All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey

So what is one to do on such a cold and miserable autumn day?

It was the 11th of November, which is an official holiday in Belgium. All the shops were closed, there were no interesting flea markets nearby, and after the rain of the last couple of days it was too muddy for one of our favourite walks.

In spite of the weather, the prospect of being cooped up inside the house all day did not appeal either, so after some debate we decided on a little road trip to the small town of Scherpenheuvel.

I dressed warmly for the occasion, in suitable autumnal colours.
My dress, which closes with a zip at the front, has almost the same colours nature is wearing right now: amber with the occasional dash of dark green provided by those leaves which are still trying to resist their fate.

I added a bright green cardie, charity shopped for € 3 a couple of weeks ago. It's from an overpriced Belgian brand called "Lucy Has A Secret" and would have been quite expensive originally, even if it's just an ordinary cardie ...

The brooch was charity shopped in Wales and the light green beads came from Blender Vintage Shop, as did the deadstock gloves.

I chose 50 den tights in a dark mossy green and opted for a comfortable pair of booties, although later on I regretted not wearing full length boots.

It was exactly the kind of weather for this fake fur collared jacket, which came from Think Twice and has a posh sounding Paris label.

I love the scarf, featuring elegant ladies walking their dogs under lamp posts, but I switched to a warm woolly one later in the day.

The hat, which had its first outing, was charity shopped back in spring.










After a leisurely drive of just over an hour, we arrived at Scherpenheuvel, which literally means "sharp hill", and has been Belgium's number one site of pilgrimage for centuries.

In fact, people visiting a statue of the Virgin Mary have been reported dating back to 1304.

I'm sure you will not be surprised to learn that over the years many legends and miraculous events have been attributed to the statue, which hung in an oak tree on top of the hill.

The legend goes that on a certain day a shepherd boy tried to take away the small statue from the tree, but before he could do so he was paralyzed on the spot. When his master came looking for him and found the boy in this condition, he hung the statue back, after which the boy could move again.

This miraculous story spread and more and more pilgrims found their way to Scherpenheuvel.

People would come whenever a member of the family suffered from illness, and traditionally they would walk round the tree three times while praying.















Eventually, a wooden chapel was built.

In the early 17th century, when Flanders was governed by the Archdukes Albrecht and Isabella on behalf of the Spanish king, they regularly traveled to Scherpenheuvel and enriched the shrine with many gifts. In 1604 they replaced the wooden chapel by a stone one.

This chapel eventually became the Basilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, which is a Roman Catholic parish church and minor basilica. It was built between 1609 and 1621, and is said to be the first Baroque church in Flanders. Later on more buildings, including an oratory and a cloister were added.

It is a domed church in an enclosed park (called a "Hortus Conclusus"), in the shape of a seven-pointed star. The star represents Mary (Stella Maris or Star of the Sea) and 298 gilded stars were scattered over the cupola.

The inside of the basilica is small and dark and very quiet, with a handful of people praying in almost complete silence.

You could have heard a pin drop, so my camera shutter was making quite a lot of noise. I'm not even sure photography was allowed, but as I didn't see a sign telling me not to, I just went ahead.

At the side of the basilica, there was what looked like a garden shed, where candles of all shapes and sizes could be bought and burned, invoking many different favours.

In fact, there was no shortage of places selling candles. They were sold at the stalls and shops in the square, one of which was a veritable treasure trove of holy statues and other religious paraphernalia.

And should you be in need of burning a candle in the middle of the night, then there's no need to despair, as one of the shops has a vending machine which apart from soft drinks and candy bars, also dispenses votive candles.

There is a tradition of going on a pilgrimage to Scherpenheuvel on foot in the month of May.

When he was a boy, Jos came to Scherpenheuvel many times with his mother, although they came by bus and not on foot, which took almost twenty hours from where he lived.

He remembered walking towards the basilica on a road flanked by stall after stall selling souvenirs, religious tat and local confectionery, of which now only a handful remain in the square surrounding the basilica.

A typical local delicacy are "noppen". These are small, round pastries made from a kind of gingerbread dough flavoured with aniseed. To be honest, I thought they tasted rather bland.

Back in the day, it was said that if you didn't take some "noppen" home with you, you hadn't been to Scherpenheuvel.

Nowadays, surely it's enough to show the photographs on your blog to prove you have been there!

Don't know much about history

Although I now have a keen interest in history, I have to confess that it wasn't a favourite subject at school. Not that I am a complete dunce, but I have a feeling that my knowledge of history is a bit fragmented. This is mainly due to the teacher I had during the last four years of secondary school, whose heart wasn't really into teaching. He didn't even make us swot for our exams, as his were open book ones, so names and dates are not as imprinted on my brain as they should be.

