Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky

I've no idea how it is that weather forecasters are getting to keep their jobs.

It's one mistake after another with them. Anyone else would get the sack if they made even half of the mistakes these people do.

Yes, I know that even with the latest technology, the weather can still be pretty unpredictable, but then what is the use of pretending that it is and pulling the wool over people's eyes?

We'd been promised a little bit of sunshine all week, but the weekend had come and gone and still we were left high and dry.

Saturday was such a dark and dismal day that we had to resort to taking outfit photos inside the house again.
It was far too cold to take off my coat and show you the dress I was wearing underneath in our usual spot.

I'd chosen a dress I'd forgotten all about until I suddenly remembered it last week.

Only, I couldn't find it anywhere.

Turns out I hadn't hung it up in my wardrobe yet, as I was still deciding whether to keep it or not!











It's made from a rather coarsely woven fabric and just a tad on the big side, but I like its groovy pattern so I'm not going to part with it just yet!

I added my burnt orange tights, a brown cardi to which I'd pinned the orange flower brooch I bought at last weekend's flea market, and a strain of amber beads.















It started snowing lightly when we ventured outside but we wanted to make the most of the available daylight to make the rest of the outfit photos.

Nothing new here: I chose my fake-fur jacket which is light and comfortable to wear while providing me with the necessary warmth at the same time (best buy ever!), my burgundy woolly hat and my purple crocheted scarf.

The buildings with the chimney in the background used to be part of one of our village's breweries - all of them long gone - which were converted to offices and housing many years ago.

Where we were off to should come as no surprise: it was time again for our favourite indoor flea market in nearby Mechelen.

Although there were quite a few treasures to be found, we were very restrained and only made a couple of small purchases.

So, what did we get? Well, several brooches, of course. I bought five in total, four of which, including the celluloid Edelweiss, for € 1 each.

We weren't going to buy any more Lourdes souvenirs, but then I saw this miniature holy water font. With its Art Deco design, and priced at only € 2,50, it would have been quite silly to leave it behind.

These empty metal photographic film canisters, from three different manufacturers, including Gevaert, which was a Belgian company, are interesting little additions to our collection of old cameras and accessories, which I must tell you about some time.

Here's a closer look at the Gevaert one:

Gevaert is a local company, which was renamed Agfa-Gevaert in 1964 after a merger, and I'm passing its factories each day on my way home.

In addition, both my grandfathers spent their entire working lives at Gevaert.

The company has dropped the Gevaert part from its name in the meantime.

How sweet is this vintage Gevaert ad?














Tying in with the photo at the start of this post, this German ad for Gevaert isn't bad either.

I can assure you that the little man living inside our weather house doesn't have a camera, though.

In fact, he is quite a lazy so-and-so, hardly venturing outside his little cottage, and letting his wife do all the work.













Our final purchase was made from a huge pitch full of boxes containing old bottles in all shapes and sizes. While we were admiring the many quirky and colourful inkwells, codd-neck bottles and assorted perfume bottles, the seller told us they had been dug up from landfills, and he filled us in on the the time consuming task of cleaning and sorting them.

I selected this pretty little bottle with a weathered Bakelite stopper, as I liked its flower design.














I'm quite ignorant when it comes to perfumes, especially vintage ones, but as the name Mury was mentioned at the bottom, I soon discovered that it used to contain Narcisse Bleu, which was first introduced in 1925.

In fact, although I found pictures of Narcisse Bleu bottles in various designs, I only came across one or two pictures of mine, and so far I haven't been able to find out its age.

By the time you are reading this, the sun has finally made her long awaited appearance, restoring my belief that Spring is now definitely around the corner, bringing with it the first of the ... daffodils!

Beam me up, Scotty!

If you thought that after last Saturday's winter walk, we were going to keep it quiet on Sunday, I'm afraid you were wrong: we had a flea market to go to!

There was actually no way we were going to miss this one, as it's our favourite indoor market by far.

The dress I pulled from my wardrobe was another one in a polyester/wool blend, in a white patterned muted brown. It is fully lined, has a front pleat and still has its self fabric belt with fabric covered buckle. Still, I thought it looked a tiny bit boring, so I used an orange-brown vinyl belt instead to break it up.

I layered it with a burnt orange cardigan, to which I pinned one of my Camay brooches.

As luck would have it, there were some tights in my stash in almost exactly the same colour as the cardigan!












It was still as cold as on Saturday, but since we were going to spend most of the day indoors, there was no need for my fake fur coat. Instead, I chose the jacket of a mustard brown tweed suit, with soft brown fake fur collar and cuffs.

