A bevy of bargains and a booster

It's been a whirlwind of a week, starting with a check-up appointment at the ophthalmologist, followed by a visit from my bosses and ending with a funeral. On top of that, Autumn has decided to stop dragging her feet. With a flick of the wrist, she has made her entrance, almost halving the summery temperatures we'd been enjoying without so much as a by-your-leave. And that's before mentioning the soul-sapping rain, relentless and neverending at times, but thankfully nothing compared to Storm Babet which has been battering parts of Northern Europe.

But my blog is running hopelessly behind and has only just reached the last week of September, which is why, incongruously as it might seem, I am still wearing my Summer frocks. 

The thermometer still refused to duck below the 20°C mark, which I made the most of by reaching for those dresses which were still rattling around, unworn, in my wardrobe.

This one's another charity shopped King Louie. I love its waffle fabric and its smattering of orangey red and off-white berries on a midnight blue background. I wore it on a weekday when the mercury would climb to a balmy 24°C.

Apart from my red Kiarflex shoes and blue perspex ring, all my accessories were of the white variety. Both the carved plastic necklace and the portrait of a lady brooch were found at various flea markets, while my pleated leather belt was a charity shop find.

But even if the weather gods had kept the fires burning, they seemed to be in a tiff about whether to treat us to sunshine, grey skies or showers, which is why we often had them all in one day.

The days were noticeably getting shorter too, with daybreak arriving a couple of minutes later each day.

Look at that army of dark indigo clouds, with the orange glow of the rising sun behind them. This was snapped at the garage complex on our way to work one morning. Our garage box, by the way, is located at the back of the creeper-clad building, which used to be the premises of a lemonade factory.

As Think Twice had started another one of their famous sales, when everything in the shop is gradually reduced day by day until  € 1 day is reached, I spent my lunch breaks visiting four out of the five Think Twice shops Antwerp is blessed with.

On Monday, € 6 day, I found these two treasures which, incidentally, are a perfect match. The skirt, in a patterned velvety fabric, shows every indication of having been handmade. The sage green blouse with its dotted and dashed burgundy and forest green stripes was made in Sweden and is from a label called ST Martinez, which I couldn't find anything about online. Not that I looked for very long ...

Nothing came home with me on Tuesday's foray a bit further afield and Wednesday's rummaging opportunities were scuppered by a hairdresser's appointment. 

By the time Thursday rolled along, everything was down to € 4. I met up with Inez for our weekly cappuccinos and catch-up at the T2 coffee corner, after which we went shopping like we did in the good old Pre-Covid days. We were both successful, as Inez managed to find a flapper style dress and a plaid skirt in shop # 1, while I pounced on this groovilicious pussy-bow blouse in shop # 2. 

I'm forever vowing to stop buying coats and jackets, but Inez insisted I try on, and subsequently buy this glorious double-breasted tailor-made textured wool jacket. Not that I needed much persuasion, as I fell hard for its Autumnal green and burnt orange colour scheme - the photos, taken inside on a dark day don't really do it justice - and just look at those gorgeous buttons!

Although I'm a bit stingy with the handful of days of annual leave Iv'e got left for this year, I'd decided to take Friday off that week. That must have peeved the weather gods, though, as the day was mostly cloudy, with just the odd sunny spell and a few scattered showers.

In fact, it felt quite Autumnal, even if at 22°C it was more than warm enough to wear this lightweight viscose dress, a bargain from the C&A Winter sales in 2017.

I picked up all the colours in the dress's William Morris style pattern, starting with white for my belt - the same one as in this post's first outfit - and vintage flower brooch. My mustard cardigan matches the pops of mustard in the pattern almost exactly, while pink was represented by my necklace as well as the cardigan's pink buttons. 

On my feet, the Mary-Jane style shoes I snapped up at Think Twice the other week. They are actually a much brighter shade of green which my camera appears to have a problem capturing. Here, they almost seem match the teal bits in the dress. 

