Down memory lane

Friday the 14th of March got off to a frosty start and a bitterly cold northeast wind halted the mercury in its track at barely 6°C.

It was the day of my postponed hairdresser's appointment and by now my hair was sorely in need for its long overdue colour and cut. As I would have needed to take both a bus and a a tram to get to Antwerp, which would have taken forever, Jos took pity on me and drove me to the nearby town of Mortsel which offers the relative luxury of two tram options. I hopped onto tram 7, which was the first to come along and the most straightforward, with a stop just around the corner from the salon. 

This was what I was wearing to combat the day's chill factor. Again the outfit is brought to you by Angelica as by the time my two-hour session at the salon had finished and I'd finally made it home again, I had lost the will to live. Or at least to make the effort of taking outfit photos!

The caramel button-through cord skirt was an irresistible retail buy back in October 2021, while the striped jumper, originally from New Look, followed me home from a charity shop one day.

Black and white was the theme for my accessories, which included one of my stretchy belts found on the high street, a carved ceramic heart brooch from a craft shop in Cardigan, and a charity shopped string of black and white ceramic beads. 

I was early for my 11.30 appointment, so I made a little detour by meandering along a couple of side streets. Once upon a time these were as familiar as the back of my hand, as they lead to the old punk haunts we frequented on Friday and Saturday nights in the late 1970s.

I must have walked past these Neoclassical entrance gates, giving access to Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, countless of times back in the day, peering through its railings at the garden with its atmospheric 16th and 17th century former monastery buildings.

Founded in 1663 by the painter David Teniers the Younger, the Antwerp Academy was one of the first art schools in the world. Over the centuries the academy with its historic campus has become an established name in the international art world. It is also the home of the world-renowned Antwerp Fashion Academy, which was founded in 1963.

It took until well into the 1980s for me to step through its gates, when first a boyfriend and then my sister were students here for a year, reading photography and architecture respectively.

The intermittent sunny spells accompanied by a wind chill which turned the air frigid continued through the weekend. 

For a day of running an errand followed by a spot of pottering on Saturday, my forest green suedette skirt from Mango came out to play again, making it officially my most-worn Winter skirt. This time around, its main companion was a funky green and tan shirt by the Danish InWear label, charity shopped almost exactly a year ago.

Accessories were a vintage caramel beaded necklace and big green bird on a branch brooch, both supplied by the charity shop goddesses, and a stretchy belt with a leopard print buckle picked up from the high street.

On Sunday, for a day of household chores, catching up with blogland and joining Bess on the sofa with my latest read, I wore a long-sleeved Trevira fit and flare dress found at Think Twice in September 2023.

There's a tiny bit of green in its pattern, which I picked up with my accessories.

Both my brooch and beaded necklace came from the indoor flea market - which for obvious reasons we'e been giving a miss so far this season - while the elasticated belt with its gold-tone lion's head buckle was a charity shop find.

We were treated to some gorgeous Spring weather half-way through the working week that followed, with temperatures nudging 20°C on Wednesday the 19th.

As variety is the spice of life, I decided to seek out pastures new during my lunch break and took the tram to Het Zuid, Antwerp's fashionable south district. After several decades of decline, the area has seen a revival since the mid 1980s and is now one of the most trendy neighbourhoods in the city.

30-odd years ago, in what feels like another lifetime, I used to live around the corner from this impressive Neoclassical building.

This is the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), which showcases seven centuries of top art, ranging from the Flemish Primitives to modern masters, with prominent roles for Peter Paul Rubens and James Ensor. 

In 1877, Antwerp City Council held a competition to design a new museum, but none of the entries was entirely convincing. The city eventually invited the young architects Jean Jacques Winders (1849-1936) and Frans Van Dijk (1853-1939) to combine their respective designs in a single plan. 

They took everything into account, from a sense of grandeur to functionality and security. After six years of construction work, the new museum was opened to the public on 11 August 1890.

In 1905, the pair of chariots designed by sculptor Thomas Vinçotte (1850–1925), with a team of two horses and a charioteer apiece, were hoisted to the roof by a dozen men. They were intended to symbolize the triumph of art and have been the emblem of the museum ever since they were installed.

Behind the museum, and even closer to where I lived, is this stunning Art Nouveau house. Affectionately known as Het Bootje (transl. the little boat) because of its corner balcony shaped like a ship’s prow, it was built in 1901 for an Antwerp ship builder called P. Roeis. It was designed by Frans Smet-Verhas (1851-1925), who was one of the leading Art Nouveau architects in Antwerp. 