If anyone's interested, here I am in the tweed suit, which I last wore in late February 2016, just before I started blogging. Which is why it hasn't featured here yet ...

On to the flea market, which did not disappoint, even if there were less stalls than usual. It seems January really isn't a good month for flea markets ...

These are some of the things we got:

Now, let's have a more detailed look.

First up is this heavy brass family tree picture frame, its base decorated with a cluster of tiny flowers.

Currently empty, it will soon be filled with some old family photographs.









These Heatmaster sugar bowl and milk jug will go well with the insulated coffee pot we bought a couple of weeks ago.

We already have a gorgeous blue Heatmaster teaset we bought in Wales in 2015, the story of its aquisition you can find here. Not wanting to take any risks this time, we didn't think twice!

We also picked up this old-fashioned ink pot, which has a ridge designed for holding a pen.










It wouldn't be a succesful flea market if I hadn't found any brooches!

I'd been lusting after this Scottie dog brooch for months. There was no price tag, and it was in a glass topped display case, which usually isn't a good sign. Sure enough, after plucking up the courage to ask for the price, I walked away as I found it too expensive.

Seeing it was still there after all this time, I innocently offered a lower price, which was accepted, so he finally came home with me!

We ended up talking to the seller, who turned out to be a nice lady, especially as she thought I was in my late 30s! Needs new glasses, more like ...

Then there was this pair of navy gloves, which I got cheaper than the asking price after I pointed out a stain on one of them. I knew it would be easily removed, and it did!

As an aside: when out vintage clothes shopping, I usually carry a travel pack of make-up remover tissues. Whenever I stumble upon anything I like, but which has a stain, I unobtrusively try rubbing the stain with one of these. If it fades, I'm sure it can be washed out. If it doesn't budge, I know to leave the item behind.

I loved this faded Lourdes souvenir album, which was signed by its former owner, the priest of a Belgian village called Vollezele. I googled him, and it seems he was a priest there in the 1920s, and a famous one at that, as he was also a poet and biographer.

Judging from the clothing worn in the bottom right picture, I'd guess the album was even older, but so far I haven't been able to trace it.

Our final purchases were some 78 rpm records. Although they are not exactly rare, jazz 78s aren't that easy to find. At least not for next to nothing at flea markets, so we were quite pleased with this Count Basie one, which was in perfect condition too!

All in all, quite a decent haul, don't you think?

Go slowly

Second hand shopping cannot be hurried. I call it slow shopping. It needs time, patience, and a certain amount of dedication. There's no quick fix or instant gratification. Of course, everything can be found online nowadays, but that doesn't work for me. I love hunting for things "in the wild", to coin Goody's phrase ... The pleasure of finding the unexpected or finally stumbling upon one of your "holy grails" is incomparable!

I'd been looking for a pair of burgundy boots for almost two years. During that time, I did come across several pairs, but none were right.  If they weren't too small or too large, they were made for girls with stick legs, and wouldn't close. The heels were either too high or too low. Or they had too many pesky details. I quite like a plain boot!

Imagine my delight when last Friday, while out shopping with my friend Princess Inez, I came across the perfect pair at last!

They were made in Finland and have a cosy layer of woolly insulation inside.













I also bought this pussy-bow blouse ...

and this brooch ...

... both of which Princess Inez cleverly found for me.

Of course, I already had to wear the boots on Saturday! They went perfectly with my stripy green pussy-bow dress.

The dress came with a self-fabric belt, but it looked rather plain, so I added a burgundy vinyl one.

A dark red cardigan and ditto tights completed my outfit.

Before leaving the house, I grabbed this thick chocolate brown woollen jacket, which is part of a suit I charity shopped last year.













We tried taking photographs outside our garage this time. Although the wall I'm posing against isn't as picturesque as the one inside, I love the little tufts of moss growing on top of the wall and the autumn leaves in the background.

I'd spent the morning sorting out some of the things I brought home with me from my dad's house last week. So, when we went to the charity shop in the afternoon, we took a boxful of no-longer-loved china, glasses and cutlery with us in order to make some much-needed space.

Perhaps because of that, for the first time in weeks the Gods of the charity shops smiled down upon us.

We knew we'd be alright when, just minutes after walking into the shop, we spotted this kitsch Lourdes wall frame for our collection.












A pair of black retro style lace-up booties, a gorgeous dark green velvet jacket and a Pringle scarf came home with me as well.