The ring on the bottom left has pale green bits floating in transluscent glass and was picked up at Kruidvat, the Low Countries' equivalent of Superdrug!

After breakfast, Jos went and did his good deed for the day by walking into the village and picking up and delivering a newspaper for our elderly ex-neighbour.  Meanwhile, I bit the bullet and started the lengthy process of my biannual wardrobe swap-over by exchanging about one third of my Spring/Summer dresses for their  Autumn/Winter sisters.

Needless to say, I had help from Miss Bess!

Then Jos came back saying he’d been to the apothecary to enquire about making an appointment for his Covid booster jab. As luck would have it, it was one of their "jabbing days" and as there wasn't a queue, he was able to get it done straightaway. What’s more, they said I could come in too, if I was there before 12. I made a dash for it, but had to change into something more accessible first. I would have had to semi-undress if I'd kept wearing my C&A frock! Anyway, that’s both our booster jabs done!

Our plans for the afternoon consisted of a visit to the charity shop on the outskirts of Mechelen. However, we found our usual route interrupted by roadworks and couldn't make sense of the suggested diversions. As by that time it was raining torrentially, we decided to drive back home and make do with our local edge-of-town charity shop.

A fluffy orange cardigan and a funky pair of Zara trousers - which was hiding among the nightwear - ended up in my basket.

Saturday saw a return of the sun, even if the temperature dropped a couple of degrees to 20°C.

The Diolen dress I'm wearing had been patiently waiting its turn since I brought it home from Think Twice in July. I also gave my navy flapper-style shoes a final outing before packing them away until next year.

The rest of my accessories - apart from the blue and white striped perspex ring - were of the red variety: a charity shopped vinyl belt and beaded necklace, and one of my cat brooches from Katty's Katshop in Antwerp.

After lunch, we decided to have another go at reaching the charity shop in Mechelen, as the alternative route looked quite straightforward when I'd looked it up online. And guess what: we made it, without getting lost even once!

It was definitely worth the effort as finds were plentiful. First up, this vintage maxi skirt with its bold floral pattern. It's by Coronet Modell, which I believe is German. Again, trawling the Internet didn't have the desired result. 

Love at first sight for the silky polyester blouse with its striking yet mysterious white pattern on a black background. Its label says Femina, and apparently it was sold in a boutique in Graz, Austria.

I ummed and ahed over this handmade vintage skirt, but in the end I simply found its naive picket fence and flower print irresistible.

En route à la maison, we stopped at the tiny charity shop in the neighbouring village of Reet.

Here, the clothing rails were full to bursting and even contained one or two very covetable vintage pieces, which sadly enough were far too small. 

Not vintage, but from the sustainable Belgian Froy & Dind label, is the cobalt blue wrap dress with patterned blue, red and white hem, on the left. The floral tea dress on the right is by Monsoon, the very first item from that label I've ever come across in a Belgian charity shop. Both were mine for a snippet of the original retail price.

Phew, that's September all wrapped up, sot that I can finally start blogging about October in my next post. We might even have squeezed in the odd walk.

See you again soon!

Spring will be a little late this year

Although Spring has officially sprung a couple of weeks ago, true Spring days have been few and far between. But finally the sun is shining brightly in a brilliant blue sky as I'm starting to type this post, the former effortlessly elevating the mercury from the morning's frosty start into double figures by midday. No chance of peeling off the layers just yet, but at least it's infinitely better than the endless rain we've had to contend with lately. Beneficial for nature and our gardens it may be, it most certainly isn't any good for our Winter-battered souls, which are craving balmy temperatures and sunshine. Lots and lots of it, to make up for all the mind-numbing grey.

Before we plunge ourselves headlong into whimsical April, let's cast our minds back to March's final Sunday.

As due to the bothersome Daylight Saving Time we'd had to put the clocks forward and thus lost an hour of sleep, my biological clock screamed "No way!" to our usual Sunday morning wake up time. It wasn't really helpful that the day dawned dismal, grey, and wet so, with no enticement to get up, we dozed for another half an hour or so. If there was any upside to all the upheaval, it was that Bess didn't wake Jos up at the crack of dawn for her breakfast! Every cloud has a silver lining, they say ...

