Leave your worries at the doorstep

Another day, another flea market.

Although the number of outdoor flea markets is dwindling, October is typically the month when all the big indoor ones are starting.

Our favourite is the one being held monthly in nearby Mechelen and this is where we went last Sunday.

As it was a gorgeously sunny autumn day, crowds weren't too big though. This market really comes into its own on true autumn and winter days, when the weather's too foul for any outdoor activities.

I dressed up for the occasion and chose a handmade suit bought at the sorely missed Blender Vintage Shop a couple of years ago. Judging from the belt loops, the jacket originally had a belt, but as it is missing, I added one of my own to give it more shape. At first glance, you might think it's a woollen suit, but no: it's true polyester alright!

The safest option would have been a plain blouse in one of the suit's colours. Instead, I chose one with a brown and pale orange print on a cream background, and added a matching necklace and ring.













After parking our car at the venue's huge car park, we were glad to see that there were no queues at the ticket booth, so that no time was lost in starting our quest for treasure.

Barely inside the hall, Jos spotted this "mosaic" game, which he spent many happy hours playing with as a child.  By the time we got it home, all the little balls were at the bottom of the bag the seller had put it in, so we had to sort out the colours and put them in the assigned slots. Eagerly watched by Phoebe, who I guess would have loved to help.

The blouse on the left was calling me from afar. It's not vintage, but from a retro brand called Zoë Loveborn. I already own a dress in the same print, but with red trim and buttons.

Right next door was a big stall selling a variety of things, old and new. Guess what I spotted? I saw the box, proclaiming it to be a "Souvenir from Lourdes", and at first I didn't even realize that it contained a viewmaster, complete with two sets of reels and the original booklet. It's a Bakelite viewmaster, dating from the 1950s and although they are not uncommon (in fact, we already have several of them), the Lourdes connection surely makes it special.

This particular flea market has so many wonderfully displayed stalls that it is really slow going. Your eyes have to work overtime to take it all in without missing something. Which is where our next find would come in handy.

At a stall selling the weird and the wonderful, and specializing in "medical" antiques, I spotted a box full of eyebaths. I wouldn't have given them a second glance if I hadn't seen a lady with a small collection of eyebaths, which fascinated me, at the Antiques Roadshow the week before.

I chose two green ones, both made in England. The seller told us they came from a museum in Delft, Holland. Will they be the start of another collection, I wonder?

Although there were a multitude of stall selling brooches, I only bought one this time.

Isn't she lovely?













Next up was this Bakelite light switch, which, as a former electrician as well as a lover of all things Bakelite, caught Jos's attention.

A stall consisting of row upon row of cartons containing everything but the kitchen sink (although I can't be sure there wasn't one hidden at the bottom somewhere), yielded a three tiered Emsa herb rack, complete with all the pots, most of them still containing rather dusty looking and colourless herbs.

The rack cost € 4 which is a silly price for any Emsa item, as they are quite collectible.

We already have a smaller Emsa rack, but due to circumstances we didn't put it up yet, so we'll use this one instead.

I won't be sentimental about the herbs, though.










Ever on the lookout for pretty vintage buttons, I happily browsed through a whole carton of them, and settled on these three sets of green ones, although admittedly, with my slight colour blindness, some of you will say the ones on the bottom left are blue.

Our final purchase for the day were these carton envelopes containing scarves. According to the seller, they date from the 1950s. There was a whole selection of them and after much dithering we chose two differently coloured ones in the same design. As they have so much vintage appeal, I'm planning to keep them in their envelopes and somehow display them.

Half way through the final aisle, our eyes were getting tired and our backs started to hurt, so we called it a day.

I am leaving you now with a final impression of the market.

Can't wait to go back next month.

A-Tisket, A-Tasket

... I found a yellow basket! I am paraphrasing Ella Fitzgerald and signing along with her popular 1938 rendition of the nursery rhyme, but as I am quite tone deaf, I strongly suggest you plug your ears!

The song lodged itself into my head during Saturday's charity shopping expedition, when I made a final mad dash through the aisle which I'd skipped at the beginning as it was too crowded. There it was: a big, old-fashioned, yellow plastic shopping basket! At € 2, it obviously had to be mine.

We managed to find a few other things too. This particular charity shop has several shelves dedicated to little (and not so little) odds and ends. We love browsing through the assorted array of holiday dolls and souvenirs, Lourdes memorabilia, battered crucifixes, kitsch figurines, candlesticks and so on, as well as a shelf full of miscellaneous things they obviously didn't know what to do with.

First up was this brown 1970s Emsa rack for storing herbs, which we found a green version of at our local flea market two weeks ago. We already have several items of the same series in brown which compliments the blue of our kitchen walls, all picked up cheaply at flea markets and charity shops.

