting off at Westende-Bad about 40 minutes later.

Hemmed in by an encroaching army of ugly high rise apartment buildings - the curse of the Belgian seaside - this delightful villa on a busy road in Westende is a throwback to a bygone era.

Built in 1922 by architect Oscar Van de Voorde for a doctor's family from Ghent, Villa les Zéphyrs gives us a taste of how a well-to-do family would have spent their summer holidays on the Belgian coast in the 1930s.

Entering the house from the adjacent modern extension housing the town's tourist office, the first room you see is the amazing bathroom, with its sunken marble bath, terrazzo floor and tiles featuring the popular thistle motif of the era.

I think I may have gasped upon entering the dining room with adjacent fumoir (smoking room) which could be closed off with a pair of plush rose red curtains.

Turquoise tiles and brass adorn the splendid fireplace, complementing the original wood panelling and sideboards.

All of these are much older than the house, as they were designed by renowned Art Nouveau architect and designer Henri Van de Velde in 1889. They were only attributed to him in 2006 after the director of the design museum in Ghent found the designs in the catalogue of the furniture workshop ran by Van de Velde in the late 19th century.

This to-die-for Art Nouveau cabinet caught my eye in one of the other downstairs rooms, as did the two fabulous light fittings.

More treasures were to be found in the basement kitchen, the domain of the family's personnel.

The framed January page of a 1934 calendar was advertising some of the soaps we have on display in Dove Cottage's kitchen!

Upstairs there was an array of seaside holiday related items, including some fine costumes and a poster advertising a sandcastle competition complete with its rules.

Another eye-catching feature are the highly decorative stained glass windows with their floral motifs.

After leaving the villa, it was time for lunch, so we walked into the direction of the promenade.

Soon, the light but consistent drizzle had blurred my glasses but although we were carrying umbrellas, we were reluctant to open them, thinking we'd soon be inside.  So, we plodded on, walking the length of the rather forlorn and deserted promenade in search of place to eat, in the end settling for the only decent looking restaurant, which by then we'd walked past twice already.

The windswept beach was empty apart from some seagulls huddling together after a meal of mussels left behind by the retreating waves.

Making use of the restaurant's facilities, I almost did a double take when I noticed this strange, wild haired creature staring back at me in the mirror. The wind and drizzle had conspired with the salty sea air in providing me with a unwanted new hairdo. No amount of patting would get it to lay down, and as I didn't have a brush or comb in my bag, this is how my hair would look like for the rest of the day.

I'm sure it wasn't just my colourful attire which made people stare at me!

The rain had thankfully, if only temporarily, stopped by the time we left the restaurant, so we briefly walked along the beach, taking in lungfuls of bracing sea air. We still had the place almost to ourselves, with only the gulls and a handful of other people foolhardy enough to venture outside for company.

Apart from the two of us, some welcome colour was provided by a lonely yellow striped beach hut rather uselessly advertising deckchairs and windshields for hire and a shop displaying a garish array of buckets and spades, which nobody in their right mind would be buying on a day like this.

After our exhilarating walk, we retraced our steps to the tram stop for our return journey, but before returning to our car, we made another stop along the way.

Near the seaside resort of Koksijde are the ruins of a Cistercian monastery. The so-called Abbey of the Dunes dates back to the 12th century and was abandoned in around 1600.

From 1949 onwards, excavations and painstaking restoration campaigns have unearthed the abbey's foundations.

A separate, modern museum, with scale models, dummies and multimedia presentations is doing its best to bring the past back to life. This wasn't so much our cup of tea, especially the many waxwork tableaux of monks, some of them looking creepily lifelike. 

Dotted around the domain, there were several of these forbidding looking giant red monks. Apparently they are by an artist called William Sweetlove and made of plastic.

Children of all ages could be entertained with the various games laid out along the approach to the ruins.

We decided to try our hand at a game of skittles. It took Jos only one attempt to knock them all over. Look at that action photo! Needless to say, clumsy me was totally crap at the game!

And with that, I am leaving you for now, hoping that you will join me again on for the next installment of our holiday.

I'm linking my seaside outfit with Patti's Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style. Do go and check out the other visible ladies!

Second hand news

With the weather going up and down like a yo-yo, the temperature often fluctuating wildly within a single day, deciding what to wear in the morning can be a hard nut to crack.

Take last Saturday, which started out grey and miserable and with a definite chill in the air.

We had a long weekend to look forward to, with Monday off as well with, as I already hinted at in my previous post, not one but two flea markets chalked in.

First up is Saturday's which, in view of the unstable weather, fortunately was an inside event.