I know for a fact that that's an out-an-out lie, though, as there wasn't any sign of a silver lining among the dense blanket of grey which made up the sky that day.

The day's highs of 9°C prompted the first outing of the green textured jumper I'd charity shopped on Friday. Its companion was one of my favourite skirts, box pleated and patterned with an abundance of flowers interspersed by rows of berries and Paisley. It joined my wardrobe in October 2019, when it was part of a € 4 a piece Think Twice haul.

I picked up the splashes of burgundy in the skirt with the semi-elasticated, massive-buckled belt, also charity shopped on Friday. Further accessories were a burgundy beaded necklace and pink butterfly brooch. My feet and legs were clad in my beloved green boots which were a charity shop find in December 2019.

With no chance of any outdoor adventures and my brain still running behind the time shown on the clock, it was a day of aimless pottering. This included yet another repair on my one and only black underskirt. Charity shopped many years ago, it is almost falling apart, but will have to do until I find a suitable replacement.

Speaking of charity shopping, let's have a look at my latest finds, picked up on the Saturday. The indigo, pink and white wrap skirt is 100% cotton and bears a made in Malaysia label. The red short-sleeved jumper with its frilly and ribboned yoke is from the Belgian Xandres label. With simple t-shirts on their website retailing at well over € 100, I'm sure you'll agree that this knitted top's € 5 price tag makes it quite the bargain.

Later that day, we both followed Bess's excellent example by having a nap! Aww, isn't she cute, particularly when she's sleeping. She can be quite full-on when she's awake, following us, and especially Jos, around and insisting on helping with any household chores. Except vacuuming!

The month's final working week was a bit of a drag. Not only were my brain and body still struggling to adapt to the time shift, it wasn't much fun not having my usual Friday off to look forward to. As my one and only colleague had to have more surgery on her wrist, and is expected to be out of action for a month, I am once again on my own in the office. I'd quite forgotten what it feels like to work 5-day weeks with only a measly 2-day weekend as a reward.

The weather gods were still up their old tricks as well and kept taunting us with plenty of showers, culminating in 24 hours of non-stop rain on Friday. 

This was what our commute on Friday morning looked like. 

There was nothing for it but to make my own sunshine, for which my wardrobe proved to be very obliging. 

Long-time readers might recognize my grey wool skirt criss-crossed with textured multi-coloured diagonals, which has been a wardrobe stalwart for many years. 

It wasn't the first time I paired it with this glorious flower-infused vintage 1970s blouse, which I charity shopped in March 2019.  In fact, here I am wearing it that very same month for a nature walk on an infinitely better behaved Spring day. 

The butterscotch cardigan with its maroon edging and buttons is by Zoë Loveborn, and was a charity shop find in November 2021. It's one of my numerous pre-loved cardigans from that label, which for some unfathomable reason keep popping up in the charity shops quite regularly. It really puzzles me why people are getting rid of these at all as not only have they got quirky details that make them stand out from the ordinary, their quality is excellent too.

If I remember correctly the flower brooch, which always makes me think of white chocolate, was picked up from a flea market. The necklace was a gift from my friend Inneke, while both the belt and the flower corsage pinned to the cardigan were retail buys.

The month of April didn't get off to the best of starts, as it continued raining with hardly any let-up all day on Saturday. It wasn't very warm either, with highs not even reaching the double digits.

At this crossroad of seasons, just before the big changeover takes place, I'm trying to reach for those frocks which are still languishing unworn in my wardrobe. I was quite perplexed that I hadn't worn this 1970s does 1940s dress at all this season, its last outing dating from our trip to Bruges in March 2022.

I paid tribute to both the blue and the orange in its blowsy flower pattern, choosing an orange beaded necklace (Welsh antique centre), blue backed cameo brooch (flea market), blue ring (retail) and chunky blue belt (last year's Summer sales bargain from Mango).