When it comes to the First World War, the things that stuck to mind, apart from the dates, were the trenches, and that our very own Flanders Fields were the scene of some of its most important battles.

And let's not to forget that 11 November, Armistice Day, is a holiday here in Belgium!

Can you believe I hadn't even been to Ypres until a couple of years ago? This all changed when we first went there for a short break back in 2012.

Visiting Ypres, it is impossible not to be immersed in the history of the Great War.

Looking at the magnificent old buildings, and especially the Cloth Hall (Lakenhalle), it is almost impossible to grasp that the whole town was virtually destroyed by four years of pointless violence and that the buildings you are looking at are less than a hundred years old. 

In fact, it was only due to the people of Ypres that the town was rebuilt at all, as the British were all for keeping the ruins as a modern Pompeii.

The Cloth Hall now houses the interactive In Flanders Field Museum, the visiting of which makes you only too well aware of the importance and severeness of the Great War.

Every visitor is given a poppy bracelet with a microchip. Based on language and entered data (name, country, region), the interactive application makes the closest match between you and two First World War witnesses, ordinary people whose stories make the war tangible and personal.

As you journey through the museum, the whole experience is enhanced by a chilling soundtrack composed by the British band Tindersticks.

We visited on a gloriously sunny September day and stepping out of the museum we felt rather dazed and slightly disorientated.














Also in Ypres, the Menin Gate is the most famous Commonwealth war memorial in Flanders, which stands on the site of the gate through which tens of thousands of soldiers passed on the way to the front, many of them never to return.

The gate was officially inaugurated in 1927 and displays the names of 54.896 soldiers which went missing in the Ypres Salient between the outbreak of the war and 15 August 1917.

Because the gate was too small to hold the names of all the missing, those who were lost after this date (a further 34,000) are commemorated on the panels of the Tyne Cot Memorial in Passchendaele, which we visited on a suitably grey day in September 2014.

Approaching the new visitor centre, which was opened in 2007, you can hear the names and ages of the young men who died recited in the background, which is incredibly moving.

Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest British war cemetery on mainland Europe and has uniform headstones made of white Portland stone

11.956 soldiers of the Commonwealth are buried here. The screen wall at the back of the cemetery commemorates a further 34.957 missing soldiers who died after 15 August 1917.

The German War Cemetery at Vladslo near Diksmuide (Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof Vladslo) contains the remains of over 25,000 young men. It is in stark contrast to its British counterparts, but certainly not less moving.

The tranquil setting, with simple stones and roughly hewn stone crosses, creates a sense of great sadness and loss.

This is enhanced by the pair of sculptures entitled “Grieving Parents” by German artist Käthe Kollwitz, who lost her youngest son in the war.

At the time of our visit, the sculptures were being restored, so unfortunely it was impossible to photograph them together.

For now, I will end this history lesson with someone else's words, written at the time:

When war shall cease this lonely, unknown spot

Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,

And flowers will bloom in this now barren plot

And fame upon it through the years descend-

But many a heart upon each simple cross

Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss. 

- John William Streets, A Soldier's Cemetary

Lady of the Fleas

On Saturday it finally was flea market time again. We hadn't been to any since the last - and disappointing - outdoor one a couple of weeks ago, and frankly speaking we were both getting withdrawal symptoms.

It was quite chilly, so I dressed warmly, and I was glad I did so, as it wasn't very warm inside the venue either.

I chose a black and white polyester dress in a flowery pattern, to which I added a  red vinyl belt and some red and black beads.

I topped it with a red cardigan, to which I pinned a wooden brooch featuring red and blue flowers on a black background, bought at an outdoor flea market in September.

My trusted red woollen jacket came out of the wardrobe and, as it's that time of the year again, I wore a poppy at my collar. It's hard to make out with all the red going on, but believe me: it's there.















The suede boots, with elasticated panels and front buckles, are a favourite pair, charity shopped last year. The black furry beret was another one of my € 2 finds at Think Twice.

Right, that's that, back to the business at hand.

This is by far our favourite indoor flea market. It's held every month except in July and August.

The best months to visit are the two months leading up to Christmas (there, I've said the dreaded word!) and indeed the general quality of the stalls was even better than last month.

There was already a lot of Christmas stuff about, which, not really being  a Christmas person at the best of times, I only gave a cursory glance. I will probably not get into the spirit - if at all - until well into December ...

In spite of the many tempting stalls, it took us until the end of the first aisle to make our first purchase. Or rather, purchases. Two ladies were selling a veritable jumble of costume jewellery, which I spent a happy time rummaging through. I came away with a satisfying haul of ten brooches and a chunky plastic ring!

