Back to July

We've been back from our yearly September sojourn in Belgium's west country for nearly two weeks now and I can't wait to tell you all about it.  That said, I had to go back to work straight away so I haven't even had the time to upload my photos yet. Also, I am way, way behind with blogging: no matter how hard I try, it seems nigh on impossible to get back into my old blogging rhythm. So, before I'm setting myself the pleasurable task of reliving our final holiday of the year, I need to take you back to last Summer, and more specifically the month of July.

We didn't go on any outings, so it will be mainly outfits you'll get to see here. Plus a garden update as lots of things have been happening since all signs of life had been completely obliterated from the main part of our garden in early June.

July's first week brought a temporary relief from June's heatwave temperatures, but by the time the weekend rolled along we were back into the high twenties.

On Saturday the 4th, this butterfly-sleeved dress came out to play. It's vintage C&A and I'd picked it up in the Think Twice sales for € 5 back in June.

Sunday's chocolate brown polka-dot maxi skirt came from C&A as well, but rather than vintage or even second-hand, I'd bought it brand new during one of my lunch breaks a couple of months ago. It's currently having a head-to-head race with my fuchsia tiered maxi skirt for most worn Summer skirt. It will even make a second appearance in this post!

Its companion that day was a blue King Louie blouse patterned with white dots and orange flowers, a charity shop find in September 2024. My belt, necklace and ring were all charity shopped too.

Speaking of King Louie, I found the blouse I was wearing on Wednesday the 8th of July at Think Twice earlier that week. And yes, it was yet another sales bargain. For those not in the know, the shops are having a round of sales about every 4-5 weeks, starting with 30% off and ending with all items going for the silly price of € 1. It's both a blessing and a bane to have all 5 of their Antwerp shops within walking distance from my office!

I instantly knew the blouse would go a treat with this midi skirt I purchased from the outlet shop for the Belgian Green Ice label in the small shopping centre near my place of work. 

My green stretchy belt with its bamboo buckle was a cheeky high street buy a couple of years ago and has more than earned its keep in my wardrobe by now.

We caught Bess staring intently out of the kitchen window on the morning of Thursday, the 9th of July, her whiskers twitching excitedly as she followed the shenanigans of this cheeky little creature. It patiently waited until I'd grabbed my camera, then posed willingly, looking straight at the lens with what looked like a big smile on its face. 

 

Another wardrobe stalwart is the groovilicious vintage dress I wore to deal with that day's temperature, which had once again reached 30°C.

I paid € 4 for it at Think Twice back in June 2017 and when I walked into the shop wearing it a couple of days later I was stopped by a lady who told me she'd been dithering over the dress but didn't buy it as she didn't have a clue how to style it! 

Surely that's easy-peasy! As usual, I echoed both colours of the flowers with a pink raffia brooch, pink plastic ring and orange necklace and belt.

I'm skipping Friday, as no outfit photos were taken that day, to arrive on Saturday the 11th of July.

With the weather gods still having no mercy on us, I opted for a skirt and blouse combo in cotton and viscose.

The navy, flower sprinkled skirt was another vintage C&A treasure from Think Twice, while the blouse, with its mid-century style pattern - you can see a close-up here - was a charity shop find.

Meanwhile, our garden was definitely coming into its own, both with the new additions I planted to kickstart its resurrection and those of the old stalwarts which had survived the ordeal.

The Rudbeckia (top right and bottom left) was one of our new buys. It is still going strong to this day despite having spent the entire Summer in a planter. Together with Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty' (top left and bottom right) it has provided sunshine on even the cloudiest of days. Not that there were that many ot those, I hasten to add. 

In spite of the heat of the day, it had been a productive one as, apart from ticking off a list of chores, we'd booked our passage on LeShuttle in the morning and drove to the garden centre for more treasures for our garden in the afternoon.

The next week saw a continuation of the latest heatwave, the mercury consistently climbing into the low thirties.