Sage green opaques and my Snoots (snake print boots) completed my outfit, although I did exchange the latter for my almost worn to death tall mock croc boots when we left the house to brave the rain for the day's adventure. Oh, and I also added my chunky orange long line cardigan because I was freezing.

We were in need of some bread mix, so we decided to pay a long overdue visit to our favourite garden centre, which also happens to have an excellent baking department. 

In fact, it's not just our favourite garden centre, as it was recently voted best in Flanders!

Of course, it would have been virtually impossible not to have a peek at the plants too so that, inevitably, apart from said bread mix, a couple of pots of Spring flowers ended up in our trolley.

Our purchases included Primulas and Pansies, Tête-à-Tête and Bridal Crown Daffs and a cream and yellow Ranunculus. We were actually quite restrained, but I'm sure we will be back soon to have a mooch around their outside perennials department. Preferably on a dry and if possible sunny day!

For now, our purchases are patiently waiting to be planted up and join the passageway gang.

Fingers crossed for a reasonably dry Easter weekend, but knowing our luck it will probably be chucking it down again by then.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with another instalment of my seasonal wardrobe changeover. With a limited amount of time at my disposal until my colleague is back, I'll have to do it all in bite-sized chunks in order to get it all sorted before Summer makes her entrance.

Saturday's instalment was putting away most of my woollen skirts and replacing them with my Spring and early Summer ones. 

So glad to reacquaint myself with these lovelies.

Just one more day of work until my 4-day Easter break, and I'm more than ready for it. 

Happy Easter, everyone!

Autumn's advancing

We've made it halfway through October by now, and Autumn is in full swing. As capricious as April with its eponymous showers, the former's fresh Spring greens replaced by a palette of yellows, russets and browns.

Just like her Spring sister, October can be glorious, but we're on a slippery slope when she deals us a hand of dark rainy days.

True to form, my blog is lagging behind, so I'm continuing where I left off at the end of my last post, on Friday the 1st of October.

While I did tell you all about that day's Oxfam haul - well, not quite all of it, but we will get to that later - I was yet to show you what I was wearing that day, so why don't we start with that?

Although it was a bit of a dismal day, with on and off rain, the temperature reached highs of 17°C, which was mild enough for this lightweight midi dress in a yummy shade of aubergine.

With its multi-hued Paisley-esque pattern, it was a lucky find in the January sales back in 2019. I took the lead from the greens and pinks in its pattern for my accessories, which included a moss green belt and necklace and a pink carved celluloid brooch. My ring echoes the dress's main colour.

On top, I wore a purple trimmed cardigan in an impossible to photograph shade of olive green, which is much more vibrant in real life. The glare of the sun, when she eventually made an appearance, wasn't any help here, and additionally made my face look quite ghostly.

In my haste to finish my previous post, I forgot to photograph this lacquered wicker handbag, which joined my collection of basket-style bags after I found it winking at me from a shelf near the fitting rooms.

My reading pile also got a bit bigger after these three books followed me home. Not sure yet which one will be my next read if I ever finish the 592-page Elizabeth Gilbert, which has become quite a chore.

Flush with our many treasures, we drove home and had lunch, after which we had some errands to run. These included a visit to our edge-of-town branch of C&A, as Jos was in need of a couple of pairs of trousers.

Time to show you my outerwear, which consisted of an olive green cord jacket - again, looking paler that it actually is - and an aubergine embroidered crushed velvet scarf, picked up for € 0,50 at a flea market many years ago.

Trouser buying mission accomplished, we were wandering around the shop on our way to the till, when Jos spotted these ankle boots, which were exactly the thing I was looking for!

Back home again, the sky had turned a uniform shade of non-descript grey, against which the tower crane at the building site across the road stood out starkly. 

Its arm is acting like a giant weather vane and if the wind comes from the wrong direction, it towers over our garden, as well as several of our next door neighbours'. 

It has become a meeting point for a parliament of rooks of late, their raucous cawing competing vigorously with the weekday noise of the construction equipment!