Your eyes might be deceiving you in thinking it's a dress I'm wearing, but it's a skirt and blouse combo, which turned out to be a match made in heaven.

The skirt is modern, bought in the sales a couple of years ago, and I have it in navy blue as well.

The blouse, on the other hand, is one of my Diolen delights, picked up at Think Twice. With its simple green and blue floral print and white collar and button placket, it was love at first sight. 

Looking at it more closely when I got it home, I'm thinking that it probably started life as a dress, which I imagine to have been a short A-line mod dress. How cute that would have been!

The temperature dictated that I wore a cardigan on top, its colour picking up the bits of blue in the blouse's print.

I thought it looked a bit bland so I added a contrasting colour by using an orange belt. Further accents of orange can be found in my ring and the brooch I'm wearing on the blouse's collar, which has an embroidered orange flower at its heart.

The chunky wood and plastic necklace came from Accessorize, when they still had a shop here in Antwerp.  I've had it for absolutely ages. 

A final colour pop is provided by the tapestry handbag, its design featuring two huge roses. 

There were less stalls than usual at the flea market, as is often the case this time of year. It did look fully occupied at first sight, but there were huge gaps between the rows of stalls. This was due to the presence of a television crew, who were using the venue for Belgium's watered down version of The Antiques Road Show.

We ignored proceedings and the people queuing up to have their items valued, and browsed as usual, pausing for lunch and coffee mid-way. 

And then there was this scary green-eyed doll, which had my friend Inez and me in fits of laughter. 

But have no fear, we did not buy her!

We did buy other things, though! Don't they make a pretty little tableau on our garden table? 

Of course, by then it was late afternoon and the sun had decided to come out and play after all.

Now let's zoom in and see some details!

As you are probably wondering what the yellow and blue cylinder shaped object is, I am starting with that.

Well, I'll keep you no longer in suspense: it's an unopened can of scouring powder, a predecessor of the more famous VIM, if you like. On the side it mentions "Verkocht zonder Zegels", meaning that it was being sold without coupons. This dates it firmly to the Second World War or immediately after.

It definitely predates 1946, as it has still got the pre-1946 Flemish spelling.

The next item is a wall hanging letter rack, in the same style and colours as the newspaper rack we already own, bought at the same flea market earlier this year.

I couldn't resist bringing home these two sewing baskets, which will come in handy for storage. 

Tania, a seller who follows my blog, brought the small round blue and white one with its cute butterfly closure especially for me. Thank you, darling!

Displayed on top of the largest basket are some of the smaller pieces we found, including two cheap flower corsages and a transparent yellow plastic ring.

But these are the real stars, of course, all but the German souvenir brooch featuring Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf, bought from the same stall.

Both the blue and gold Bambi and the swan pendant brooch can be spotted in the display pictured on the top right of the flea market collage.

I almost walked away from the Murano glass necklace as it didn't come cheap, but Jos insisted on buying it for me!

Now, I cannot possibly sign off without showing you some of the other things which have recently relocated to Dove Cottage.

They were gifts from our lovely friend Inez, who is in the process of refurbishing her apartment.  Isn't she an absolute angel for thinking of us?

This vintage wooden mantle clock, by renowned German clockmaker Junghans, is in perfect working order, and charmingly chimes the half-hours and hours.

These magazines dating from the 1950s are just the top of the iceberg, as Inez gave me a whole bag full of them, including a volume dating from 1937-38.

I can envisage many an hour spent looking at the fashions of the day and the at times very entertaining advertisements!

I'm still thinking of how best to display these delightful Bakelite chocolate moulds, but they're a wonderful addition to our collection of kitchenalia.

After a thorough clean, this 1930s coffee grinder is now gracing our kitchen wall, replacing a smaller one which we will be selling on at our local flea market in July.

This too is in perfect working order and is destined to earn its keep as coffee is made in the proper way here in Dove Cottage, starting with the grinding of coffee beans.

That's all I have time and space for for now, but I will be telling you all about Sunday's flea market in my next post!

Home & Garden

I bet you're all dying to know what we bought at the castle so, without further ado, let's have a peek at the things which came home with us.

And the winner is ... Sheila! You were spot on, dahling! Well done! We bought the green deer, which is actually a  lamp. A 1930s Art-Deco lamp to be more exactly.
I mean, it's green, it's a deer and it's Art-Deco: if ever an object ticked all the right boxes, then this is it.

The wiring was a bit dodgy, so Jos, who's a skilled electrician, changed it and added another lamp fitting and hey presto: less than a day later it was already taking pride of place on our sitting room's mantelpiece.

Dove Cottage actually dates from the 1930s, so it couldn't have come to a better place, even if it does have to share the limelight with several other favourites.