I was trying to give the garden a run for its money on Tuesday the 14th of July, when I wore this floral extravaganza of a maxi skirt - another sales bargain from C&A which has been gracing my wardrobe since May 2022 - combined with a charity shopped fiery orange cotton blouse from the upmarket Belgian Gigue label. It wasn't the first time they were worn together and I'm sure it won't be the last!

Two days later it was the turn of another beloved vintage favourite: a 1950s cotton Summer dress.

Plucked from the Think Twice rails back in June 2019, it has been a Summer staple ever since. For many years, I thought its background colour was black, but it's actually a very dark navy blue!

By Friday, it had thankfully cooled down to a much more bearable 25°C.

Being a non-office day, I had time to play dress-up, rather than hastily assemble an outfit or wear one I've prepared in advance. That day, the giraffe print skirt I charity shopped in June 2025 caught my eye. I've got a bit of a thing for chocolate brown lately and it does go surprisingly well with lots of items in my wardrobe. The top that made the grade that day is by King Louie and was a charity shop find back in May 2022. My belt, necklace and tomato-red sandals were all high street finds.

It was a lovely surprise to see the splash of fiery orange supplied by Crocosmia 'Carmine Brilliant' (above, top right), which we planted back in the Summer of 2020 and which we thought had gone for good.

Having joined our garden one year later, Clematis 'Guernsey Cream', with its big saucer-like flowers (below, top left), decided to join the party too, even if it only produced the one flower. 

 

Phlox 'Sweet Summer Wine' (above, bottom left and right) is another one we planted back in 2021. After having done a disappearing act in the last couple of years, it clearly felt the time was right for a comeback. It's currently a mass of vibrant magenta flowers!

Finally, it looks like the next generation of foxgloves is ready for next year (above, top right).

The mercury didn't climb higher than 20°C on Sunday, when I joined my friend Inez for drinks and a long overdue catch-up at our usual haunt in the village.

My swishy pleated green and white zig-zaggy maxi skirt was charity shopped last Summer. It's an absolute delight to wear although I do have to refrain from wearing it to work as it tends to get eaten by the wheels of my office chair! I paired it with a flowery vintage blouse and pink and green accessories.

No outfit photos were taken during the following week until Friday the 24th, when I had to go into the office for a couple of hours as my colleague was on holiday.

My chocolate brown polka-dot maxi skirt from C&A made another appearance, this time combined with a multi-coloured zig-zag patterned t-shirt which caught my eye in a charity shop in the Summer of 2024. I was wearing the same dusky pink belt I wore with Sunday's outfit, and a necklace bought from Accessorize back the mists of time.

We woke up to a grey and gloomy day on Sunday the 23rd, with a couple of short-lived but very welcome showers on the menu during the day.

I fell head over heels for the skirt, which I snapped up at the silly price of € 5 from Think Twice back in June. For its first outing, I wore it with a nautical style knitted top from the Belgian Who's That Girl label, bought brand new from their shop about a decade ago. My accessories, as usual, were a mix of new and new-to-me. 

Slowly but surely, the Boston Ivy - cut back completely on that fateful June day - is starting to clothe our boring old concrete shed again. 

Don't worry, we're no longer using these watering cans as their bottoms have rusted through. As they're purely for decoration purposes now, we don't mind them getting marooned by the Boston Ivy. The black thing in the middle of the table is a solar lantern, its filigreed sides throwing magical shadow after dark.

In true yo-yo fashion, temperatures were on the rise again by Wednesday when they day's highs of 29°C demanded I wear another one of my heatwave-proof frocks. This cotton Grace & Mila maxi - yet another charity shop find - provides additional ventilation with its floaty butterfly sleeves!

This post's final outfit was worn on Friday the 31st of July. My floral cotton dress in delicious shades of blue and green was a Think Twice find in May 2021 and for some incomprehensible reason I hadn't worn it in years. It's good thing I hadn't thrown it out after a year of being unworn as advised by the fashion police! It's not going anywhere any time soon!