The brooch in the bottom left photo is pretty special, as it's a "Liberation brooch", with the typical clover leaves in the colours of the Belgian flag, made to celebrate the Liberation of Belgium which started in September 1944. I paid less than € 5 for it, which is quite a steal! I don't think those two ladies knew what it was ...

This enamelware Côte d'Or bucket, again featuring the iconic elephant the Belgian chocolate brand is famous for, was our next find.













We were pleased to see Fanny, formerly of Blender Vintage Shop, had a stall too, which made us feel quite nostalgic for our monthly visits to her wonderful shop.

We had a  little catch-up, and bought this 1970s jewellery box ...

.. and this cute little dog jug.















The jewellery box will be used for storing a selection of brooches to choose from each day. As you may know, my brooches are stored in a series of empty cutlery boxes, but while they are a very neat storage solution, it makes choosing brooches to wear on a daily basis quite an ordeal.

After waving goodbye to Fanny, we went to have a much needed car picnic during which the sun, which had been playing hide and seek all morning, made a short-lived appearance.

Back inside, we ooh'd and aah'd over the many wonderful items on sale, but we somehow seemed to have lost our momentum.

Jos was happy to find this Expo 58 tiepin for his collection. Now, if he'd only wear a tie once in while ...

My final purchase was this cute bamboo handbag. Yes, I know! I have run out of space to store them. And it's not even very practical. But seriously, how could I leave this pretty thing behind?

I guess I will have to have a good clear out soon, and get rid of the less interesting ones, though I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you ...

In my father's footsteps

Last Tuesday was All Saints Day, which is a public holiday here in Belgium. Traditionally, on this day, people visit the cemetery and commemorate their departed loved ones by decorating their graves with flowers, especially Chrysanthemums.

Although I am not averse to cemeteries, especially of the old, overgrown variety, with a higgledy-piggledy collection of tumbling graves and lichen encrusted headstones, the last time I visited the local cemetery was at my mum's funeral, when her ashes were scattered there.

For my dad, we wanted to do things differently so we opted for a biodegradable urn, which contains seeds of a tree. On All Saints Day, we gave his ashes their final resting place. With any luck, a tree will grow in a place which was significant for him.

My dad grew up in a neighbouring village which still had a special place in his heart, even if he hadn't been living there for over 50 years.

It's where he spent his childhood roaming the streets and open spaces, which were still plentiful at the time.

My dad was full of stories of his childhood, which over the years have become part of family lore.

Quite a few of them were situated during the years of the Second World War which, in spite of the danger and depravity, were considered an adventure by him and his friends.

It's hard to believe that they played outside, unsupervised, all day, even when the threat of bombs and doodlebugs (V1 flying bombs) were a constant reality.

One of the places he often frequented, and which featured regularly in his war stories, was the local fort, part of a chain of forts surrounding the city of Antwerp.

Occupied by the Germans, this obviously was forbidden territory, and one of his favourite stories tells the tale of his encounter with a German officer and his dog. But no fear: it all ended well, with my dad being given a bar of chocolate, quite a scarce commodity at the time.

Nearer to his childhood home, and almost bordering the fort, was the local manor house (known as the castle) built in the classical style in the 1770s, surrounded by pleasure grounds and woodland.

Then: the avenue as depicted on an old postcard

The entrance to the house was through a double avenue of  linden trees, from where it could be seen beckoning tantalizingly in the distance, a shimmer of white at the horizon.

The avenue now

The grounds were out of bounds as well, of course, not that this deterred  the village boys, who knew the place like the backs of their hands.

Years of neglect have paid their toll, and the house and its coach-houses fell into disrepair, in spite of the fact that it was classified as a protected monument in 1981.

Derelict outbuildings, decaying plasterwork and pockmarked statues were the sad fate of this once magnificent domain.

At the time of our visit, the house's crumbling plaster façade was being invaded by a colony of ladybirds!

After its last occupant died in 2011, the castle and its domain were sold to the village authorities and Nature Conservation in 2012.

Just before the sale became final, several statues disappeared from the domain, as did some paintings from the castle.

It appeared that they were removed by the aristocratic family, which the new owners considered to be theft.

In April of this year, a court case decided that although the family had the right to take the statues, the paintings had to be returned to the current owners.

In the meantime, restoration work has started on the coach-houses flanking the entrance to the house.

If the area is now reminiscent of  a building site, before long the domain will finally be fully open to the public.

Until then, a walk up the avenue and around the domain can already be enjoyed.

Looking up at the trees' canopies, I was filled with wonder at the fact that these were the very same trees my dad walked under as a young boy, maybe even on a glorious autumn day like this, and that I was - quite literally - walking in my father's footsteps.