Artful Dodgers

November was slowly creeping towards its end. For the last nineteen years, a bittersweet end indeed, as the 30th of November marks my late Mum's birthday. She would have been 85 this year. And even if I miss her more with each passing year - especially as more and more, it's her face that looks back at me when I look into the mirror - I can only be thankful that she and my Dad are spared these trying times. 

November's final days were a mixture of dull grey and sunny days, with the temperature slowly but surely making their descent into single figures.

Friday 27th of November fell into the former category, but with Jos's weather app declaring it would remain dry all day, we dressed up warmly and went for a bracing walk.

I topped my black floral dress with a vintage belted Tweed jacket, wrapped a red and purple scarf around my neck and plucked a burgundy beret from the hallway cabinet drawer. Oh, and finger-less gloves, I was wearing those too!

At first, we were well-behaved and kept to the paths, but then we decided to take a short cut, sinking ankle deep into a deep-pile carpet of leaves. 

Patches of fungi were scattered at our feet and colonizing the dead and decomposing tree branches half-buried among the crispy layer of brown foliage. 

We crunched and plodded onward, wondering where the abundance of leaves had come from. Then all was revealed when the relative quietness of the park was disrupted by the rumbling sound of machinery, as a leaf-blowing tractor was rounding a corner of the path we were heading towards. Drifts of swirling leaves were swept up from the paths and deposited in the clearings, where they indignantly lay down in haphazard heaps.

We walked away from the almighty noise and I sat down on a tree stump to recover. 

We were in the sculpture park, but so far we'd dodged the works of art, pretending we were in the middle of a forest, the leaf-blower rudely shattering our daydreams.

The leafless trees were silhouetted against the dull, sunless sky, displaying a tangle of tiny twigs. Some of the lucky ones were still proudly bearing red or yellow berries to temporarily make up for the loss of their foliage.

Embracing rather than dodging the sculptures by now, we were transfixed by the eerie apparitions in this shiny red ball (Yayoi by Corey McCorkle (USA), 2005).

Being in a reflective state of mind meant that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to turn into ghostly reflections at Belgian Funhouse, by artist Dan Graham (USA), 2004.

The massive untitled work (1993) by Danish artist Per Kirkeby, a brick-built cross between a maze and a castle ruin, offered the perfect sheltered place to show you what I was wearing underneath my jacket.

One of my long-sleeved black floral frocks had come out to play that day, accompanied by a red vinyl belt and a green, charity-shopped Mango cardigan adorned with a yellow hearted brooch.

Then I went one step further and turned into art within art, joining Young Girl Skipping by Robert Couturier (France), 1951, on the left and King and Queen by Henry Moore (UK), 1952-53, on the right.

I still need to think of a suitable title, but Mature Girl Acting Silly is a strong contender.

On our way back we were amazed to see this tree clothed in premature Spring blossom, juxtaposed with the golden yellow Autumn foliage of its neighbour. Fooled into flowering by nature's topsy-turvy behaviour, it was a freakish and disconcerting sight.

To tie in with the artfulness of this post, I was truly honoured to have been illustrated by my talented blogging friend Ivana in her post of last Sunday. Above you can see her fashion sketch and the inspiration side by side. Isn't it wonderful?

Bright sunshine cranked up the thermostat a couple of degrees on Saturday, briefly re-entering the double figures.

I'd been meaning to wear this black, blue, white and yellow tartan skirt for a while, so that morning, with plans afoot for another nature walk, I finally got around to it.

You'll be getting to see what I wore it with in a moment, but first up is my outerwear, consisting of a fur-collared teal new wool jacket, with a yellow beret and chunky knit yellow scarf to tie in with the yellow bits of the skirt.

On this sunny Saturday, we weren't the only ones making the most of the glorious weather, and had to artfully dodge quite a few fellow walkers, some of whom didn't seem to have grasped the concept of social distancing. Most of the time, it was up to us to step aside and politely wait until any oncoming traffic had passed, while the latter kept walking two or three abreast. At one point, I stepped out of the way so that a lady could safely walk past, but instead she walked straight into my direction. I'm sure this wasn't in the least intentional, but I was still inwardly seething.

