Dreamcoat

Coming back home from sunny, blue-skied Bruges on Saturday the 8th of November was a bit of a let-down, particularly since I was plagued by that pesky cold I told you about a couple of posts ago.

Having said our goodbyes to Veronique after breakfast, we were expecting to get home well before midday.  However, as extensive roadworks were taking place in the north of Antwerp that weekend, our Satnav decided to make a detour via Brussels, making our journey just that little bit longer.

I wasted no time in getting our stuff unpacked while Jos went food shopping in the afternoon, but then I started feeling unwell, a tickle in my throat announcing the fact that I was coming down with a cold.

I thought I'd escaped the worst when I felt reasonably well upon getting up on Sunday. 

It was mostly overcast with the odd sunny spell and highs of around 14°C. Still, I didn't leave the house all day, catching up with blogland and gearing myself for the ordeal of going back to work on Monday. 

As for my outfit, I opted for a comfy skirt and blouse combo, with both the grey and red tartan circle skirt and the King Louie blouse supplied by the gods of the charity shops.

I enhanced the tiny pops of red in my skirt and blouse with a wine coloured beaded necklace and elasticated belt with massive white metal buckle (both charity shopped). I was wearing not one but two brooches that day. The plastic cat brooch got the company of a red-hearted white metal one which I used to tame the collar of my blouse.  

By mid-afternoon it became clear that I spoke too soon. My scratchy throat might have done a runner, I was now suffering from an alternately blocked and leaking nose, lots of sneezing, watery eyes and an annoying and persistent little cough. Not fun at all. 

There was nothing for it but to join Bess on the sofa. 

It was a wrench getting out of bed at an ungodly hour again on Monday, particularly as the day promised to be a mind-numbingly gloomy one. Courtesy of my cold, I was feeling a bit zombie-ish but otherwise ok. As usual, there was lots to catch up on at the office, but I'd managed to get through most of it by the end of the day. 

Which was a good thing as Tuesday was the 11th of November, Armistice Day, which is a public holiday here in Belgium.

Again, it was dark and gloomy and, although the day's highs of 10°C weren't too bad at all, again I didn't leave the house all day. 

My cold was still very much present, but there's no rest for the wicked, as I actually had things to do.

But first things first: I was wearing a burnt orange polyester dress, closing with a zip at the front. The zip pull is missing, but I can't be bothered to replace the zip, especially as it's still in good working order. Replacing the zip pull is out of the question as well, as there's hardly anything left to attach it to. But then I had the brainwave of using a single, orphan earring instead.

The dress's print has bottle green in it, so I piled on the green accessories. 

Just before we were off to Bruges, I was contacted by Patricia, a lovely lady who lives in our village, is into vintage and always buys lots of stuff from my flea market stall. She'd asked if she could come around for a rummage some time and we'd agreed on Friday the 14th; Making use of my day off, I spent it going through my flea market boxes and wardrobe(s), selecting some items I was ready to let go.

More about that later ...

Meanwhile, it was back to work on Wednesday, which was a rare sunny day with a balmy 16°C temperature. As my cold, which had taken a backseat on Tuesday, was back with a vengeance, I went to pick up some cold relief medicines during my lunch break, stopping for a rummage at Think Twice on my way back to the office.

Obviously, there was no way I could leave this gorgeous orange handbag behind!

Although there are no less than five Think Twice (or T2 as they are commonly known) shops in Antwerp, I do not visit them all on a regular basis. Most of my purchases are made in the two shops which are only a couple of minutes' walk from the office. 

A slightly longer walk takes me to the shop in Antwerp's vibrant Kammenstraat which offers a refreshing alternative to mainstream shopping with its array of independent boutiques. In spite of the gloom and impending rain, this is where I was headed during Thursday's lunch break.

My self-imposed coat ban proved to be futile when I came face to face with this stunner of a coat. Nevertheless, I hummed and hawed before deciding on its purchase as it's got a couple of issues. When I finally took it to the check-out, I ended up chatting to the shop assistants. It was at that point that my beloved sage green beret, which I'd taken off in the fitting rooms, must have fallen out of my bag. I only realized I'd lost it when I was going home that night, but I had no idea where. Fast forward to three weeks later, when I visited the shop again and was stopped and asked whether the beret was mine. They'd kept it for me all that time and I couldn't have been happier to have been reunited with it. The girls were duly rewarded with chocolates!

