Masquerade

I'm currently counting down the days (10 to go at the time of publishing) to our little holiday in Belgium's west country. We'll be staying in our usual little thatched cottage overlooking a picturesque private lake and I'm keeping my spirits up by imagining sitting on the cottage's terrace and enjoying the view over the fields towards the hills on the French border in the distance. 

I'm fully aware that things might be just a little different from our previous eight (!) visits, but I expect that being able to escape the rut I seem to be in lately and having a well-needed change of scenery, will be balm for the soul nonetheless.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's pick up where I left you in my previous post, which was smack dab in the middle of the mother of all heatwaves!

Temperatures were expected to come down from their great heights in the days following the weekend before last. Or at least, that's what those bothersome weathermen had us believe. But no, the mercury still gleefully climbed towards the mid-thirties on Monday. To say I was glad to escape to the coolness of my airconditioned office is quite an understatement.

Sadly, back at home some of our plants didn't cope all too well with the relentless heat. So, it's goodbye to the Iceland poppies, which have literally burnt to a crisp, while the glossy dark burgundy leaves of our Heuchera "Black Sea" have definitely lost their original colour and sheen.

Then there are those plants which seem to thrive in hot weather. Take our Portulaca, which is living happily in its lilac tin bucket suspended from one of the branches of our rampant privet. It is a small, succulent annual with fleshy foliage and colourful blooms that vary in colour, from yellows and tangerines to hot pinks and reds. The tiny flowers close when the sun goes down, but every morning they greet the day again with their cheerful little faces.

On the bottom right, you can catch a blurred glimpse of them behind the chocolate scented flowers of Cosmos atrosanguineus. Another hot weather lover, these are just starting to dwindle after having flowered profusely for months. 

Yes, alright, I can hear you thinking, but what about your outfit? And are you wearing trousers again? Well, yes I am, and what's more, I bought them in the sales during lunch break on Monday. They're from the same Mango shop where I'd bought the red jumpsuit last year, and I knew resistance was futile as soon as I clapped eyes on them.

Not only do they look fabulous, with their Paisley-esque yellow, green and turquoise print on a creamy background, they are easily the most comfortable trousers I've ever worn. Plus, they have pockets!

They also have huge slits on the side of each wide leg, offering sufficient ventilation on a hot day.

Of course, I had to wear them immediatly on Tuesday. I've had the teal H&M top I was wearing with it for eons. Admittedly, I'd forgotten all about it until I recently found it tucked away at the back of a drawer. The butterfly pendant was among the charity shop jewellery haul of a couple of weeks ago.

Being another 30 degrees plus scorcher, I started the day with some early morning gardening accompanied by the busy bees taking full advantage of our garden's spoils.

As Jos was in need of a pair of shorts, we tried our luck at the local C&A shop, where fortunately we found what we were looking for. Then, after lunch, I caught up with blog comments and continued making holiday plans.

I also sorted my growing collection of face masks which at the latest count number more than twenty!

I recently found a little shop around the corner from my office selling a huge selection of cheerfully printed cotton ones, so I admit I went a bit crazy. The nice girl at the till even offered me a reduction! She was admiring the curtain couture skirt I was wearing and we ended up talking about second hand shopping as well as venting our thoughts and frustrations on the current C-word situation and its do's and don'ts. I left the shop a much happier person!

These are some of the masks I bought, minus those which are currently in the wash and those which Jos has claimed for himself.

As they needed a home of their own, I offered them this small pink polka-dot suitcase, which I think is most suitable!

That evening, we were regaled by a thunderstorm and heavy rain, which unfortunately only cooled down things slightly and very briefly. It did mean only having to water a couple of pots under the awning, though.

Jos, who is even less heat resistant than me, couldn't resist nipping out into the garden in his pyjama bottoms and offer his thanks to the rain gods!

And all the while, the sun kept on doing its daily descent, shining like a fiery ball between the trees, with the rain pouring down in buckets.

There was still no escaping the heat on Wednesday before last, except for at the office with its deliciously cooling bur rather noisy airco. 

Promises, promises! It should have been relatively cooler that day, but the temperatures still hovered around the mid-thirties. That afternoon, I had a long talk with my lovely boss, during which we agreed to continue with the temporary part-time unemployment after the initial end date of 31 August which, in all honesty, I'm finding quite a relief. 

Thursday was a very clammy and stifling day, again with temperatures of well over 30° Celsius. 