I've got a final garden update for you as well. I'm sure it won't come as a complete surprise that our tiny garden pond had suffered from the ongoing neglect. A couple of weeks earlier I'd made the effort to empty its contents - a compact and very stubborn mass of dried mud - and filled it again with fresh well water. As a joke, I added two yellow plastic ducks, a gift from Jos's younger daughter when we moved into Dove Cottage back in 1999. They don't seem to like each other much, though :-)

But I simply cannot bid you goodbye without imparting some good news. Last week Jos had another CT-scan, the results of which we got on Thursday. I'm sure you can imagine what a relief it was to hear that everything is stable! He doesn't need any further treatment for the moment and is only due back at the hospital for his next scan in January!

Meanwhile, I hope to be back with the first installment of my west country travelogue shortly, and I solemnly promise to be visiting your lovely blogs soon!

June's journey

We’re currently counting down the days to our long-awaited UK holiday and I actually can't believe we will be there this time next week! As I’ve got to work until Wednesday and we’re leaving already on Thursday, I needed to plan ahead and do the majority of my packing this weekend. Always glad to have that out of the way!

But a promise is a promise so, before we leave, here’s a little update on what else has been happening lately. Catching up completely keeps being quite beyond me, so once again I’m taking you on a little trip in the old time machine, travelling back to the month of June. Be prepared to see lots of outfits, both worn before and after our stay at the cottage in Poperinge.

Monday, which was the first day of June, had a sunny start with highs of a delicious 23°C.

I was wearing the same skirt I wore for the previous day's walk in the park: a blue cotton midi skirt with a most groovilicious pattern. Its companion that Monday was a parrot-patterned top from the Belgian Sweet Soda label. Both were charity shop finds, as was the big green bird on a branch brooch.

My green stretchy belt with its bamboo buckle - a true wardrobe stalwart - was a high street buy a couple of years ago. 

For various reasons, no outfit photos were taken for the rest of that working week, which offered a string of days on which the sun kept playing hide and seek with the clouds and showers were rife.

Think Twice were having another one of their famous sales. With prices down to € 5 and then € 4 per item it would have been rude not to have a rummage!

Not one, but two butterfly-sleeved dresses found their way into my wardrobe, the one on the left being vintage C&A, while the one on the right is good old vintage Diolen.

I fell head over heels for the skirt, which has a rather posh-looking label reading Gerard Pasquier, Paris.

Googling it, this is what I found, neatly translated from the French:

Founded at the beginning of the last century, Gérard Pasquier was initially a leading French brand renowned for its elegant and sophisticated clothing. Embodying the Parisian chic that made it great and famous, Gérard Pasquier now embraces a more understated elegance in keeping with today’s fashion.

I'm not sure of its age, but isn't that pattern just fabulous?

Now, let's fast forward to Friday the 5th of June. The weather gods were clearly having an argument about whether to send sunshine, clouds or rain our way, resulting in a mix of all three, with highs of only 18°C.

My denim button-through skirt was bought on the high street about a year ago, while my colourful dagger-collared coffee-themed blouse is vintage 1970s and was a charity shop find.

Accessories:

- Lilac vinyl belt and orange wooden beads: charity shopped

- Orange cat brooch: Katshop

- Orange plastic ring: Le Petit Souk, a quirky shop which sadly closed its Antwerp branch earlier this year

- Lilac watch: high street bargain shop

I’ve got some garden news for you as well. For quite a while now, I’ve been referring to Dove Cottage’s little patch as the impenetrable jungle or wilderness, which definitely wasn’t an exaggeration.  A true sanctuary back in the days of Covid, neglect had slowly but surely started creeping in during the Summer of 2022, when our neighbour’s kitchen extension threw more than just one spanner in the works.

Bags of compost mixed with rubble were still cluttering the back of our garden, and ivy and other climbers had been left to their own devices, which they gleefully made use of by smothering our tiny patch with their rampant growth. I now regret not having taken any before photos, but at one point we couldn't even see the back of our garden from the kitchen window ...