It was only when I got the coat home that I discovered a Bernat Klein tag inside. A bit of research revealed that Bernat Klein CBE (6 November 1922 – 17 April 2014) was a Serbian born textile designer and painter. Based in Scotland, Klein supplied textiles to haute couture designers in the 1960s and 1970s, and later sold his own clothing collections. Here's a link to the Bernat Klein Foundation if you would like to find out more. Please do not blame me if this makes you go down a rabbit hole like I did.

His obituary in The Scotsman was calling him the colour wizard of the Scottish textile industry who brought tweed to world's catwalks. 

And I've got one of his coats for less than € 30!  The photo doesn't really do it justice, but I'll show it to you properly once I've fixed the partly detached lining and slightly wonky hem.

Edit: I've added a close-up of its glorious tweed, taken when light conditions were better.

Anyway, after this short on and off working week, Friday the 14th of  November rolled along in no time.

It might have been gloomy and mizzly outside, I had no intention of leaving Dove Cottage's cozy confines anyway. I spent the morning compiling a rail of clothes, making sure to include some coats and jackets, as that is what Patricia was after in particular.

We chatted over cups of coffee while she was browsing and adding more and more items to her pile of likely candidates. After trying things on, she ended up buying two coats, three jackets, three dresses and some blouses!

My dress, with its glorious mix of abstract stripes on a burgundy background, is an old Think Twice find acquired pre-blog on a Friday afternoon shopping trip with my friend Inez. 

Although the stripes invite it to be accessorized with almost any colour you can think of, I often opt for turquoise, even if that colour doesn't actually appear in the dress's print. The flower embossed belt and the turquoise-rimmed floral brooch were charity shop and flea market finds respectively. The necklace, however, was a sales bargain from the high street last Summer.

Although at 16°C it was still unseasonably warm, it was a dismal and utterly wet day we woke up to on Saturday.

I spent the morning pottering around upstairs, folding away the unsold items in the flea market boxes which live in the built-up cupboard in our bedroom.

It was almost inevitable that one or two things ended up back in my wardrobe, case in point being the dress I wore that day. I know, what was I thinking?

My accessories were having a hard time competing with the dress's exuberant flower garden pattern. In the end, I opted for off-white in the form of a beaded necklace, vintage flower brooch and chunky plastic ring. 

We were itching to go for a rummage at the charity shops after lunch, but as Opnieuw & Co., our local chain of shops, were having a Christmas event which we wanted to avoid at all cost, we drove to the small charity shop in Reet instead. And no, I didn't find a single thing!

Back at home, we went to feed our neighbours' cats Bobby, Billie and Pip, as their personnel was off gallivanting around Paris.

This was followed with a cuddling session with our very own pampered little feline!

Yet another dismal day awaited us on Sunday, but as it looked set to remain dry, we were adamant to go for a much needed head-clearing walk. The temperature had halved over night, leaving us with highs of just 8°C, which were much more appropriate for the time of year.

Our walk took us to the park in the nearby town of Boom, which is only a 15-minute drive from home.

The earthy, musky-sweet scent of Autumn leaves greeted us once we stepped through the gates, and surely there's nothing like a good old crunch through a deep pile carpet of them to lift the spirits.

 

Apart from the odd dog walker, the utter greyness of the day must have kept people at home, so that it wasn't hard to imagine being somewhere far away from humanity, with only the trees in their Autumnal splendour and the resident waterfowl for company.

There's a brook running through the park, interspersed by one or two shallow waterfalls whose frothy cascades of water adds to the magical atmosphere of the park.

Much to our delight, when we got home it was still light enough for outfit photos without having to rely on harsh artificial light, which I'm sure is the bane of many of us at this time of year.

My dress, which is yet another old Think Twice find, is a thin yet deceptively warm one in a wool and polyester Trevira blend. Its dark green background is enhanced with swirls of orange and greyish green. A sage green long-sleeved t-shirt was layered underneath.

Again, I used a brooch (picked up from a flea market in Carmarthen, Wales) to tame its collar. Both my necklace and belt were charity shop finds.

There's nothing much to tell you about the working week that followed, apart from the fact that it remained gloomy and mizzly, with temperatures between 5 and 7°C.

There was the usual cappuccino catch-up with Inez on Tuesday, followed by a round of the rails at Think Twice, where I fell for this green and yellow tweed skirt.