By mid-morning I was already sweating profusely, in spite of wearing this cool cotton piqué Summer dress. A € 2 flea market find back in April 2018, I had to use my very limited sewing skills and move the already asymmetrically closing buttons a bit, as initially it was a bit too big on top.

I just love its blowsy green flower print and bottle green flower-shaped buttons, which is why I grabbed it from that flea market rail without giving it any further thought. 

Its companions that day were an orange half-elasticated belt, one of the recently charity shopped Les Cordes necklaces, a floral brooch and yellow and green bangles.

A slightly cooler day on Friday, the temperatures finally dropping into the high twenties.

After our usual fruit and yoghurt breakfast, we decided to throw caution to the wind and drive down to the local charity shop. What with the latest restrictions which only allowed solo shopping, we hadn't been to any charity shops for weeks. I'll show you the things we found properly in my next post, but here's a little taster. 

The Echinacea "White Meditation" was brought back from the garden centre, which we visited afterwards.

After much deliberation, I gave in and finally bought a Crocosmia. This one is called "Carmine Brilliant" and as it didn't fit into the booth of our car, it shared the passenger seat with me!

It started pelting down as soon as we got home, turning our dusty garden path into a minor river. At one point, I needed my ankle booties to wade through the puddles to the end of the garden.

The pots of pansies which had made their way into my shopping trolley were looking a bit sorry for themselves at that point.

Showers came and went all afternoon, so that once again I was saved the task of watering the majority of the patio plants.

During one of the sun's brief visits, we were able to snap some outfit photos, so that I could show you the wonderful floral dress I was wearing. Instantly evoking holiday memories, it was a gift from Vix when we met up last year, and worn to visit a dream of a garden only days later.

Further holiday memories were provided by my necklace, a charity shop find during last year's west country holiday. The brooch and ring were flea market finds, while the stretchy belt, with its funky triangular pattern and mock tortoiseshell buckle, was a sales bargain back in June.

So, that's it for now. I'll be back with those charity shop finds and more outfits on Sunday.

Until then, keep on keeping safe, my friends!

A slower pace of life

After one and a half months of reduced working hours, it seems that we've finally established some kind of rhythm to these out-of-sync weeks, while relishing this slower pace of life.

They now come in two distinct parts, these weeks, with our old routine still present in the first part of the week, where a quiet, at-home Tuesday is sandwiched between my two office days.

The rhythm changes in the second part of the week, as it's during the slow-paced extended weekend from Thursday to Sunday that we tend to lose track of time, often forgetting which day of the week it is.

Still, there is some kind of rhythm to this too. Thursday is food shopping day - done by Jos - and lately we have been treating ourselves to a visit to the garden centre on Fridays, which is as safe and relaxing an outing as is possible in these pandemic times.

I'm at my best on Thursdays and Fridays, when I'm chomping at the bit to tackle a couple of chores around the house, but my enthusiasm usually peters out by Saturday. And then there are the Sundays, which are often off-days, with a certain sadness creeping in and the chances of a wobble increasing as the day goes by.

Weather permitting, any time we can is spent in the garden. Tiny it may be, but undoing the neglect of the last a couple of years will keep us busy for quite a while to come.

Any gardening projects were definitely off-the cards on Sunday before last, as the weather gods kept sending fickle Spring weather our way.  In order to keep the blues at bay, I decided to crack on with something I'd had in mind for weeks, which was to empty, clean and rearrange the display cabinet in our big kitchen cupboard.

Its contents, which includes heirlooms, souvenirs and vintage finds, had grown organically over the better part of 20 years, resulting in a haphazard display of miscellaneous odds and ends.

And even though I had already removed and re-homed some bits and pieces over the past days, I was still quite shocked to see the cabinet's contents filling the whole of our kitchen table. And some.

Having already given it some advance thought - Jos would often find me standing in front of the cabinet, seemingly gazing into space - rearranging all that stuff turned out to be a doddle.

In no time, I'd created separate displays of vintage glasses and other drink related items, washing powders and starches from a bygone age, baking and sweets paraphernalia, toilet soaps and some random items of kitchenalia.

The tin decorated with The Three Little Pigs used to contain Côte d'Or chocolates and used to belong to my paternal grandparents. It still holds the same set of dominoes I played with as a child.

The Tala jelly moulds came from an antique centre in Newcastle Emlyn, Wales.

This quirky carton advertising gimmick is for "Caramella Mokatine", also known as "Arabierke" (Flemish for little Arab) due to its distinctive wrapping, a coffee-flavoured sweet which was introduced in 1934 and is still being produced today. 