 

At Jos's local, he'd made the acquaintance of a guy who cleaned up gardens in his free time and who agreed to come and do ours. So, on Wednesday the 3rd of June, he and a mate arrived with some heavy machinery and, taking their job description a bit too literally, completely obliterated all signs of life from the main part of our garden. I actually cried when I saw the concrete desert they'd left behind when I came home from work! Thankfully, they'd left the narrow border on the right, home to our white currant bush, Fuchsia magellanica and magnificent Acanthus mollis aka Bear's Breeches, virtually untouched.

That weekend saw us driving down to the garden centre and spend a small fortune on plants. Just positioning them around the garden still in their pots made all the difference, although without any climbers, ferns and the low Cotoneaster shrubs lining the steps to the sunken part of the garden, it was still looking more than just a little bit desolate.

The weather was another mixed bag of sunshine and dull grey clouds on Monday the 8th of June, but at least the mercury deemed to climb into the low twenties.

My outfit was a mixed bag as well, the green and navy Breton top, ankle boots and enamelled butterfly brooch all being second-hand finds, while the floral skirt, necklace and belt were high street buys. As they've all earned their keep in my wardrobe by now, I'm calling them fast fashion turned slow!

Monday's temperature had clearly been a one-off, as by Wednesday we were down to a miserly 17°C.

Mostly cloudy, with heavy showers and some thunder in the evening, it made me reach for warm layers, in the form of a vintage polyester knit skirt, a vintage long-sleeved blouse and short-sleeved but chunky knit Dralon cardigan. 

My belt with its flower-shaped buckle was another high street find, and I picked up the pale pink suede ankle boots in the closing-down sale of New Look's Antwerp shop back in February 2019.

The showers came thick and fast on Friday the 12th, although there was a brief spell of clear weather in the afternoon. Again, the temperature didn't rise above 17°C.

Following a morning of chores and shopping, we were invited by my friend Inneke for her 65th birthday drink at Bistro Jules in nearby Wilrijk. We went to school together but she's a couple of months ahead of me :-)

Both my faux-snake skirt (by posh label Caroline Biss) and funky patterned blouse came from the rails of the same charity shop, as did the orange wooden tile necklace. My brooch is vintage and was a flea market find. In fact, I think that the only item which was new rather than new-to-me is the belt!

Initially, Saturday's weather didn't look too promising either. A thick layer of grey greeted us as we got up, but it didn't take all that long for the clouds to disperse and present us with patches of blue sky which grew wider and more plentiful as the day progressed.

With temperatures of around 20°C, it was the perfect weather to plant up all these patiently waiting new acquisitions! 

In the meantime, one or two hesitant fern fronts had been brave enough to rise from the dead. 

Planting done, this is what I changed into to sit outside and admire the fruits of my hard work.

My denim maxi dress was a gift from Vix and Jon back in June 2023. I added a multi-coloured pleated leather belt at my waist, wore a string of plastic orange beads - both charity shopped - and pinned a funky lady's head brooch - a cheeky retail buy - to the dress's bodice. 

On Monday the 15th, there was no sign of the heatwave forecasted to start later that week. Both the sun and the day's highs of 21°C must have overslept and took their time to arrive.

My wide floral cotton button-through skirt winged its way from Think Twice into my wardrobe about two years ago. I acquired the short-sleeved thin knit jumper, in an eye-searing pink, around the same time. Together with its green sister, I bought it in the sales from the Sweet Soda - a Belgian label - shop near my office. Another one which has since closed its doors ...

Accessories and shoes were all charity shopped.

Tuesday was the day that Jos had his fall and hurt his knee, jeopardizing our upcoming holiday in Poperinge end of that week in the process. After an evening at A&E, where thankfully it was ascertained that he'd sustained no fractures, we were sent home with nothing more than the advice to take some paracetamol and do some gentle exercises. Needless to say, stress levels were high and neither of us slept well that night. 

But we did make it in the end, even if it was a holiday with a hurdle ...

One last picture of our garden before we go. I'd picked up some solar lights during one lunch break the other week, which we'd dotted around the garden. We've added more in the meantime, but this is how it looked on Saturday the 20th of June.

