Dennis the Menace

We'd only just waved goodbye to cantankerous Ciara, when another storm came knocking on our door. His name was Dennis, and like his cartoon counterpart, he turned out to be a real menace.

There was no sign of him on Saturday during the day, though, which was mainly dry, so that we could nip into the garden for outfit photos before our guests arrived. We were expecting the lady I briefly mentioned in a previous post, who would come all the way from Holland with her husband to buy some of my stock of vintage clothing.

My outfit was a repeat of earlier that week because, yes, in spite of owning a massive wardrobe, I still do wear most of my clothes more than once, though preferably not two days running!

I'd fallen in love with the raspberry red dress with its print of white and yellow dots and dashes at Episode, a Dutch chain of vintage shops, early last year.

I love its fit and flare silhouette and, of course, those cute berry shaped buttons. The yellow bits in the print invite it to be accessorized with yellow, which I did in abundance.

My favourite, round-buckled, yellow belt made another appearance, and I wore one of my yellow beaded necklaces as well as a yellow and white swirled glass ring.

And I wore not one, but two brooches! While the yellow plastic bird is contemporary, the brooch I pinned to my - yellow! - cardigan is definitely vintage. Not only does the lady depicted on it have a 1940s hairstyle, the brooch actually is 1940s, and of the make do and mend variety, as the lady has been hand painted onto a scrap of black fabric.

That night, Mr. D. started taunting us with fierce gusts of wind, which had increased in intensity by the morning. But we had things to do and places to go, in particular February's edition of our favourite indoor flea market.

The temperatures were once again balmy so, even if the stormy weather did away with any thoughts of Spring, I wore one of my lighter weight Winter coats. The cream based coat, with its light blue and tan plaid pattern, has been a wardrobe stalwart for many years and is, in spite of telltale signs of being on its last legs, still getting regular outings. It was a charity shop find and although I can't remember what I paid for it, it can't have been much, so that its cost per wear is now definitely in the negative.

Same goes for the purple embroidered crushed velvet scarf I picked up at a flea market for € 0,10 five or six years ago.

Underneath the coat, I wore a psychedelic print dress, with shades of orange, lilac, turquoise and burgundy, one of last Winter's Think Twice finds. For my accessories, I had a wealth of colours to choose from, ultimately picking turquoise for my opaques, necklace and ring.

Turquoise was repeated once more in the brooch I pinned to my cardigan. Again, the brooch is contemporary, bought from the same shop as the yellow bird brooch worn with Saturday's outfit.

My cardigan, in a rich chocolate brown edged in yellow, was a charity shop find, while the mock croc belt in the same colour was a recent retail sales bargain.

At the flea market venue, we parked our car as far away from any trees as possible, in case Dennis would do his worst, thinking we'd better be safe than sorry! Then, while holding on to our hats, we made our way towards the entrance.

It is almost a given that we didn't leave the flea market empty handed. With so many wonderful and often quite affordable goodies on offer, it would be very difficult not to give in to temptation.

So let's start with a group photo as usual.

When I posted this photo on Instagram, Suzy asked me what the item on the right was, and I'm sure some of you might be intrigued as well, so I'm no longer leaving you in suspense.

It is a vintage Dutch enamelware tabletop stove, which is fuelled by kerosine, and is typically used for slow cooking stews and the like. They usually command much higher prices than the € 6 we paid for it and, although we are using it purely for decorative purposes, it is complete and still in working order, only needing a bit of TLC. Doesn't it look lovely with our vintage enamelware teapot?

We'd hardly walked in when I spotted this wicker, leather-handled handbag. I dithered over it while Jos briefly returned to the car to retrieve something we'd forgotten, until the seller took pity on me and let me have it at a reduced price. Who was I to say no then?

Another addition to our accidental Kodak Brownie collection joined us about half way through the market.

This one, which is in perfect condition with hardly a scratch on its moulded bakelite body and still packed away inside its original box, is a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera. It was very popular back in the 1950s, and sold like hot cakes for over a decade.  Its first version, which ran from 1949 to 1951, was a non-flash model. Ours, although it does not include a flash as such, cleary is the second version, which ran until 1961.

I love trawling the Internet for vintage advertising, so here's one I'd like to share with you.

And oh, go on, here's another one, in colour this time!

The small box decorated with morning glories is an empty jewellery box from a long-gone Antwerp jewellery shop, which was really far too pretty to be left behind. It was picked up from Rita's stall, where I also found one of this edition's batch of brooches.

A clear case of "my nan used to have one of those", I pounced on this € 2 celluloid figurine of a Japanese lady in a rikshaw being pulled by a barefoot man wearing a parasol-like hat. Speaking of parasols, the poor lady is sadly missing hers, which is probably why we got if for such a low price.

And yes, there was a very similar one living on my paternal grandparents' sideboard!

I did rather well on the brooches front, finding five out of seven for € 12 at the same stall, presided over by a lady who always engages me in a rather lengthy and mostly one-way chat, while I'm trying to keep my wits about browsing her table full of costume jewellery.

The plastic top hat and boater, the umbrella and the Autum leaf all came from that particular stall, as did the tiny pair of clogs, while the Paris souvenir brooch was the one I bought from Rita.

And oh, isn't the shrimp one unusual? This came from a random stall in one of the final aisles.

The pair of tiny clogs, which sadly came without its brooch pin, is actually a Bruges souvenir, with the clog on the right displaying the city's coat of arms and the one on the left having a picture of the belfry.

Now, all I need to do is find a pin to attach them to ...