Then, on Wednesday, I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in person in at least 40 years. He'd moved to Spain many years ago and we lost touch. However, we subsequently reconnected on Facebook in 2009, which is why we instantly recognized each other when we were both walking along Antwerp's main shopping thoroughfare. 

I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

So, that's if for now. I'll try and squeeze in a final November update before Christmas. 

See you soon!

In Bruges

We woke up to a sky of deepest blue, its colour appearing even more vivid against the amber and gold Autumn foliage. The weather forecast couldn’t have been better, speaking of highs of 18°C and promising a day which, if one disregards the fact that signs of advanced Autumn were all around us, could almost have been considered summery. After weeks of grey and rainy days, we couldn’t have planned our holiday at a better time if we’d tried. The world – or at least Bruges – was our oyster that day and Veronique’s breakfast was awaiting us. 

So, what could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot, it seems as, after a fitful night’s sleep, Jos had woken up feeling tired and queasy.

We were the only guests for the first two nights, so breakfast was set out exclusively for us. Apart from a selection of cereals, homemade granola, fruit and yoghurt, homemade bread, rolls and croissants, Veronique had produced a fingerlickingly good chocolate cake. Set out on our table was a selection of charcuterie, cheeses and smoked salmon, all of which were making my mouth water. Not Jos’s though, although he did do his best to at least eat something in spite of his appetite having gone AWOL.

After breakfast, we took our time getting ready for the 20-minute or so drive into Bruges, parking at the inner-city car park at the ‘t Zand square. There’s a cheaper alternative at the railway station from where there’s free public transport to the city centre. However, we are prepared to pay somewhat over the odds for the luxury of being within a short walk of the majority of Bruges’ tourist attractions.

We hadn’t made any definite plans on what to do apart from earmarking a couple of museums in case it should rain. As the weather gods clearly didn’t have any intention in that direction, we were just going to wander and see where our feet would take us. 

There’s no avoiding the hordes of tourists who flock to Bruges any given day of the week or time of year, but we still wanted to give a wide birth to the main shopping thoroughfares leading to the tourist honey pots around the Market Square. Instead, we walked along some quiet back streets into the general direction of the Beguinage.

Still not feeling up to much, Jos was lagging behind while I tried to keep my own spirits up by taking photographs of anything which grabbed my attention, starting with an armada of paper boats floating upon the water of 't Putje, a tiny square in the shadow of the Concert Hall.

Our feet ultimately took us to the Minnewater (a.k.a. the Lake of Love), where we found Jos a sun-trap of a bench on which to sit and watch the world go by. 

People once believed that water nymphs (minnen in old Flemish) lived here, and thus the lake acquired its name. Add to that a tragic love story, mysterious trees and an abundance of greenery and you get a place steeped in romance. 

The tragic legend recounts the tale of Minna, a young woman who was in love with a warrior of a neighbouring tribe. Minna ran away from her father to avoid being forced to marry someone else. She ran into the forest and found her lover, only to die in his arms of exhaustion from her journey.

The Minnewater is also home to the famous Bruges swans. 

After the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482, Bruges went through some troubled times. The townspeople, enraged by the new taxes imposed by Mary's successor, Emperor Maximilian of Austria, rose in revolt against their new ruler. As Maximilian was locked up in House Craenenburg on the Market Square, he helplessly witnessed the torture and eventual beheading of his bailiff, Pieter Lanchals, whose surname translates as long neck. Legend has it that the Emperor eventually escaped and later took his revenge on the local people by forcing them to keep long necks, or swans, on the canals for eternity. 

In reality, however, swans have been swimming on the canals since the beginning of the 15th Century, when they were seen as a status symbol of the city’s power and wealth.

The picturesque building which meets its reflection in the lake (above, bottom left) is the Sashuis (or Lock-Keeper's House)  used to regulate the city's water supply The current Sashuis was built in the 16th Century to replace a 13th Century lock complex. It has been out of use since the 1970s but the three sluice gates are still clearly visible. 

Leaving Jos topping up his Vitamin D levels on that lakeside bench, I decided to walk into the direction of the bridge the eagle-eyed of you might be able to spot between the trees on the bottom right in the above collage, and which lies at the opposite end of the Minnewater.