We soon left the well-trodden paths and ventured between the trees, finding a suitable tree to lean my walking stick against, to be used as a clotheshorse for my jacket and scarf.

Here's the vintage blue and white flower patterned and diagonally striped blouse I teamed the skirt with, and the chunky cropped yellow cardigan I wore on top. Accessories were an orchid brooch and belt in caramel colours and a wood and metalwork necklace I found in the to-be-sold-on boxes.

While Jos was taking photos, he'd brushed against a small tree, its few remaining leaves turning out to be inhabited by tiny creepy crawlies, ending up with one of the leaves inside his duffel coat’s hood. 

We managed to remove most of the small fly-like creatures, but apparently not all of them, as he kept scratching his neck and back during our walk. Back at home, he stripped down and we found at least ten more the pesky creatures, most of them still very much alive!

November's final Sunday dawned dismal and chilly, with the temperature dropping to a mere 6°C.

It was another day of faffing about, catching up with blogland and finishing all of Lucinda Riley's 800 plus page blockbuster, The Sun Sister.

The dress I was wearing that day is another second-chancer plucked from the flea market boxes. 

What was I thinking? An old Think Twice find, its thick polyester and wool blend fabric kept the chills at bay all day, while its Art Deco style orange on blue print went a long way in boosting my mood.

I added more orange in the form of my opaques, belt, beaded necklace and vintage flower wreath brooch.

My blue ankle boots were only worn to step outside for photos, as I was in socks an slippers all day.

In spite of the greyness of the day, the garden was providing fireworks with the fiery red of the Cotoneaster leaves and berries and the last of the Gaillardia flowers.

And with that cheerful sight, I am putting November to bed. About time too, I should think, as we're heading towards Mid-December!

I hope you are all well and are sensibly keeping safe!

Jewels of a year grown old

We're well into December by now which is feeling quite unreal. The final month of a year half-lived: a constant balancing act between despair, reluctant acceptance of a new reality and the odd, flickering spark of hope. 

The year's darkest days are encroaching on us and if they always have a tendency to make me feel quite maudlin, this is especially true this year. The fading light is making it almost impossible to pick out the positives from the long row of negatives 2020 has presented us with. The gift of time versus the loss of freedom to go where we please and without fear? As much as I appreciate the former, the latter remains a bitter pill to swallow.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, as my blog hasn't caught up with the calendar yet, being still firmly stuck in November.

The weather on the month's penultimate Sunday wasn't much to write home about: an utterly miserable day on which darkness ruled, the granite grey sky joined by light but persistent rain in the afternoon.

We'd waited all day for a break in the clouds so that we could nip into the garden for outfit photos, but when this still hadn't happened by mid-afternoon, we had no choice but to take a couple of snaps indoors. None of which were very good, I hasted to add, the one on the right being the best of the bunch. 

The dress with its groovy green, orange and brown print was an old Think Twice find. I've included some close-ups taken in proper daylight a couple of days later which, apart from the print, allows you to have a better look at my necklace and my belt with its tortoise shell buckle, a flea marked and charity shop find respectively.

For want of something better to do, I continued with the kitchen cleaning I'd started the previous days, taking the time to dust some of our shelves of kitchenalia, which I'm sure you'll understand is quite a time consuming task!

Lunch was Jos's yummy homemade Winter vegetable soup.

The afternoon was spent hibernating reading on the couch, making things cozy with cinnamon and vanilla scented candles and tea-lights burning cheerfully inside amber coloured 1970s coffee cups.

I'm skipping Monday's humdrum office day to arrive at Tuesday, 24th of November which, in total contrast to Sunday, was a gorgeously sunny day. 

With the temperature still hovering in the region of 10°C, it was the kind of life-affirming day that implores you to go outside and explore.