The jacket actually complimented the dress I was wearing like a dream, so I couldn't resist posing in it when we got home, although the artificial lighting wasn't ideal for taking photographs.

As you can see, I am also wearing the booties ...















On Sunday, we had an indoor flea market in Antwerp to look forward to. As we hadn't been there since last Spring, we were rather excited, especially as I'd read on their website that it was fully booked.

A quick peek at what I was wearing. The dropped waist dress came from Blender Vintage Shop. It was in my "I'm not sure" pile, but I decided to give it another go. I'm still not sure though ... Now, should it stay or should it go?

I've been racking my brain, but I can't for the life of me remember where I bought the brooch.

Speaking of brooches, I was glad to see that the "brooch lady" was having her usual pitch at the flea market. I happily browsed through her stash, which she keeps in folders, and after some debate I decided on these four:

The rest of the flea market was rather disappointing and my only other purchase was this shiny black vinyl handbag. I love its decorative white metal frame.

All in all, not a bad haul at all last weekend.

As I've had quite a hectic week so far, I'm now going to plonk myself down in front of the telly for some mindless entertainment.

See you soon!

Senses working overtime

Life has been quite a rollercoaster of emotions of late. With nerve-ends still raw from the impact of my father's death, which I had somehow underestimated, I've been feeling on edge and slightly overwhelmed by things.

Back at the office, it's been an effort to concentrate, as I'm constantly diverted by my racing thoughts. This is not my usual state of mind: I may be a natural worrywart, but a scatterbrain I'm not.

Meanwhile, a start has been made with sorting out my dad's estate, which promises to become a long and winding road.

In order to distract myself from too many negative thoughts, I try to carry on as normal as possible, which means that my charity shopping adventures continue regardless. And so does this blog, in which I find so much solace. 

Last week, I cashed in my friend's gift voucher.

Vintage, velvet, versatile, not to mention very colourful: this suit has got it all!

Vaguely reminiscent of a vintage Barbie outfit I own, I dressed up one of my dolls in it. The outfit, consisting of a sleeveless vest and culottes, rather than a jacket and skirt, dates from 1971 and is called "Groovin' Gauchos".

Not owning a fuchsia top, I combined my suit with a pink charity shopped Karen Millen jumper. I think I came up trumps on the boots, though!

The weather was mainly sunny for Saturday's charity shopping trip, but an autumn chill was definitely in the air.

I wore a short sleeved textured polyester mod dress in olive green, accented with two buttons at the dropped waist.

It has a rather tattered "Joan Curtis" label.














Racking my brains for a suitable colour to combine it with, I came up with pink accessories and a mustard three-quarter sleeve cardigan, to which I clipped a fuchsia fabric hair flower.

The coat, which is perfect for this time of year, is Finnish, and I love its label which proclaims that it's "for ladies of fashion"!

Outfit details:
Dress, coat and scarf: Think Twice
Shoes: Vintage Styling
Cardigan, ring and hair flower: retail
Handbag and brooch: flea market
Pearls: my great-aunt Josephine

Between shops, we stopped for a picnic at the art deco water tower in the neighbouring village of Reet.

Climb it and you have a bird's eye view of the surrounding countryside as well as of one of the few remaining working clay pits in the area.

The heels of my vintage shoes did not allow for a climb this time, as the outside stairs are made of perforated metal. It's just manageable, what with my vertigo, but dainty shoes are a no-no!

As for the charity shopping itself, expectations weren't high, but we still managed to find a couple of things, spending a total of € 11,50, which proves that retail therapy doesn't have to be expensive.

The first thing that caught my eye was this cheeky ceramic poodle decanter, with six hooks on his back for hanging cups.

I almost left him behind as the cups were missing, when Jos found four of them on another shelf.

A quick trawl on the Internet dates him from the 1950s or early 1960s.

This Lourdes thermometer was next.

Surely, miracles must start happening soon with all the Lourdes memorabilia we have accumulated!

I will keep you informed on that one ...














The red wicker basket with polka dot lining will come in handy for storing little bits and bobs.

We were succesful at the next shop as well, where this pretty flowery coffee pot was waiting for us.

A good rummage unearthed a 1920s style cloche hat and a slim scarf, which are shown here on the as yet nameless new addition to our collection of "heads".

She is currently keeping Twiggy company on the mantelpiece in our spare room.

Let's end this post with a fitting quote for this time of year:

"Then summer fades and passes, and October comes. Will smell smoke then, and feel an unsuspected sharpness, a thrill of nervous, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure."
~Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

Trying to blend in with nature's autumn colours