There were picture postcard views everywhere I looked, and I couldn't resist taking snapshots of the reflections in the mirror-like surface of the lake. Quite a few trees seemed to be reluctant to let go of their leaves and, if one half-closed one's eyes, one could even imagine it being at the tail-end of Summer rather than the year's penultimate month. But then the quality of light - so typical of a sunny Autumn day - and the seasonal show of reds, yellows and golds were giving the game away. 

The picturesque building on the east bank of the lake is Minnewater Castle, previously known as Castle de la Faille and built in neo-Gothic style in 1893. Opened in 2015 as a brasserie with a lake-side terrace, we had the pleasure of enjoying cups of cappuccino here on a bitterly cold day back in March 2022. 

Upon reaching the bridge which marks the end of the lake, one comes face to face with the imposing Poertoren (Gunpowder Tower). The defensive tower, which was built in 1397 and stands 18 metres tall, was originally part of one of the city gates and was later converted into a gunpowder store. 

The bridge leads into the leafy Minnewater Park, where I took one of the winding paths to take me back to the start. I stopped to take a photo or two whenever a view of the lake opened up, and ultimately passed the rather forlorn looking Minnewater Castle (above, top right). The latter didn't seem to be open so that we would have to look elsewhere when in need of sustenance.

After touching base with Jos on his bench and making sure he was ok, I decided to join the hordes of tourists who were taking a guided tour of the Beguinage. As they all seemed to walking into the direction of the main gate, I took the one opposite the Lock-Keeper's House, and walked along a dead-end street with a couple of houses called de steert (transl. the tail).

Years of practice makes it look as if I was on my own here, but trust me, I wasn't. The place was inundated with groups of tourists who were being entertained by knowledgeable guides speaking every language under the sun.

The  'Princely Beguinage Ten Wijngaerde' was founded in 1245. This little piece of world heritage was once the home of the beguines, emancipated lay-women who nevertheless led a pious and celibate life. Their life in the beguinage was lived in silence as much as possible. 

Today it is still inhabited by a few nuns and by single women who choose to live a serene lifestyle. 

Leaving de steert, the Beguinage enfolds as a rough circle of delightful whitewashed houses surrounding a central green. In Spring, this is a mass of daffodils, which is quite a magical sight. 

Before leaving the beguinage, I paid a brief visit to its church (top and bottom left and bottom centre).

The 13th-Century St. Elisabeth church was originally Gothic, but almost completely burned down in the 16th Century due to a fallen candle. Some baroque interior elements were added during its reconstruction in the 17th Century.

The shrine to Our Lady of Banneux, virgin of the poor (above, top right), is hidden away in a little chapel in the front garden of one of the beguinage's cottages. 

It was almost 1.30 pm when I finally rejoined Jos, and my stomach was audibly rumbling. Walking away from the Minnewater on the picturesque Wijngaardplein we spotted an empty table on the terrace of a restaurant called La Dentelliere and decided to look no further. 

Jos still wasn't hungry and the pasta dish I'd ordered turned out to be fairly basic, so that it wasn't the most enjoyable experience ever, apart from the fact that we were able to eat outside in bright Autumnal sunshine on the 6th of November!

Wijngaardplein is the place where the horse carriage rides stop for a breather. The horses can be seen enjoying a short break from their work here and being given buckets of feed which the poor creatures need to share with the eternally famished flocks of pigeons. 

The afternoon was well advanced by the time we (or rather, I) finished lunch, so we decided to walk back to 't Zand.  I'd devised a little route which would take us past some Godshuisjes (Alms Houses), but unfortunately these turned out to be closed off as they were in the process of being restored.

Eventually we arrived in the peaceful Arents Courtyard, which is surrounded by the Arentshuis after which it was named and which has temporary exhibitions of fine art, the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady), and the the city palace of the lords of Gruuthuse, now an award-winning museum.

The chap on the top left in the above collage is one of the The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Belgian sculptor Rik Poot (1924-2006).

From here, we wanted to cross into the courtyard in front of the Gruuthuse museum, but once again we found our plans thwarted by the omnipresent roadworks. Sigh! 

I still managed to take a couple of snapshots of the former palace's magnificent façade.

Then we took a deep breath and entered tourist land, crossing the Dijver canal and making our way towards the Market Square and along Bruges' main shopping street until we reached the car park. 