Racking our brains for a suitable place to wander around, we decided on a nature reserve called De Walenhoek, which we last visited in high Summer.

Situated in Niel, a village about 10 kilometer from where we live, this is another reserve which has been established on the site of former clay pits.

When clay extraction came to an end here in the late 1970s, the local residents and town council joined forces with the fledgling nature conservation movement to achieve something which was quite unusual for that time: they saved the former clay pits from being turned into a waste disposal site.

The result is today's reserve comprising 60 hectares, and offering an enchantingly varied landscape of large ponds and pools bordered by reed beds and dense thickets. There's a largely fenced-off wooded area as well, which is being grazed by Galloway cattle, and is home to rare fungi and mosses.

I was wearing my favourite green fur-collared jacket again, this time accompanied by a multi-coloured knit scarf and a tan Burberry beret.  I've had the scarf for so long that I can't remember where it came from, but I do remember the beret was picked up at Think Twice.

I exchanged my ruined boots for a pair of fleece-lined chocolate brown ones, which were last year's retail buy. 

The dark brown dress, with its symphony of white and yellow spots, arranged into squares on its box-pleated skirt, was yet another Think Twice find. 

My necklace, an arrangement of wooden disks, as well as my belt and opaques, picked up the yellow in my dress's print. To its bodice, I pinned a large off-white oval brooch containing a picture of a lady, which I found at an outdoor flea market several years ago.

Dotted around the reserve are some of the remnants of its industrial past, completely taken over by the forces of nature and the passing of time.

Narrow paths separate the twenty or so pools and ponds of varying sizes and depths, all vying for first price in a natural beauty contest, and eliciting wows around every corner.

In Summer, lush and sprawling vegetation tends to hide some of the smaller ponds from view, but in late November, with only a handful of glistening golden leaves left on the otherwise bare trees, the reserve's innermost secrets are revealed.

On this still and golden Autumn day, the unrippled surfaces offered mirror-like reflections picturesquely framed by skeleton twigs and branches. 

Time seems to stand still here, even if only for a moment, until suddenly it's there again, triggered by a trick of the light, or the chug-chug sound of a distant train passing by: a dawning realization that nothing is quite as it seems.

The weather continued to be good-natured on Wednesday, my second office day of the week. 

As always at the end of a sunny late November afternoon, I was regaled with the most spectacular sunsets from the first row of my office window. 

And then it was Thursday. I'd woken up with the craving to wear a particular red-hued dress, which I soon realized was missing from my wardrobe. Hoping against hope that I hadn't sold it and that it was still lurking inside one of my flea market boxes, I dived into our bedroom's built-in cupboard, opening one box after another. 

Alas, my search was in vain, but what I did find was this luscious floral velvet skirt. A charity shop find back in December 2016, it had become a tad too snug and was thus relegated to the to-be-sold pile. Gingerly trying it on, I was overjoyed that it fit me again, so all thoughts of the elusive dress disappeared from my mind, as I was determined to wear the skirt there and then.

To keep the skirt company, I opted for the ginger cat blouse I paired it with the very first time I wore it (here).

I did wear a different belt this time, an unstructured burgundy one with a big circular buckle, and instead of an orange necklace, I chose a string of olive coloured wooden beads. The ginger cats were joined by my faux Lea Stein cat brooch.

A burgundy fluffy cardi, curry coloured opaques and sage green suede ankle boots completed that day's outfit.

Rummaging through those flea market boxes unearthed a couple of other forgotten treasures, like these two dresses which I'm offering a second and final chance to rejoin my wardrobe.

I'm concluding this post with some jewels from our garden, which I caught with my phone's macro lens.

It seems that the moderate temperatures and the mix of sunshine and rain has been tricking the garden into thinking the flowering season isn't quite over yet. 

We used to laugh at one of our local garden centres, whose generic plant signs proclaimed that the plants they were selling would flower until November.

Well, this foursome is certainly living up to expectations and beyond!

On that note of positivity, I am wishing you all well and hope that you keep on staying safe.

Hope to see you again next time!