My trip down memory lane took on a bittersweet taste when I rounded the corner of the street I used to live on for nearly ten years, from 1985 until 1994. My heart made a little uncomfortable jolt when faced with my former home on the first floor of the white-painted house in the below collage. The windows and the railings of the tiny balcony were painted white back then, and the façade had clearly received an upgrade from its peeling late eighties, early nineties incarnation. 

Alhough I was reasonably contented during the first handful of years I lived here, they were heady times, and it took me a rather wasteful amount of time to admit to my insecurity and that I wasn't really happy in my own skin.

I took my time returning to the office on foot, basking in the glorious early Spring sunshine and slightly sweating in the coat I'd still been in need of when I left home that morning. Thankfully I'd had the presence of mind to remove my cardigan before setting forth from the office.

On the top right, you can see part of the large monument called Schelde Vrij (transl. Free Scheldt) which was inaugurated in 1873 to commemorate the settlement with the Netherlands that allowed for the free passage of ships to Antwerp, which was vital for the city’s maritime commerce. Standing triumphantly at the top is Neptune, god of the sea, holding a trident in his right hand, and popularly known as Jef Ferket, the latter being Antwerp slang for the Flemish word vork (which obviously means fork).

My outfit that day consisted of a vintage skirt, which is one of my oldest in terms of ownership. You can see a close-up of its textured fabric, with its touches of red, green,white and black, in the below collage. 

The white blouse with its profusion of different sized blue and red dots, is from the defunct Belgian Wow To Go label and came to me by way of a charity shop.

The red chunky knit cardigan is King Louie and was bought from an outlet shop in Poperinge in Belgium's west country back in the mists of time. To its lapel I pinned a vintage daisy brooch found on a flea market. If I remember correctly, it came from the Brooch Lady's vast collection.

Finally, both the blue stone necklace and the red plastic butterfly brooch were charity shop finds.

So, that's it for now. Would the gorgeous Spring weather continue in the run-up to the weekend? You'll read all about it in my next post, which I'm hoping to cobble together very soon.

A spot of Spring cleaning

In sharp contrast to the gorgeous Spring weather we experienced on Friday before last, the rest of the weekend was a bit of a letdown. 

Saturday made a promising start, as the sun was out in full force when we drew our curtains, which, with highs of 16°C forecasted, tricked us into thinking we'd get a repeat of Friday'glorious weather.  

But no. If we needed proof that the month of March can be just as fickle as her sister, April, she certainly delivered. More and more clouds started gathering while we were having breakfast, until soon it was completely overcast. We would get one or two short-lived sunny spells throughout the day, but rain was waiting in the wings, and the first drops could be heard tickling our skylight in the early evening.

What with the reasonable temperatures, I wore this long-sleeved yet lightweight vintage Venetia dress, bought from a long-gone vintage shop about 12 years ago.

Although living in the black section of my dresses wardrobe, its eye-catching pattern of white stripes, tiny white dots and garlands of frothy pink flowers makes one almost forget there's any black in it at all.

I opted for burgundy for some of its companions, notably my large buckled lacquered leather belt and one of my heart-shaped ajour patterned King Louie cardigans, both of which were charity shop finds. I wore burgundy opaques as well, but you'll have to take my word for it as you can hardly make out their colour in the photos. 

Shades of green were added for contrast with my beaded necklace, ring, flower corsage and ankle boots, all of which were provided by the charity shop goddesses at one time or another.

Lastly, let's have a look at my brooch, which consists of multi-coloured frosted berries on a gold-tone leaf. I bought it from the Brooch Lady at a flea market several years ago. As the berries had become detached from the leaf, which we knew was nothing Jos's repair shop couldn't deal with, she knocked quite a bit of the price. 

We were at a loose end that day, as the weather wasn't inviting us to engage in any outdoor activities. Wistfully looking out of the backdoor window, trying to decide if there were any garden jobs that suited my mood, I noticed how grimy the window and the smaller one above the sink were. Admittedly, cleaning windows is not my favourite job, and we do have a window cleaner who comes around at regular times to do the windows at the front of the house, which saves us from being considered total slobs as well as weirdos!

Anyway, I felt obliged to get out the cleaning stuff, so that the two windows are now squeaky clean. I also cleaned the door and window frames, both inside and out, as well as the window ledge. 