Pulling the tab with the factory name at the bottom makes the Arab open his eyes and stick out his tongue, which has the French words "C'est Bon" printed on it. Belgium being a bilingual country, it also came in a Flemish version.

Spring made a happy return on Monday's office day, continuing into Tuesday, and I was glad to be back in short sleeves.

My choice that day was a vintage dress in a funky turquoise, green, grey and white pattern. It has self fabric buttons and a notched lapel, to which I'd pinned a turquoise starburst brooch.  My other accessories were a white vinyl belt and a string of pale green beads.

While I was a the office on Monday, Jos had been busy too. 

About to put up our enamel sign during the weekend, he was looking for some screws in the shed, when I noticed this old wooden barrel tucked away in a corner. It had been a gift from one of my Dad's friends many years ago, which had ended up in the shed as we didn't quite know what to do with it at the time. Having a light-bulb moment, I thought we could use it as a plant table, so on Monday Jos dragged it outside and, as it was lidless, topped it with a circular piece of plywood he'd found among the junk.

Going back inside the house to get his phone so that he could send me a photo of his efforts, he returned finding Phoebe doing a full investigation! She definitely approves, as we often find her keeping watch over the garden from her new perch.

Back to Tuesday morning, when Jos's son Kris arrived bearing some face masks expertly made by Jos's youngest daughter An. She'd been kind enough to send me a photo of her creations earlier, offering me first choice. How sweet is that? Surely you'll agree that the red floral one and the blue one printed with its mix of flowers and butterflies are both totally me!

As we never ever wash at high temperatures, we used the alternative method of boiling them in a pan of water - which we are using exclusively for this purpose in case you are worried - with some detergent.

Taking advantage of the sunny weather, we added some more improvements to what we rather grandly call the courtyard, a small paved area next to the shed at the bottom of the garden.

This is where we hung the sign, putting the barrel underneath. In order to make the tabletop waterproof, we tacked a piece of oilcloth to it.  Further cheer was provided by adding some terracotta pots of Pelargonium and Lantana.

Not quite ready yet, but it's a start!

Skipping Wednesday, which was another office day, Thursday arrived with more sunshine and steadily climbing temperatures.

It was still quite chilly that morning so, while Jos was braving the supermarket, I decided to leave the  garden jobs I'd lined up for the afternoon.

I thought I'd put away my tall boots and get out a selection of Summer shoes, but ended up doing a complete shoe changeover, only leaving out some of my favourite ankle boots to tide me over.

My shoes of the season live in this high rise tower of IKEA shoe boxes in the spare room, wedged between the mantelpiece and the coats wardrobe. The boxes are all on individual shelf ledgers, and each contains two to three pairs of shoes or sandals.

It had warmed up considerably after lunch, so I was out in the garden in a jiffy, as I wanted to sow some Nasturtium seeds in pots, in case the ones I sowed directly in the garden didn't come up. 

I used some biodegradable pots I can plant out straight into the garden when the plants are big enough. As I only had three such pots left, I fashioned some from empty toilet rolls. The pots were then put into a lidded propagator tray I'd found hidden away in the basement. I've really been shopping our house, not just my wardrobe! 

With that job out of the way, I potted up some of the plants we'd got at the garden centre the previous week: white and pink Cosmos, yellow and red Snapdragons and ... more Nasturtiums. I couldn't resist buying these full-grown plants, which have the added bonus of variegated leaves.

And here's my gardening attire that day. Note that I only wore the forget-me-not blue suede ankle boots for the photos. I did my actual gardening wearing my ankle wellies!

The dress was a Think Twice find at the tail end of last Summer, and got its first outing on this lovely Spring day. 

I pinned not one, but two brooches to it, as I thought the green squirrel and the green-eyed hedgehog might appreciate each other's company.

A brown belt, brown translucent beads and green and turquoise bangles and bracelets were my outfit's finishing touches.

I've included a close-up of the dress's print, which combines several floral patterns and even some stripes!

Thursday's #coronahair solution was a semi-elastic hairband to which I clipped another of my flower corsage.

Expect to see more of these hairbands, as I picked up several in a haberdashery and accessories shop during lunch time on Wednesday. As from Monday last week, these shops had been allowed to re-open as they are considered essential for mask making. Going for a quick walk around the block and passing the shop, I noticed it was relatively empty, so I went in and got these.

How strange it felt to be in an actual shop! It felt like it had been years ago, instead of just under two months. How much our lives have changed, as so many things we used to take for granted are now well out of reach. 

For now, I prefer to stay home and keep safe inside our little bubble as much as I possibly can. I hope you are doing the same?