Muddy paths and natural highs

Isn't it typical how often a dark and rainy day off is followed by a gorgeously sunny one when you're stuck at work? Case in point was two weeks ago on Wednesday, when not only the sun was out in full force, she came accompanied by temperatures up to 17°C as well.

In between ticking off my office tasks, I stood watching Antwerp bathing in glorious sunlight from my 5th floor office windows, noting how empty the street leading away from the city's main shopping thoroughfare was. Not really surprising, perhaps, with only non-essential shops open, but it's still quite a rare sight on a late weekday morning. There wasn't even any traffic about when I clicked that shutter -- or whatever you call its equivalent on a phone - and for once the eternal clanging of the trams had stopped, so that it was eerily quiet as well.

 

The almost Spring-like weather tempted me outside during lunch break, when I masked up and went for a walk around the block, picking up some coconut body butter at a health and beauty shop along the way.

It was strange walking in there and seeing the products considered as non-essential and which therefore like forbidden fruits they weren't allowed to sell, covered up in black plastic film. There was a man in front of me in the queue at the till who was rather disappointed he couldn't buy the perfume he'd taken the tram from one of the suburbs for especially.

I was rather disappointed as well, in my case with Thursday's weather! Not only had the temperature plummeted to about 10°C, it was mostly cloudy with scattered showers all day.

I pottered around the house, doing this and that but not very much at all, while Jos went food shopping. We put everything away upon his return, by which time our faintly rumbling stomachs demanded that we had lunch.

Then, as we were in need of more bread mix, we drove down to the garden centre which, as you can see below, has a very extensive home-baking department.

Masking up is a must, but so is dressing up in my book, especially when you're going on an outing. Isn't it weird that even the most mundane things can be considered an outing these days? We were only buying bread mix and some candles, for heaven's sake!

Although so far November had been a mix of bright sunny days and miserable grey and rainy ones, the one constant had been the mild temperatures for this time of year, which had hardly crept into single figures. 

I'd been eyeing my fur-collared jackets with longing, so I deemed the sudden drop in temperature the perfect excuse for wearing my favourite of all. 

My vintage, Austrian made green woollen jacket is graced with a super snuggly faux fur collar in delicious caramel colours. To further combat the relative chill of the day, I wore it with a dusky purple beret and a purple, flower embroidered, crushed velvet scarf. The latter was a lucky € 0,50 find at an indoor flea market many years ago.

Underneath the jacket, I was sporting a funkily patterned rust and brown tie-collared dress from Think Twice, which I wore with curry-coloured opaques and belt.

The slightly bothersome tie collar was tamed by a pansy brooch from a small antique shop inside Cardigan Market, with a peachy pink flower corsage accompanying it on the dress itself. My burgundy cardigan is King Louie via the charity shop and the caramel ankle boots were last year's high street buy.

As a result of the eternal mask wearing, I have been struggling with my lipstick routine, often going without when I know I'll have to mask up at some point. Our newspaper's weekend magazine came to the rescue about a month ago with a test of several long-stay lipsticks, declaring Maybelline's Superstay Matte Ink as one of the best. I'm glad to report that that they seem to work for me too so that I now have them in a choice of colours.

November's fickleness presented us with a crisp and sunny day on Friday on which  - lo and behold - we finally got the first of the single figure temperatures, dipping towards 8°C.

As the forecast for the next couple of days was looking pretty dire, we wasted no time in going for another walk, driving down to Jos's old playground again.

After parking our car, we took the path leading into the opposite direction from Saturday's, leaving us a bit mystified when we soon emerged onto a busy road, where we passed a small red brick chapel. Peering through the glass of its firmly locked door, we could make out a well-tended red brick altar presided over by an Our Lady of Lourdes lookalike. To minimize reflections, I asked Jos to stand directly behind me so that I could take a photograph.

We didn't have to walk along the road for very long until we found a waymarked path leading off it, initially skirting the backs of some houses, until we seemed to enter the nature reserve again.