As the green rack was only € 1 and still contained all the - thankfully empty! - herb pots, we bought it anyway, knowing we'd find the brown version at some point, which we now did. The brown rack was also € 1, but without the pots, which is still a good price as these Emsa items appeal to what I call "the retro crowd" and tend to command much higher prices at vintage markets and online.

From the same shelves we plucked this shiny barometer to go with Jos's collection. We are slowly running out of wall space to accomodate them all. Now, if only they'd tell us the weather will be fine ...

This little wooden souvenir bowl from Nice is particularly poignant in view of the tragic happenings on July 14th, as it depicts the ill-fated Promenade des Anglais.

On a more positive note, these two cute little dogs make me smile whenever I look at them. Although I am more of a cat person, with their cheeky faces they were quite impossible to resist.  They are just the right way of kitsch!

Two belts and a scarf also came home with me. A girl can never have enough of those, can she?

Oh, and this is what I wore on Saturday: a white crimplene dress with a crazy pattern in browns and grey, with a shiny brown vinyl belt at the waist.

Even though I love brown, and in spite of the in-your-face pattern, it did look a bit boring at first, so I accessorized it with some blue and turquoise.

Only the plastic beads are vintage. The chunky ring and bracelets were picked up cheaply in the high street and the shoes are from a local village shop. I found the blue birds brooch in a lovely shop in Cardigan, called Mundos, a couple of years ago. I have it in green as well.

I chose a small burgundy brown handbag which was just big enough to hold my weekend essentials.

The brooch adorning the lapel of my short-sleeved turquoise crimplene jacket also came from Cardigan, where it was charity-shopped this year.

Although it was quite cloudy, it was still warm enough for an outside picnic and a short stroll through the park.

We hadn't been there for several months and the planting was quite lush and colourful, especially around the water garden.

Yellow Inula helenium, which has been planted here in abundance, is a magnet for a multitude of bees.

Look at the gorgeous colour of this red and yellow daylily (Hemerocallis), whose blooms sadly only last a day,

There were several varieties of Hydrangeas, but I was particularly taken by this timidly blushing one..

The dog rose bloom was lying virtually intact in the middle of the path. I wonder what happened to it.
Some of the dog rose bushes were carrying quite a few rosehips already.

At least the park was not inundated with smartphone carrying, Pokémon hunting individuals, so that we were able to enjoy our picnic in peace.

Last week, police had to close off traffic in one of Antwerp's shopping streets due to overcrowding caused by the game.

It's a mad world, no?

Painting the town green

... and you can take that quite literally!

On Saturday, they were measuring out and marking the pitches for Sunday's flea market, to be held in the village streets, in green spray paint!

By coincidence, I was wearing green that day: a short-sleeved button-down dress in a stripy fabric featuring different shades of green. While the stripes run vertically on the bodice, the ones on the skirt run diagonally, creating chevrons at the back and front.

I combined the dress with various red accessories, mainly so that I could wear, and show you, my new red block-heeled vintage shoes. The heels had a few scuff marks, but these were easily removed. Apart from that, the shoes are in almost perfect condition and are quite comfortable too.

The clear perspex ring, enlosing an air bubble and swirls of green, yellow and blue, was found at a charity shop a couple of months ago. The bangle and bracelet were cheap retail finds.

We went charity shopping on Saturday, but that proved to be rather disappointing, so we stopped at the garden centre for some colourful plants to replace the ones that did not survive our holiday.













We got a pot of lemony yellow Surfinias, reddish pink Cosmos with feathery foliage, cheerful yellow Coreopsis and some Echinacea, which were greatly appreciated by the local population of bees.

As we needed to make space for the pots, we started cutting away some of the ivy which is running rampant in our garden. While we were doing so, we noticed that the arch, which leads to the area next to our kitchen, was sagging. It was a cheap metal one which we bought many years ago, and it had rusted through in a couple of places.

The arch with the Clematis montana in better days

It was carrying the weight of a tangled mess of  Clematis montana which had unfortunately died on us a year or two ago and was now being colonized by the ivy. There was nothing for it but to demolish the whole thing and it is unbelievable how much lighter that part of our garden is with the arch out of the way.

Sunday was the day of the flea market, which was being held in our street as well as the surrounding ones. The people who had the pitch in front of our house had parked their car on the pavement in such a way that we had problems getting out of our front door. We'll make sure to have our own pitch there next year!










I was again wearing  green: a knitted top with slightly puffy short sleeves and embroidered flowers in white and pink, which I combined with a brown flowery maxi skirt I bought for € 1 at Think Twice last week.

My accessories included a bracelet featuring an array of Saints, an orange textured plastic bangle, some amber beads and a vintage rattan handbag with a metal clasp and rattan cross-body strap.