Baby Gargoyle was given some flowers to look after. They are yellow Primulas left over from last year, which I planted in a mosaic glass pot, originally the home of a solar light which has stopped working.

Ambling around the garden, I saw some grape Hyacinths popping their heads above the rim of one of the garden waste bags at the back. I duly admired their tenacity for flowering against all odds but to give them the best chance at shining, I cut off the flower stalks and put them in the tiniest receptacle I could find: a vintage ink pot. They still last one week later, having been properly looked after by Dutch kissing boy and girl on one of the kitchen shelves. 

I was pottering upstairs after lunch, when it suddenly dawned on me that I still had to show you the tantalizing tartan garment I charity shopped on Friday.

Ta-da, here it is! It was only when I was in the process of trying it on in the shop's fitting rooms that I noticed that it wasn't a skirt but a pair of cleverly constructed culottes! 

They are Scottish, from The House of Bruar, a shop which started out by selling a range of quality country clothing, but has now diversified into what has been described as the "Harrods of the Highlands". 

The groovilicious pussy-bow blouse is by River Woods, charity shopped in July 2020. I had both the blouse and the belt hanging ready to be incorporated in other outfits, but thought they didn't look out of place at all with the culottes.

Window cleaning and engaging in silly poses are exhausting pastimes, so I spent the rest of the afternoon on the sofa with my latest read, which so far I'm liking very much indeed.

While Jos had to get up early on Sunday to take his youngest daughter to the railway station in nearby Mechelen - she was off for a week in Edinburgh and Glasgow - I slept in and then stayed in bed reading for another half hour. 

We had breakfast when Jos came back, then, as the weather was still of the wishy-washy kind, I decided to proceed with a job that had been on my list for a while.

There's a vintage Tomado shelving unit in our bedroom on which we have been displaying charity shop and flea market treasures for years. The top shelf was completely devoted to Lourdes souvenirs - don't ask, it's one of those accidentally started collections - which we had decided to whittle down. Well, now was as good a time as any! 

We only kept some glass Lourdes water bottles and a Lourdes grotto ornament (top shelf, left and right) and a kitschy but fun snow globe doubling as a perpetual calendar (bottom shelf, and detail below, top centre).

Oh, how I love my treasures, each of which has a story to tell. 

The heavy brass Art Nouveau style family tree picture frames have my maternal great-grandmother Aloysia at the very top, followed by my maternal grandparents, Alphonse and Bertha and, finally my parents, Alphonse and Alice.

The monkey riding an elephant is actually a piggy bank and, having belonged to the above-mentioned Alphonse and Bertha, is a beloved family heirloom.

Here's the rest of the Lourdes gang praying for a miracle! They have been relegated to the basement until we've decided whether they are worth keeping for this Summer's flea market.

As I was on a roll, I dusted the rest of the bedroom and reorganized the bookshelves on the tiny landing between our bedroom and the spare room.

Here's a view of our bedroom's mantelpiece, which is ruled by one of my favourite objects, the green frocked Art Deco lady with her pet birds. Oh, and I've added some more of my baskets to the coat stand!

The afternoon was spent catching up with blogland, and playing around with my wardrobe, yet again assembling some outfits for the week ahead.  

I also made some flatlays, as there will be no after work outfit photos as long as the weather keeps playing spoilsport. This is the only one of the prepared outfits I actually wore, combining a vintage mustard yellow shift dress patterned with scrolls and giant flowers, and a sky blue charity shopped Zoë Loveborn cardigan with red buttons and trim.

Finally, here is Sunday's outfit of the day. 

The ochre and brown tartan circle skirt was charity shopped last Summer, and in spite of my best intentions it hadn't made it out of my wardrobe yet. Together with the blue vintage blouse with its pattern of stripes and naive flowers, it was one of the outfits I'd prepared for the previous week but which had remained unworn. 

This was the outfit for which the massive woven belt - last seen with the culottes - had been put aside.

My other accessories consisted of an ochre yellow beaded necklace (a present from my friend Inneke), a blue glass ring and a vintage gold-tone brooch with a posy of mother of pearl flowers.

I wore this again in its entirety the next day, but exchanged my ankle boots for tall ones. I am actually sick and tired of the latter, and can't wait for Spring to arrive in earnest so that I can wear more frivolous footwear! And my Spring/Summer wardrobe, for that matter!

See you next time!