The path soon offered an enchanting view across a wild and partially water-logged valley - a former clay pit - with a lonely chimney, a relic of the area's not all too distant brick-making past, towering above the tallest of the trees.

In her comment on my previous post, Vronni was wondering whether this always was a nature reserve, to which the answer is a definite no.

Once upon a time, the area was a hive of industrial activity, complete with the typical back-to-back housing where people eked out their living, until it was spontaneously taken over by nature after the decline of the brick-making industry in the early 1970s.

Only as recently as 2016 has this 31-hectare nature reserve been acquired by Natuurpunt, the Flemish nature conservation charity. The reserve is a habitat for rare species such as the natterjack toad, the crested newt, the sand martin and the little bittern, which is the smallest of the wading herons in Europe. It is also a potential habitat for beavers.

Walking with a constant photographer is a bit of a waiting game at times, and I can often see Jos disappearing from view as he walks on without a backward glance, until he finally notices I'm not following in his track!

Eventually, we emerged upon the famous sandy plain again, from where a path leads tantalizingly uphill. A magical world waits at its end, where a small detour takes you to a water-filled clay pit, the remains of a dredger leaning precariously towards its reflection in the water.

The perfect spot for outfit photos, starting with my outerwear. This is my old cream, fudge and baby blue plaid coat, picked up for a pittance in a charity shop back in the mists of time. It was accompanied by a fuzzy purple beret and my frilly turquoise scarf. The boots are yet again my old, almost worn-out ones. Little did I know it would be their final outing!

My dress is vintage textured polyester, from the Finnish Karelia label and it has - oh joy of joys - pockets! Not just pockets, mind you, they are lined too! 

I chose contrasting burgundy for my opaques, belt and necklace and pinned a wooden duck brooch to my dress's collar. The brooch in question is now gleaming as never before, as I forgot to remove it before chucking the dress into the washing machine! 

My teal cardigan, which repeats the print in my dress, is another charity shopped King Louie one.

We started uphill on the path in question, which is deeply rutted as a result of being used as a mountain bike trail. Difficult to walk on even in dry conditions, we were now soon ankle deep in slippery muddy clay, which tried to suck us in and clung to our boots, making them heavier with every step.

We weren't even half-way before the path became virtually impassable and we had to turn back, worrying about having to get into our only months-old car with our mud-encrusted footwear.

Walking through wet grass did not seem to make it any better, but then we came across a patch of mosses, whose sponge-like texture managed to clean off most of the mud in a jiffy. 

Back at the sandy plain, the sky started darkening as clouds gathered dramatically, blocking out the sun's final efforts of the day.

Time to go home and get cozy! 

And my boots, they sadly turned out to have suffered more than I'd bargained for, so that they were no longer wearable and I had no choice but to throw them out.

Saturday started with some initial sunshine, which soon vanished into thin air, developing into another grey and miserable day.

After breakfast, I got my cleaning skates on and tackled the bathroom and most of the kitchen surfaces.

We were once again in double figures, so I chose a lightweight blouse to go with my zig-zaggy skirt. The latter is from Forever 21, of all places, bought at the very shop before I started shopping mainly second hand. It's still getting regular wears after all these years, so that's alright, I suppose.

The skirt isn't the only high street buy in my outfit. It is joined by my Accessorize necklace, which has also passed the test of time.

My dark green blouse with its sprinkling of lilac and purple flowers growing upon a trellis was picked up from Think Twice. I echoed the colours of its print with my woven belt, brooch and ring, throwing on a burgundy long-line cardigan to play along with my ancient ankle boots when I stepped outside.

Sunday's weather would be even worse, but November provided us with a further handful of sunny days later that week. But that, my friends, will be for next time. 

Do stay safe and positive, wherever you are!