I'm happy to report that the vast majority of our new plantings had survived the heatwave of our week away virtually unscathed, although our pots and hanging baskets were gasping for a good soaking.

Our bedroom was akin to a sauna but after briefly considering sleeping on the sofa downstairs, I decided to brave the +30°C for the comfort of my bed. Jos was so lucky to be able to sleep in his hospital bed downstairs!

The mercury was still flirting with 30°C on Sunday, which was a vast improvement to the +38°C we'd arrived home to on Friday.

This is what I wore for grandson Cas's birthday party on Sunday afternoon:

- Waxed cotton wrap skirt: Think Twice

- River Woods t-shirt, necklace: charity shopped

- Birds in flight brooch: bought in Cardigan during one of our Welsh holiday

Monday the 29th was the last day of my holiday. The temperature had dropped to a much more bearable - but still much too warm for me - 28°C.

I was wearing the Missoni-esque skirt which was part of my holiday wardrobe but which I hadn't worn.

Both the skirt and the King Louie blouse were charity shopped, as were the bangles and necklace. The pleated yellow belt was a flea market find. 

We sat out in the garden for most of the afternoon and were delighted to see the butterflies and bees return to our little slice of paradise. In spite of being spoiled for choice, they seemed to have taken a particular liking to the Echinacea. 

There's a close-up of that old garden stalwart, the Bear's Breeches, on the top left, with the only flower produced by our new Clematis piilu below. Top centre are the pale lavender flowers of Verbena rigida Sky Blue. On the bottom right, my favourite, Helenium Moerheim Beauty. 

So, that was it. See you when we're back from the UK!

Two weeks in June

We've been back from our far-too-short substitute holiday in Belgium's west country since last Saturday and have subsequently been enjoying a week's worth of staycation here at Dove Cottage, trying to keep our heads cool during the heatwave the weather gods have cooked up for us. It's been two weeks of semi-indolence instead of our customary action-packed UK holiday, and at times it hasn't felt like a real holiday at all. We've mainly been lazy so-and-so's, sleeping much longer than we usually do and having siestas in the afternoons. I guess that this is exactly what we needed after the ordeal of the last ten months or so, but I can't help feeling a bit short-changed. 

I'll be telling you all about what we did during our holiday over the next couple of posts, but let's make a start by getting those first two weeks of June out of the way, shall we?

Actually, I've just realized that I didn't include May's final day in my previous post, so here's what I wore on Saturday the 31st. 

The day's highs of 28°C made me scramble around in my wardrobe for suitable Summer tops, unearthing this vaguely mid-century patterned one I charity shopped last year. Don't worry, I've added plenty of close-ups where you can actually see its pattern below.

It originally had some rather fiddly ribbon ties at the neck, but I snipped off the offending things and sewed the ends together, creating a kind of keyhole neckline, which I thought was much better.

Its companion was a vintage cotton button-through skirt, an old Think Twice find which has been in my wardrobe forever. I included a close-up of its print as well, making it clear that it's daisies and not polka dots it's sprinkled with. I'm sure you won't be surprised if I tell you that the three rows of white rick-rack near the hem were one of its selling points!

I picked orange as the main colour for my accessories, which included yet another one of my glass rings!

Our plans for the day were somewhat thwarted as it was too humid to go for a walk, so that we briefly nipped into the charity shop near the park instead. 

Here, a quick trawl of the aisles yielded these two skirts, one of which you'll get to see me wearing very soon!

Sunday the 1st of June brought a mix of clouds and sunny spells and a drop in temperature to 21°C.

After our usual Sunday morning chores, which included changed the bed sheets and vacuuming and mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors, I took a walk down the garden path to take stock of what was happening in the impenetrable jungle which currently constitutes our garden.

Then, after lunch, we returned to the park in Duffel as we were sorely in need of stretching our weary limbs and breathing in a couple of lungfuls of fresh air.