Rain had been forecasted from the afternoon onward on Saturday the 2nd of October, so we made the most of the dry, clear and at times sunny morning to make outfit photos before the heavens opened.

I felt the need to wear Autumnal, yet cheerful, colours, but before I'm taking you through the details of my outfit, I'm sure you'll have noticed I was wearing my spanking new footwear!

My dress is a short-sleeved one, although you have to take my word for it. For some reason, I never thought to remove my thin long-line chartreuse cardigan.  In a polyester knit, the dress was more than adequate to deal with the day's 17°C on its own.

I piled on citrussy orange accessories: a long necklace, a belt belonging to a different dress and a flower corsage pinned to my cardigan. A cream vintage flower brooch adorned the dress itself.

My efforts to compete with the Autumnal exuberance of our garden were clearly in vain! 

The long-suffering Cotoneaster - one of the garden's inherited inhabitants - is displaying its yearly fireworks of fiery red berries, their colour echoed by the first of the changing Virginia creeper leaves.

Vibrant pink is represented by the Hydrangeas in their final blush and the magenta flower heads of Sedum spectabile.

And then there are the pops of orange from the seemingly invincible Nasturtiums!

With the weather in non-stop rain mode from late afternoon on Saturday until mid-afternoon on Sunday, it was the perfect opportunity to continue with the daunting task of my seasonal wardrobe changeover.

I made a start with my main wardrobe, folding away my Spring and Summer frocks and putting them to sleep inside the vacuum bags recently vacated by my Autumn and Winter ones. I've still got the Real Winter Weather stuff to do - thank you Monica for this moniker - but that'll be for a later date. And then there are the skirts, shoes and coats to tackle as well ... 

I'm usually taking this biannual opportunity to weed out the things I'm no longer enamoured with, and I filled a bag of donations and another one for my flea market stock, which made me feel rather proud of myself. I even repaired the separated zipper of the dress whose pattern you can see on the bottom right.

This is what I was wearing on Sunday. After it had finally stopped raining, we just managed to take photos before the light started to fade.

My recently charity shopped floral maxi skirt was joined by a vintage blouse bought from a long-gone shop. I fell hard for its rosewood colour, naive flower print, orange buttons and large wing collar, to which I pinned a vintage pearly posy of flowers brooch.

Further finishing touches were a bottle green mock-croc belt, an apple green beaded necklace and a chunky purple ring.

The week ahead of us would be a mostly gloomy one, during which we didn't even manage to take outfit photos once. You didn't miss much, as I did rewear versions of Friday's and Saturday's outfit. I also gave the dress with the newly repaired zipper a go. Sadly, when I unzipped it at night, the zipper separated again. It's now currently awaiting its faith. Perhaps I'll have a go at replacing it myself ...  

Tuesday the 4th of October was World Animal Day, so I thought it was only fitting to include another Bess update. She is becoming ever more confident, continues being inquisitive and is, of course, utterly spoiled.

Her latest tricks include waking us up in the middle of the night by continuously scratching the duvet. Ignoring her doesn't help, so that there's nothing for it but to ban her from the bedroom. She also likes rearranging the rugs and is totally obsessed with the kitchen faucet!

Weather permitting, I've been indulging in what Sheila aptly calls Mental Health Shopping during my lunch breaks. 

Always on the lookout for interesting skirts, I couldn't resist buying the fudge coloured button through cord one from a high street shop, while a rummage at Think Twice yielded the black, daisy patterned one. You'll get to see me wearing the cord skirt in my next post, and I'm happy to report it'll definitely be a keeper!

Well, that's it for now. 

As we were blessed with a couple of gorgeously sunny Autumn days in the ensuing weekend, I'll be taking you on a couple of walks in my next post. Will you join me?

Hope springs eternal

I've been very prone to mood swings lately, the pendulum often swinging towards anxiety. The least little thing seems to get me in a huff and believe me, you don't want to be around me when I'm like that.