Welcome to the wilderness

Although we were supposed to be in a watered down version of lockdown until 13 December, we had another government announcement on Friday, informing us that non-essential shops will be allowed to re-open on Tuesday the 1st of December. Personally, I'm not sure this was a wise decision, with Christmas (there, I've used the other C word!) very much on our doorstep.  However much precautions will be taken, I already have visions of hordes of Christmas-shopping zombies crowding the streets of Antwerp, and I'm thanking my lucky stars I only have to grin and bear them two days a week.

Christmas itself is still very much cancelled, so at least that's something to be thankful for, even if I'm not sure that everybody will be responsible enough to follow the rules as far as this is concerned. I know I may be a bit of a Scrooge, but I'm thinking of the future here. Admittedly, Covid-19 cases have been going down again for a while, but we're not anywhere near the ultimate goal so there's still every reason to remain cautious. 

But anyway! As my blog is still struggling to catch up with daily life at Dove Cottage, I'm inviting you to come along on a short trip in the time machine as I'm taking you back on two weeks ago on Saturday.

After a wishy-washy few days,  the weather gods had finally deemed to treat us to another gloriously sunny one, with innocent white clouds drifting in a bright blue sky. Too good a day, in fact, that it would have been silly not to make the most of it, so we ignored the fact that it was a Saturday and went for a walk.

Besides, we needed to experiment some more with our new phone's cameras, so that although we took along my proper Canon DSLR camera - with which most of the photos appearing in my blog are taken - we didn't actually use it.

We'll have a look at my outfit later, but first I need to mention the brown fur-collared jacket I'm wearing. It's vintage, proudly bears a Paris label, and was among my earliest Think Twice finds. For some unfathomable reason I hadn't worn it in years.

I was carrying one of my cross-body bags, featuring panels of tapestry at the back and front but, only mere minutes into our walk, the strap snapped off, leaving me with no other option than to carry it in my arms. Fortunately, Jos's shepherd style walking stick came to the rescue!

For our walk, we set the time machine's controls for Jos's childhood, as the area we visited are the former clay pits surrounding the hamlet he grew up in. There is nothing left of the hamlet nor its neighbouring ones which, together with the once flourishing clay industry, have been taken over by the mighty forces of nature.

A nature reserve has been established here with lots of meandering paths criss-crossing it. Even on this sunny Saturday, it was very quiet and we were alone for most of the time, only meeting a handful of fellow walkers in all the time we were there.

The crooked semi-bare trees with the carpet of discarded leaves beneath them were the perfect backdrop for showing you what I was wearing underneath that jacket.

My rust coloured slubbed skirt is vintage St. Michael and part of a suit, its short-sleeved belted jacket remaining largely unworn. To accompany it, I chose a chocolate brown polka dot blouse enhanced by handfuls of orange and yellow flowers. The latter colour was repeated in my cardigan and opaques, while I used olive green as an accent colour for my necklace and suede belt.

I was wearing a semi-worn out pair of boots, perfect for walking the wet paths the recent rain had left in its wake. It can be quite muddy out there!

The last time we visited here was on the 31st of July, which with its 35°C was one of last Summer's hottest days. That day, the heat of the sun was beating down relentlessly, and when we crossed the sandy plain where we took the long-shadowed selfie on the bottom right, the hot sand kept sloshing over the tops of my shoes, almost burning my feet in the process.

Now, instead of making a beeline for the shelter of the trees beyond, we kept on walking in the balmy November sunshine with the temperature a very agreeable 15°C.

We kept wandering at will, taking note of the sun's position in order not to get lost, as we hadn't brought our walking map. Not all paths are waymarked here but eventually we would come across one of the numbered markers which would have given us an indication of our whereabouts if we'd had a map.

As those of you who have been following my blog for a while might have gathered by now, we are very prone to getting lost even if we do have a map, so it's nothing short of a miracle that we found our way back to where we'd parked our car quite easily. Who needs a map anyway?

It was supposed to be very rainy and windy on Sunday, but there was still a bit of lingering sunshine to be spied when we got up. Having taken note of the shape of things to come, however, we went into the garden for outfit photos straight after our Sunday breakfast of eggs and soldiers.