The day started out cloudy but it was very humid, with occasional bursts of sunshine. At one point it was looking like rain, but fortunately the weather gods were lenient this time.

Jos's youngest daughter, who inherited the "thrifting" gene from her dad came all the way from her hometown, 14 kilometers away, on her e-bike, and my friend Princess Inez arrived on her bike as well.

Look at Princess Inez's cute white summer gloves, which she was inspired to wear by Jessica, whose blog she is an avid reader of.

I made my first buys within minutes: two fans for € 0,50 each, one of them a black lacy Spanish beauty.

My next find was a new-to-me red and white polka dot blouse with pussy bow, which you can see me trying on in one of the above collages.

I actually got the dark blue plastic bird brooch for free!

My other finds were:

- A pair of retro-style Clarks shoes, hardly worn, for € 7,-.  In fact, during lunch break today I saw a similar pair of Clarks shoes prices € 110,- which means I've saved a whopping  € 103,- !  Not that I'd ever pay that much for a pair of shoes ...

- A rack for storing pots of herbs, from the 1970s Emsa range we are collecting, complete with original pots

- A cute toffee tin with some cheerful Nasturtiums on the lid

- An orange "apple" ice bucket, which of course I will not be using for ice-cubes, as that would be far too obvious! No, I will use it to store some of my ever-expanding collection of jewellery
.

After a lazy lunch back at ours, we did a final round of the market. The sun had come out in the meantime and it was getting to be quite hot.

Look at us ladies of a certain age, fanning away to keep the hot flushes at bay ...

Since the hot weather has decided to stay with us for a couple more days, I have already made good use of that fan - my personal portable air conditioning - although I must say I've been getting some strange look on the bus.





In my next post, I will be giving you the final installment of our wet Welsh holiday, before it slowly recedes into the mists of time.

It's the end of the world as we know it

Well, of my world anyway. So to speak. Within the space of one week I found out that two of my favourite vintage shops are closing down, which I must admit was quite a shock to the system.

First up was Vintage Styling. This vintage clothing shop in the centre of Antwerp was a breath of fresh air. Until its launch in 2014, I was used to rummaging through rails of clothing in charity shops and lesser-quality vintage shops, eventually unearthing that one 1960s or 1970s gem.

Not so at Vintage Styling, where everything was beautifully laid out and where clothing was clean and did not require immediate repairs. The shop was more expensive than what I was used to pay, though, but not so that I wasn’t able to treat myself now and then.

Unfortunate though it is that the shop is expected to close end of June, until then they are holding a big sale in a bid to get rid of as many of their stock as possible. Dresses were down to € 10 and € 15 the last time I visited, which was last Thursday.

This is what I got:

A summery Diolen two-piece, the jacket of which has a little peplum.

and a dark green flowery dress, also made from Diolen.

A few days after Vintage Styling’s news, I read on Facebook that Blender Vintage Shop, which I blogged about in March (here), will be closing down at the end of the year as well.

As we have found many wonderful things at this shop, which we have been visiting once a month since the autumn of 2013, it will sorely be missed.

On Saturday, we decided to give the charity shops a miss, and pay our monthly visit to Blender Vintage Shop one day early.

This is what I wore: a handmade dress (not by me, of course) in a rather coarsely woven white polyester fabric, featuring huge orange and purple flowers.

The collar and hem are in a different, solid purple, fabric. I wore an orange cardigan with a white felt flower pinned to it, a purple necklace and dusky purple tights. Even the vintage slip I wore underneath was in a coordinating colour!

Blender Vintage Shop had a clothing sale on: if you bought three pieces, you got a fourth one for free.

I bought a short-sleeved blouse/jacket (paired here with a 1970s Trevira skirt), a patterned skirt in pink, lilac and blue and a yellow short-sleeved jumper, all shown here by Angelica, who has really been earning her keep this week.

They also had a rail of maxis, and now that I’m a convert, I couldn’t resist trying on some, deciding on this beauty for € 5.

I thought I wouldn't have any other finds to show you this time, but it turns out I was wrong. Actually, they are not finds, but gifts! As my friend Inez's mother Lydia recently had to move into a care home, she is in the process of sorting out her mother's flat and we were given some nice things, which we are only too happy to re-home.

A wool and cashmere black winter coat, which hopefully I won't be needing any time soon, and a summer "peignoir" in a gorgeous peachy pink colour.

We also came home with a little clock, a coffee filter holder (made by Emsa), a beautiful old tin and a gorgeous bedspread.

This wicker sewing basket needs a little bit of TLC on the outside but look at that fabulous lining! It is joined here by another little basket which will come in useful.

Finally, these lovely cushions, made by Lydia herself, which have found a good home on our sofa. Look at those amazing colours! Phoebe still has to get used to them, though. She's still giving the sofa angry looks and a very wide berth ...

Aren't cats funny creatures?