Mercurial at the best of times, my temper is my own worst enemy when my stress levels go into overdrive. The pandemic and its seemingly never-ending implications might be the worst offenders, but give me a string of sunny Spring days, and I'm right as rain again. 

Oh the weather, so much to answer for!

But there are still many things to be thankful for, so let's start with those, shall we? 

Jos has had his first dose of Pfizer vaccine yesterday, and doesn't seem to be acting any stranger than usual today. That doesn't mean I'm no longer stamping my feet in frustration like a petulant child at the slowness of our vaccination roll-out though, but still, it's a step in the right direction. Oh, and then there's Bess, who is filling our hearts with gladness, especially now that she has discovered the joys of petting!

But first, let's go back in time once more, to Easter Monday to be exactly. If at first glimpse it might look like a perfect specimen of a Spring day, don't be fooled! Not only was it quite chilly at a measly 7°C, a blustery wind was tugging at my hair and trying to put my clothes into disarray. 

We would be treated to a succession of snow flurries and hail that day, so it was nothing short of a miracle that we found a dry moment in which to hastily nip outside and quickly snap some photos to show you my outfit. 

I didn't take off my cardigan, though, so I've added a close-up of my blouse's funky pattern to allow you a better look. The blouse in question was a flea market find. I instantly recognized it as I have a dress in the same pattern, with red trim and buttons rather than the blouse's yellow. It's from a retro label called Zoë Loveborn, and at the time I patiently waited for the dress to go on sale before snapping up the last one in my size.

It isn't the first time I wore the blouse with this vintage Diolen skirt, as I think they're a match made in heaven. For warmth, I wore a turquoise cardigan on top, tying in with the turquoise in both the skirt and blouse. The cardigan is from the Belgian Sweet Soda label and was charity shopped, as were the belt and necklace. 

Both the flower corsage and brooch were retail buys. I'm sure you'll recognize the latter as one of the three brooches I bought from Katshop the other week.

The day being too cold and miserable to even contemplate doing anything outside, most of it was spent reading on the couch. I picked up The Letter by Kathryn Hughes during one of our last charity shopping trips before our current lockdown. It was exactly the feel-good read I needed after the more challenging non-fiction Brides in the Bath one.  

As Monday was a public holiday, I had to go into the office on Tuesday instead. The weather was even more miserable than Monday's - and several degrees colder to boot - which wasn't exactly helpful at getting myself out of bed that morning. On top of that, I had to make some changes to my outfit at the last minute - I was taking the easy way out by rewearing Monday's outfit - when the zipper on my skirt came apart.

Work wasn't all too busy though, which is always a blessing when one's head is full of cotton wool.

Snow flurries drifted past my windows and there was hardly a soul brave enough to venture out onto Antwerp's forlorn looking streets. Even the cathedral was hiding behind a veil of mist, a sensible thing to do with scaffolding disfiguring its tower.

It briefly cleared up during the afternoon, but as luck would have I'd only just stepped outside after work, when the heavens opened again and gleefully pelted me with hail. I took a selfie while waiting under a shop's awning for Jos to arrive, my scarf temporally decorated by hailstones, which had lodged themselves into its frills, and my glasses typically misted up as a result of mask wearing. Life would be so much easier if I had 20/20 vision. Or, alternatively, if Covid-19 didn't exist!

Let's end the day with a ray of sunshine courtesy of Her Royal Highness, Princess Bess.  

This was before her petting days, but look how confident and adventurous she is becoming. Of course, after all those shenanigans, she needs her beauty sleep. Here you can admire her unusual mix of pattern and colour.

Wednesday was another office day, and as I'm not used to working two consecutive days, I was more than glad when Thursday finally arrived.

We were just about to get up when all hell broke loose and the intermittent man-made earthquakes caused by the piling machine across the road started in full force.

After a couple of hours, I was starting to feel quite dizzy and nauseous - exacerbated by worrying about the effect it would have on Bess - so that at one point we desperately needed to flee the house. 