Centre stage is taken by this pretty wooden pendulum clock, which Jos found at a local junk shop.

On its left, behind the deer, is a vintage floor and furniture wax canister. This, as well as the tiny sample pot next to it, was gifted to us by my parents around the time we moved into Dove Cottage, and have been in the same spot on the mantelpiece for coming up to twenty years now. They both came from a shop in our village, which used to be owned by a great aunt, one of my maternal grandfather's sisters. The shop, of course, is long gone, but I walk past the house it was in every weekday morning on my way to the bus stop.

Moving to the right now, where there's a motley crew of objects vying for attention. The amber glass candlestick is 1930s as well, and so is the Art-Deco bonbonnière on the bottom right. The ceramic couple, wearing traditional Dutch costume, is identical to the pair I used to play with when staying at my paternal grandparents, resulting in quite a few breakages and the ensuing gluing on of heads!

In front is a souvenir ashtray from Expo 58, the famous Brussels World Fair, containing a souvenir book of matches with an image of the Atomium.

Lurking in the recess is a plaster statue of Our Lady of Boom, which we picked up in a charity shop. Boom (the "oo" is pronounced like the "o" in bone) is the town where Jos grew up.

Above the mantelpiece is a mirror in a gorgeous wooden Art-Deco frame, which was going for a song in a charity shop as its glass is riddled with black spots. Reflected in the mirror is our 1950s light fitting, also charity shopped.

This cosy corner in our sitting room is a meeting of styles from different decades. The chairs are 1950s which we had to Phoebe-proof with plaids. The metal shelving, produced by Dutch company Tomado, and currently highly collectible, is 1950s as well, and so, of course, is the framed Expo 58 poster.

Back to the 1930s with the inlaid wooden side table. On top, a late 1950s Bakelite radio. The framed photographs are of my grandparents in old-fashioned bathing suits at the seaside (left) and Jos's mother carrying one of her plants on the right.

Opposite this corner and above the modern flat screen television (we do have some mod cons!) are two display cases carrying the poshest of my Barbies, with some of Jos's Davy Crockett collection on the right.

Is it a boy or a girl? I've never been absolutely sure, but he or she is carrying a jug of ostrich feathers, very fashionable in the 1920's.

I couldn't resist the kitsch wooden wall plaque with a tableau of plastic deer, going for € 0,50 in a charity shop. The display of vases and birds on the bottom right is sitting on top of a cabinet.

I'm the first to plead guilty when it comes to clutter, but all these objects have a soul and a story to tell. They have found a place, not only inside Dove Cottage, but in my heart as well.

After this little detour, it's back to the rest of our finds. 

As you'd probably expected, I bought several brooches. I selected four from the Brooch Lady's folders, and found another three at one of the stalls upstairs.

How cute is that cuckoo clock? The celluloid deer and the carved mother-of-pearl bird brooch were just € 5 and € 7, which is quite cheap. They both needed cleaning, but just soaking them in soapy water already lifted most of the dirt.

Have you noticed the stylish little hat in the group picture? The minute I laid eyes on it, I was in love. The stall's owner urged me to try on a rather spectacular 1920s cloche hat, but I had my heart set on this one, even though it didn't come cheap.

I thought it would rather suit the snooty Idina, so here she is modelling it for you!

The weather continued to be fine on Sunday (I'm still rambling on about last week here) so we spent a bit of time in the garden. I'd already done some serious pruning on Friday afternoon, getting rid of some of the exuberant ivy which is threatening to take over our little plot. A huge heap of twigs and cuttings is now ready to be collected by the town council in a week or two.

We also planted out our poor rhubarb plant which had been waiting patiently in its pot. No need to plant any more Aquilegia, as they self-seed like mad: look at those little seedlings huddling together in this terracotta planter, abandoned after the demise of its original inhabitant. 

More signs of Spring in other parts of the garden. Our Clematis armandii is slowly reaching its zenith, the warmth of the sun releasing its heavenly almond scent. The little stone dove will soon be surrounded by the small pink flowers of our ground-covering Geranium, while Alchemilla mollis, commonly known as Lady's Mantle, is one by one unfurling its downy leaves. Quite unexpected, as I'm sure I didn't plant it there. Yet another of our self seeders!

As much as I love green, our garden was sorely in need of a bit more colour, so we made a trip to the garden centre to pick up some flowering Spring plants.

You've got to love a bit of flower power ...

I'm not very visible in this post, so I will take Idina and her fabulous new hat to Patti's Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style this week!

Be my Baby ... Brownie!

Looking at my diary for March, I almost did a double take when I saw that two of my favourite events had been chalked in for the same weekend!