I photographed all our treasures while trying to ignore pesky Dennis, who was making the windows and shutters rattle and generally making an almighty racket outside.

Thankfully, no damages were sustained, but my heart goes out to all those people who have been flooded in the UK, and in particular in our beloved Shropshire. 

Dry weather, preferably with a bit of sunshine, is desperately needed!

On such a Winter's day

"There’s a certain slant of light,

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes."

~ Emily Dickinson, #82 (1924)

Nearly a century has passed since Ms. Dickinson wrote these words, but they hit home nonetheless.

Winter afternoons, especially those of the granite grey variety, have the tendency to oppress, as if a heavy weight is holding you down, making your limbs feel leaden and a fog descend inside your head. We've been having far too many of such days lately, grey and wet affairs, but not nearly cold enough to be classified as true Winter's days.

And then you wake up one morning with the sun piercing through the layer of clouds, and it's as if a curtain opens up inside you, lifting your mood almost instantly. 

We had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of such a day on the Sunday before last, when plans were afoot for going to our monthly indoor flea market. 

Some minor, overnight frost had cooled down the temperature considerably, warranting the wearing of some long neglected Winter woollies. 

And why not wear my faithful old tweed suit? It had been quite a while since I wore it as a whole, rather than just the jacket which, as it happens, I last wore on a walk during the Christmas holidays.

When I found it on the rails at Think Twice many years ago, I didn't actually think twice and snapped it up without any hesitation. I fell in love with its classic shape, its mustard colour speckled with red and brown, its caramel buttons and, of course, its furry collar and cuffs.

The jacket's belt loops bear evidence of the fact that it was once accompanied by a belt, now long lost in the mists of time. This allows me to use one of my own choosing, and in keeping with the rest of my outfit, I opted for a purple one.

The jacket's collar was the perfect canvas for trying out the fur clip my bosses were kind enough to give me.  Copper and more purple, could it get any better than that?

At first, I wasn't sure what to wear with the skirt and I tried several blouses and jumpers, none of which looked right. I was about to give up and wear something else entirely, when I saw this purple vintage jumper winking at me from the top shelf. Initially, I thought it would be too warm, but then I remembered it can be quite chilly in the cavernous flea market venue. 

I love the diamond pattern at the yoke, each containing an embroidered flower. Admittedly, I did hide one of these with my floral brooch. 

The zebra print belt added a whimsical touch, as did the diamond patterned purple tights, which were a gift from Kezzie.

OK, I'm ready to go now!

After our initial disappointment as there seemed to be less stalls than usual, we soon got into the swing of things, especially when I found a brooch less than a minute after walking in. It was the green Merhorse on the bottom right and you will be getting a much better view of it later in this post.

Childhood nostalgia for Jos, who fell for this rectangular carton box full of magic lantern slides.

Our friend Tania's stall always yields one or two treasures, this time in the form of a vintage collapsible wirework egg basket. Here it is among the other kitchenalia in Dove Cottage's kitchen, ready to provide the eggs for one of Jos's famous English breakfasts.

At the end of the very last aisle, we spied this Kodak Brownie camera on a stall presided over by a couple who lives in our village.

It's a Kodak Brownie "Holiday Flash", a popular camera with a moulded brown and tan Bakelite body, which was produced between 1953 and 1962.

It did not come with its flash, but for the sake of this blog, we attached the flash of another Brownie camera from our collection.

There are quite a few Kodak Brownie cameras among our modest collection. The flash belongs to a 1950s Brownie Starlet camera, which Jos found, complete and still in its box, in the waste disposal unit of the block of flats we used to live in back in the 1990s.

Tania's friend Rita's stall tempted us with this stunning Art Deco style bonbonnière, which has found its rightful place on the 1930s side-table in our sitting room, where it is being kept company by our 1950s Bakelite radio.

No more handbags, I told myself, but did I listen? You bet I didn't, as how could I possibly not fall for this fabulous bottle green bag? 

Well, I was always going to allow myself the exception of out of the ordinary ones like this. It has got a quality seal inside which says that it was made in Belgium.

I've already mentioned the Merhorse brooch, but I found more. Here they are all grouped together for you to pick a favourite.

Let's have a closer look.

One of my star finds is the oval brooch on the top left, with its leaping stag. It turns out that the shimmering blue background is made from ... butterfly wings! This kind of jewellery, usually made from the South American Morpho butterfly, was popular from the Art Deco period up to the 1960s.

Apparently, butterfly wing jewellery is still being made today, using butterflies from butterfly farms. If this sounds cruel, then note that these farms are considered as a form of environmental protection of endangered rain forest, allowing more eggs to hatch than when left in the wild. The butterflies then die naturally of old age, which is around 130 days, after which their wings are used to create this amazing jewellery.

The Merhorse is made from ceramic, and is definitely one of my favourites, not in the least because of his gorgeous green colour. Isn't he fabulous? And definitely vintage, judging from his trombone clasp.

While both the butterfly brooch and the Merhorse were separate finds, all the others were picked up from the same jewellery heaped stall, one of our regular stops, for a silly total of € 12.

There was a fearsome cross between a big cat and some kind of mythical beast (top right) and a fabulously dressed and behatted lady carrying a bouquet of flowers (bottom left).

The coppery duo of delicate, slightly tarnished, pearl-hearted flowers is my particular favourite, and might very well be the oldest one of the bunch, while the heavy gold leaf and the blue enamelled floral one are both more recent.

Well, that's all I have time for now.

There will be one more January catch-up from me in February. Until then we will be off on a short break next week, so no need to send out a search party if you don't hear from me for a couple of days!

See you on the other side!