Back at the B&B, we rested our feet until it was time to devour the rest of Veronique's tapas board. I'm sure you'll be glad to know that Jos managed to eat some of it and that in the course of the evening he suddenly declared he was feeling much better!

I'll be back with a more cheerful report of our second day, but in the meantime here's a peek of what I was wearing underneath that checked coat ...

Checking in

Hello dear friends and readers! I'm back ... sort of!

First of all, thank you for your lovely and heartfelt comments on my previous post, most of which made me cry - in a good way, I hasten to add - to some degree. I cannot even begin to express what your support has meant to me.

I know I more or less promised to keep reading your blogs and try to comment now and again, but  unfortunately this never happened.

At times, it was as if I was living in a paralell world, where blogland felt like a foreign country, one I used to visit many years ago rather than the couple of weeks of my absence.

After a dismal Spring and a decidedly under par Summer, the weather gods decided to treat us to a spell of Indian Summer, with skies of the deepest blue, glorious sunshine and temperatures which at one point climbed to an unseasonable 21°C.

Deep down, my battered brain must have registered all this as I somehow managed to take a handful of photos with my phone's camera while I was going through the motions. Old habits die hard, I guess, even if everything I did was on autopilot.

You see, in the week after I published my last post, Jos's conditioned got much, much worse, until on the Friday of that particular week he was rushed to A&E. Apparently, the antibiotics he got for his UTI hadn't managed to clear the infection, resulting in complications which ultimately lead to sepsis.

His son stayed with him while he was put on a drip and submitted to test after test until finally at around midnight he was allocated a night room in A&E.

Thankfully, his blood values had improved significantly by Saturday morning, when he messaged me to say he'd had a good night's sleep and had even - wait for it - enjoyed a proper breakfast. 

While I was visiting him that afternoon, he was moved from A&E to a room on the urology department, where he would stay until the end of the week, getting better and stronger every day. They actually wanted to send him home earlier but there was no way he would be able to tackle the dangerously steep staircase up to our first floor bedroom so that we needed to find a way around that first.

My days were a whirlwind of ticking tasks off my to-do list, working half-days at the office, then rushing home for an hour and a half before taking the bus to hospital. And although Jos's condition continued to improve, I kept lying awake with worry half the night.

The hospital, designed in 1975, and ultimately opened in 1979, is a typical 1970s concrete structure, juxtaposed with imaginatively planted green spaces, which I couldn't resist photographing while walking along its endless corridors to Jos's third-floor room.

It was obvious that Bess was confused and missing her Dad. She slept on my bed for most of the night and insisted on napping on my lap as I lay trying to read on the sofa. 

I'd started Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue but it was more than my brain could tackle, so I selected some easy feel-good reading from my pile in the form of a Maeve Binchy novel charity shopped in Shropshire.

After much head scratching, a solution was found for the sleeping problem, so that Jos would be able to come home on Saturday. 

It was decided that a hospital bed would be installed in our dining room. Having a small and full to bursting home, this posed some logistical problems, as it meant we would have to put our dining room table and Lloyd Loom style chairs in storage. Enter our lovely neighbours Wes, Michèle and Karin, who helped me dismantle the tabel and take it, as well as the chairs, to Karin's spacious garden room.

Although initially it looked quite sterile and unappealing, I managed to make things look cozy. So much so that Jos now has to share his bed with Bess! In fact, I think it might be her current favourite spot as she is reclining on the bed as I type!

As I don't drive and the nearest supermarket is just under a kilometer away, I am now the proud owner of an upmarket shopping trolley which, now that Jos is able to drive again, might soon become obsolete. 

I still did the honours last Sunday, which was his first full day back at home. I even made a slight detour to the local park along the way, as obviously I needed to thank the lady in the shrine for her good works!

For the first time in weeks, it actually felt good to be alive again, so that I could finally enjoy the glorious sights and scents of Autumn.

We even went for a short walk up the street that afternoon ...

Fast forward one week, and things are definitely on the up, although there will still be a long way to go.

The main thing is that Jos has got his lust for life back and is eating like The Very Hungry Caterpillar :-) All the rest, I'm sure, will follow, step by step.

If all goes well, I'll be back to blogging regularly, starting where I left off, which are the final two days of our September holiday. I'm sure it will be weird going back in time knowing what I do now...

I'll also try to comment on your posts as soon as. Thank you so much for bearing with me, i's good to be back!