So, we'd hardly recovered from the Retro Day of Saturday before last, when there was our favourite flea market to go to on Sunday.

We were still having a temporary respite from the cold, so I decided to wear Saturday's swing coat again, accessorizing it with blue instead of red for a change, with a sky blue lightweight wool scarf and a beret in electric blue.

I was originally wearing a pink cardie underneath, but that was discarded only minutes after entering the flea market venue. 

My blue frock was sprinkled with bursts of pink flowers, and in spite of initial misgivings (I thought it would be too frumpy), I felt absolutely fantastic wearing it.

This was of course greatly helped by the fabulous belt, which I found lurking in one of my belt boxes, giving the dress an edgy 1980s look. I never thought I would say that about anything 1980s but the further we're getting from that decade, the more I'm appreciating the merits of its iconic looks. 

Not the ginormous shoulder pads, obviously! Nor would I want to go back there, especially not to the old house, which sometimes still haunts me in my dreams.

Oops, sorry to digress!

I added my great aunt Josephine's pink pearls, which puts the outfit back several decades, as does the oval rose brooch. The ring I'm wearing is one of my collection of plastic rings (hello, 1960s!) which I'm picking up whenever I can find them. Sadly, they seem currently to have vanished from the high street. Fashion is so fickle!

A pair of pink-ish tights (they're Falke, and the colour's called Valerian) and my blue, flat heeled boots, and I'm ready for the hunt.

Fast forward several hours and we're back at home with our treasures. Ominous rain clouds were gathering, so I quickly made a tableau on our garden table, where there's the best light for photographs this time of year.

Now, let's look at it all in more detail. 

It wouldn't be a successful flea market if there weren't any brooches. The top three ones are from the same stall, which has an alluring jumble of costume jewellery. Sadly for me, an English lady, who visited the flea market on Saturday, beat me to it, and got away with the best stuff.

The fabulous rectangular micromosaic brooch came cheaply as it had been repaired with a replacement clasp, but luckily I'm not a purist, especially if the price is right. Nobody sees the back when you're wearing it anyway.

These two unusual cameo brooches came from different stalls. They are both celluloid and I'm especially enamoured by the slightly faded lady sporting a Pompadour hairdo on the right.

This Art Deco egg cup and serving platter set by Crown Ducal Ware is missing two of its egg cups, but at € 3 it would have been silly not to take them home.

In spite of my self-imposed handbag ban, Jos persuaded me to buy this beaded evening bag. Oh, go on then!

Having had a similar toy as a young boy, Jos had a bout of nostalgia when he laid eyes on this small plastic dog. Apparently, it can walk, but although it's very tempting to try it out, he's to remain in his packing. 

Poor little mite! As if it isn't bad enough that he's green ...

I wasn't in need of another sewing box, but I loved this small blue and white plastic woven basket, for which I will no doubt find another use.

In case you are wondering about this post's title: this Kodak Baby Brownie camera was actually one of our first buys.

This small, basic Art Deco style camera was originally introduced in 1934. Made of Bakelite, it had a flip frame viewfinder, as you can see in the ad below. Apparently, the company was still called Eastman back then!

Ours, called the Baby Brownie Special, was its replacement, adding an built-in optical view finder, produced by Eastman Kodak Company from 1938 to 1954. 

In the above collage, you can see it next to one of the other Brownie cameras we have in our modest collection, for size comparison.

One of the stars of our collection is a boxed Brownie Starlet camera, complete with flash unit and flashbulbs, dating from the late 1950s.

Jos found this in the waste disposal area in the communal basement of the block of flats we used to live in before we moved to Dove Cottage. As photography has always been one of his interests, he didn't hesitate to give it a home. 

In order to recover from this mad weekend, I managed to take Monday off.

Around noon, our doorbell rang and it was the postman carrying a mysterious parcel.

In it were two gorgeous dresses, complete with their original belts. One even had a matching jacket!

They were a gift from the lovely Gisela at Miss Magpie's Musings! Wasn't it sweet of her to think of me?

They obviously had to be tried on immediately and, as the weather was still mild, it was possible to take outfit photos in the garden without freezing to death.

First up is this candy striped green and cream frock, closed asymmetrically with a row of the most unusual hexagonal mother of pearl buttons. 

The self-fabric belt is slightly too long for me, but I replaced it with a plain green one, and added a green necklace and green slingback shoes with coppery toes. I drew the line at going barelegged so I am wearing nude tights here. 

The second dress is the one with the matching jacket. It's a gorgeous royal blue colour with a subtle gold print and gold piping at the neckline.

I spent the rest of the day making space for my new acquisitions by filling a couple of bags for charity.

Now don't tell me I haven't been a good girl!