Less than 15 minutes by car from Dove Cottage, the site of the Art Deco water tower in the neighbouring village of Reet turned out to be the perfect getaway.

In spite of the glorious sunshine, they day's highs of 10°C were still accompanied by the blustery wind which had been plaguing us for days. In my hurry to escape, I'd forgotten to add the cardigan I'd planned to wear. On its own, my coat - a short, brown and cream checked swing coat from the Spanish brand Sfera, charity shopped in February 2018 - was barely sufficient to keep the chills at bay.

It was OK as long as we were on the site's lower levels, where we briefly basked in the sunshine at one of the picnic tables while admiring the blossoms as well as the sparsely planted frilly yellow daffodils and bright orange-red tulips.

The gate to the cage-like structure containing the staircase to the tower's top was open for once, so it would have been silly not to climb them for a panoramic view of the clay-pit scarred landscape nestling in nature's fresh Spring greens.

We watched cotton wool clouds scudding across a sky of blue and wind turbines gaily waving their arms, but it was too cold to stay up there for very long. I was even starting to regret not wearing gloves!

Safely back on ground level - those see-through stairs remain quite scary for vertigo sufferers - we found a sheltered spot where I was able to remove my coat and show you the dress I was wearing underneath. This is another wardrobe stalwart, vintage and handmade, its print a fireworks of blue, red and white dots and dashes on a black background.

My accessories were a red belt and necklace, which were both charity shopped at one time or another, and another one of my recently acquired cat brooches.

Back at home, we were greeted by a scary-eyed Bess and the sight of two repro advertising signs which had toppled to the kitchen floor, dislodged by the eternal shaking caused by the infernal machine.

In a huff we stormed off to the construction site, where much to our relief we were informed that they had almost finished. True to their word, Friday was an oasis of quiet, with both the site and our two-doors-down neighbour's kitchen extension works at a welcome standstill.

Unfortunately, I had another office day to look forward to, half of which was spent with a lingering headache. To make matters worse, it was a sunny day, while the weather forecast was for a washout on Saturday.

In spite of the inclement weather, this turned out to be quite a good day. 

At first I couldn’t settle to anything, but then I decided to make a start with the seasonal wardrobe changeover.

Fairly confident that I wouldn't be needing them again until next Winter, I pulled all my warm woollen and polyester frocks from my wardrobe, making piles of them ready for the vacuum bag, and replacing them with the first batch of short-sleeved frocks.

As usual, I'll keep working on this bit by bit until Summer is well and truly on its way, but at least I've taken the first step, which always seems to be the hardest. It is, after all, quite a daunting task when you have a maximalist wardrobe!

I then had a look at the busted zipper of the skirt I wore earlier that week, wondering if my limited sewing skills would extend to replacing it. It was worth a try, especially as I found a black zipper in the correct size in my stash. And you know what, it was surprisingly straightforward. Not perfect, perhaps, but who cares? The skirt's got a working zipper once more!

That only leaves Saturday's outfit. However, as the weather remained truly horrendous all day, we didn't have a chance to take photos. So, showing true blogging dedication, I wore it all again on Sunday, before changing into that days's outfit.

I've had the skirt, with its impressionist chevron pattern, earmarked for while, and although I initially had a more Springlike outfit in mind, I found it a perfect companion in the form of this turquoise based Paisley patterned blouse.

Both are vintage finds from Think Twice, but while the blouse, with its satin-like fabric, has lost its contents label, I was surprised to see that the skirt contained 12% silk alongside its ubiquitous polyester.

More turquoise was added in the form of my opaques, while I picked up the green in the blouse's pattern by adding a green cardigan, necklace and apple-shaped ring. 

The cream background of the skirt was echoed by my vintage flower brooch, while the chocolate brown in its print was highlighted by my moc croc belt. The belt and snake print ankle boots, along with the opaques, were the only retail items in my outfit.

I'll be back with more outfits as well as a return to the garden in my next post. Do stay healthy and happy, wherever you are, and let's keep our fingers crossed we'll all have our jabs before too long!