Gone was Saturday's cloudless blue sky, replaced with a canvas of smudged, moody greys, which now and then parted to reveal swirls of palest blue. 

If you guessed I'd be wearing the pleated green and white zig-zaggy skirt I'd scored on Saturday, you were spot on! It's from a French label called An'ge, which was born in Paris in 1985.

The grooviliously patterned top - long-sleeved this time - was another one which winged its way into my wardrobe from a charity shop last year. The green bits in its pattern matched the skirt's colour almost exactly, while I matched my accessories to the tiny bits of pink. 

Brooch: flea market

Belt picked up from the high street

Translucent beaded necklace: charity shopped 

The park's vegetation is at its lushest in June, the various shades of green still having a freshness which will soon fade in the relentless heat of the Summer sun. There were forget-me-nots a-plenty, offering a delightfully contrasting chorus line for the yellow flag Irises which were dancing  among the reeds.

We circumnavigated the biggest of the park's ponds, crossed one of the reed-choked rills and listened to the calls of the birds high up in the Jack-and-the-beanstalk trees.

But then the quiet and solitude were rudely interrupted by the arrival of a group of loud and boisterous youths, which made us cut our walk short and return to our car.

The weather gods clearly couldn't make up our minds during the working week ahead, treating us to grey skies, sunny spells, lots of wind, and heavy showers, often within the space of a couple of hours.

I needed to run an errand near Antwerp's Central Station, about 1,5 kilometers from the office, which I finally managed during an unexpectedly sunny lunch break on Wednesday. Admittedly, in order to save time, I took a tram part of the way instead of walking the length of Antwerp's main shopping thoroughfare, 

Afterwards, I hopped into the Central Station to admire its rich interior lavishly decorated with more than twenty different kinds of marble and stone. The station building was built in eclectic style between 1899 and 1905 by Louis Delacenserie, who was inspired, among other things, by the Pantheon in Rome. The highest point (75 meters) is a large dome.

Being dubbed the "Railway Cathedral", it has been voted one of the most impressive railway stations in the world on several occasions by the likes of  Newsweek, Mashable and The Telegraph. 

Let's step outside onto the square called Astridplein and have a look at its exterior, shall we?

If you are wondering what the man riding a camel is all about, the station is right next to another one of Antwerp's marvels, the Zoo, established on 21 July 19843, and one of the oldest and most famous zoos in Europe.

I actually can't remember exactly when I last visited here, but I think it must have been on a day out with my then boyfriend in the early 1990s. Obviously, I visited a couple of times with my parents and grandparents when I was growing up, most famously when, as a two-year old, I accidentally dropped my dummy in the sea lions enclosure. As apparently I was inconsolable, my parents were obliged to ask one of the zookeepers to retrieve it. I just hope it was thoroughly cleaned before it was returned to me, but I can't say I remember that part ...

As the week was trundling towards its end, it was clear that Jos's nerves were totally frayed at the thought of our upcoming trip to the UK. As this resulted in loss of appetite due to which he had to force down the merest little mouthful, we ultimately had to take the heart-breaking decision to cancel our UK holiday. 

But I already told you about this in detail in a previous post, so we'll leave well enough alone.

Instead, let me show you the results of our charity shopping trip on Friday the 6th of June.

And no, it wasn't a reflection of me feeling a bit blue that made me reach for these blue suede Italian made sandals and blue Japanese style King Louie frock!

My other, differently coloured finds, were a short-sleeved exotic print maxi dress and two funky blouses, the one on top being another King Louie and the one on the bottom being from the Danish Vero Moda label.

My saviour that final week before the holidays was this novel which had been residing in my neverending reading pile for a while. And it was one of my best reads so far this year! 

Intertwining the lives of two very different couples during World War I, this epic novel follows army soldier Riley as he fights for the love of Nadine despite a terrible injury, and his commanding officer Peter Locke, who returns home from the war a bitter and scarred man - one his wife doesn't recognize.

So, that was it from me for now. I can't wait to make a start with my mini-travelogue! Let's meet again in a couple of days.