Here I am amid the tangled jungle our garden usually is at this time of year, the dry and brown Hydrangea flower heads, the wilting and yellowing ferns and the jolly red Cotoneaster berries all harbingers of advanced Autumn. Peeking from the rampant ivy behind me are the first of the tiny yellow stars twinkling in our Winter Jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum).

I was wearing a pink dress with lashings of purple and off-white flowers which I picked up in a vintage per kilo shop in Antwerp last year. A vintage off-white flower brooch and a semi-transluscent lilac beaded necklace - both charity shop finds - were my accessories. Oh, and I once again wore one of my stretchy chevron patterned belts. They really go with everything!

In typical Sunday mood, I pottered around the house, ticking a couple of smaller things not worth mentioning off my to-do list.

Shortly after lunch, it started pouring and turned quite windy as forecasted, and although it had virtually stopped by the time we went to bed, we closed the bedroom window, which is usually left partly open during the night if weather permits, just to be on safe side.

Monday's office day was uneventful, not even worthy of a journal entry. Then Tuesday dawned grey and dismal but with a quite reasonable 12°C.

I still had the task of properly hibernating my Spring and Summer dresses to tick off my list. In order to save well-needed space, my out-of-season clothes are put into vacuum bags which are then put to sleep in our linen chest. The problem was that some of the bags, which had been doing their jobs for many years, turned out to be no longer airtight.

I'd bought a new set of bags just before lockdown 2 but hadn't yet been able to summon the get-up-and-go to tackle the gargantuan task of repacking the clothes into the new bags.

Now was as good a time as any, and what's more, the new bags turned out to be so much better quality. There was now more than enough space left on top of them to store my warmest woollens as well as a non-vacuumed bag of clothes which still needs sorting out.

The linen chest in question used to belong to Jos's maternal grandparents, who lived on a farm. A true family heirloom, its age spelled out by the scratched and stained surface of its heavy lid. It finally came into Jos's possession after his brother Eugene passed away in 2014.

It sits right next to my desk in the spare room, wedged into the only space we could find for it, but what a godsend it turned out to be! 

Covered with a quilted throw, it is yet again one of Phoebe's favourite snoozing places. 

Due to the eternal lack of space, I am constantly reshuffling my coats and jackets, which are jam-packed inside the wardrobe the jackets are hanging from in the linen chest collage.

A forecasted change in the weather prompted me to take out and hang up some of my warmer jackets  ready for wear. You will probably have recognized the two plaid jackets (top right and bottom left), which I've recently worn on the blog.

The teal new wool jacket (top left) and green wool jacket are both vintage and with their furry collars they usually come out to play as soon as a cold snap is on the horizon.

 

The belted brown Tweed jacket is another favourite which was worn on the blog not too long ago. Slightly moth-eaten before it even came into my possession, it has nevertheless been cherished for years.

The bottle green Tweed jacket was charity shopped in the Autumn of 2018 and my stash of buttons came up with the perfect one  to replace its boring predecessor. 

The deliciously coloured plaid jacket on the left was a sales bargain from a village shop which has since closed down, while the pale green, blue and black jigsaw print cape came from Think Twice. Tucked away at the back of the wardrobe, I always keep forgetting its existence, but I'm hoping to find the perfect occasion for wearing it very soon!

That just leaves that Tuesday's outfit! 

It actually features the skirt I couldn't get to look right, as mentioned in my previous post. I thought it deserved a second chance so I played around with my wardrobe's contents until I found the perfect top to pair it with. I was led by its blue background and the red in its confetti print, which echoed the blue and red in my skirt. 

On top, I threw on a teal waterfall cardigan which, same as the skirt and top, was a charity shop find.

As were the belt, necklace, brooch and boots, for that matter! In fact, the only new-bought items in my outfit were the blue opaques and ditto plastic ring.

I'm happy to report that I didn't feel the need to change into anything else that day and that the skirt will be a keeper after all.

And with that, I bid you goodbye for now. Until next time, please do stay safe, sane and as fabulous as possible!