Back to the old house

This post has been living in my head for more than two years now. In fact, I had my first stab at writing it shortly after my Dad passed away, back in August 2016, knowing that sooner or later the time would come that I'd have to publish it. I deleted what I'd written and started from scratch several times over. For months at a time, I didn't want to look it in the eye, while all the time knowing that it was there, somewhere in the depths of my drafts folder.

The thing is, how exactly does one write about saying goodbye to the place which keeps so many memories within its walls: my childhood home? The house which has been woven into the tapestry of my childhood and adolescence, its very layout leaving a permanent imprint on my impressionable mind.

I did most of my growing up there. I ate, slept and played there. Spent hours curled up on the sofa with a book. Wasted  hours daydreaming in my bedroom. Where I hung posters of punk bands on the walls of my room when I was not-so-sweet sixteen and the future an unknown entity that both scared and excited me.

This is the place I was homesick for when I went abroad on a school trip for the first time. A safe haven to return to. Somewhere I could shed my chronic shyness and insecurity.

If you listen carefully, your ear pressed to its walls, my old bedroom still echoes with the music I listened to when I was a troubled teenager. There's still heartbreak lingering in the air from when I split up with my first boyfriend.

How does one write about all this indeed? I still haven't got a clue but the story begs to told.

Tomorrow, the house will no longer belong to us. We have closed its door for the very last time, and our memories will be the ghosts that haunt it.

As far as houses go, the old house isn't really that old. In fact, it is younger than me. My parents built it in the early 1960s, my Dad and grandfather doing most of the work single-handedly, and we - my Mum and Dad and a not quite 3-year-old me - moved into it in July 1964

It was one of the first houses to be built in a brand new street on a brand new estate where not all that long before there had been fields, meadows and the orchard our street was named after.

Whereas most of the estate's houses were fairly traditional, my parents clearly embraced the modernity of the late 1950s/early 1960s.  Our house was the only one with floor to ceiling windows at both ends of the living room. At the front, the windows were off-centre, with panels of pebble dash separating the downstairs and the upstairs windows, with a large expanse of red brick wall to their left.

There was a pebble dash awning above the front door which, being a semi-detached house, was at the side rather than at the front, and more pebble dash panels appeared in the wall next to it, which was interrupted by the odd glass brick. This is where our downstairs loo was.

Upon entering the front door, the first thing that struck you were the black and white tiled hall and immediately to the left, the stairs leading to the first floor. These were another tribute to the era, consisiting of white faux marble slabs which were cleverly built into the outside wall on one side.

The whole staircase seemed to float in mid air although, on the unsupported side, safety was provided by black iron rods in varying lengths, which acted as a banister.

Straight on was our living room, with a sitting area at the front and a dining area at the back near the kitchen.

The room had nice black and white marbled tiles, which would later, when I was in my early teens, be replaced by vile green-ish fitted carpet, which seemed the height of luxury at the time.

A suspended ceiling made from tongue and groove pine, with built-in spotlights, was added in the late 1960s, and my Dad designed some shelving for our growing collection of books, incorporating a state of the art pull-out shelf for our television.

Central heating was quite a new concept for my parents, but they even went one step further, as instead of regular radiators, our living room had heating elements sunk into the floor and covered with cast iron grilles, beneath each of the windows.

These grilles were to become the bane of our lives, as they gobbled up small things - think Barbie shoes, marbles, jigsaw pieces and Lego bricks. Luckily, the grilles could be removed, and my dad invented a clever piece of equipment for retrieving lost treasure which had ended up under the heating elements.

The living room's other outstanding feature was a large grey brick chimney breast. Allegedly these bricks were salvaged from an old barn which had been demolished near my grandparents' house. The chimney breast had a slightly protruding fireplace built from smooth, off-white stone, with an identical wood storage compartment next to it.  My favourite feature was the small panel of abstract tiles, providing a subtle element of colour in the sea of grey brick.

For the first few months after moving in, I shared my parents' bedroom, until my own bedroom next door was finally finished.

I still have fond memories of the wallpaper on the wall next to my bed, which featured kittens playing with balls of wool among houses of cards. This remained in place until in the early 1970s I insisted on having orange wallpaper. I really was a child of my time!

My father, who was a joiner, designed and made the huge built-in cupboard in my room, which incorporated a night table, a spacious wardrobe, book shelves and plenty of storage space for toys.

Understandably proud of his achievement, my Dad insisted that I posed for a photograph, while sitting on my bed. As I was happily playing in the garden at the time, I wasn't too pleased at having my game interrupted. Hence the tear stained, thundercloud face!

Our back garden had some shrubs and trees at its tapered end.

Initially, it had a swing dangling from a sturdy branch of a tree, which would later be replaced by a proper swing set, containing one single swing. Immediately in front of it was a circular sandpit, where I built sandcastles and made mud-pies. I loved messing about with the fine sand, which ultimately led to the demise of my curls.

The house itself has long ceased to be my home, as I left it for good in 1980. I didn't go home much in the first few years after I left, and it is strange to think that life at home just went on without me. My siblings, who are much younger than me, were only 9 and 11 going on twelve when I left home and, looking at photographs and film footage (my Dad had switched to a Super 8 camera at some point), it now strikes me that for most of their adolescent years, they were part of a family unit of four, with me the absent ghost sister.

After I left home, the house was redecorated several times, a new kitchen and bathroom were installed and new furniture appeared, so that it in the end, it didn't feel much like the house I grew up in anymore.

It took all those months of clearing the house, stripping it back to its bare bones, so to speak,  to rediscover and appreciate it and the countless, often poignant, memories it holds.

There's a whole Pandora's box full of them, which will forever haunt me in my dreams, from which I will wake up with tears in my eyes and a song playing over and over again in the background:

I would love to go

Back to the old house

But I never will

I never will

I never will

~The Smiths, Back to the Old House

Swallows and flowers

We were all set to go to our last indoor flea market of the year on Sunday before last.

It was, in fact, the perfect outing for the neither here nor there weather we'd woken up to. It had rained during the night and, while the sun was out for the outfit photos taken just before we left, the weather forecast was indecisive and more rain had been predicted.

The vintage dress I'm wearing, its print vying with the best of herbaceous borders, has been hanging unworn in my wardrobe since last Summer. The fabric is fairly heavy, and the dress is fully lined to boot, making it too warm for balmy Spring days, let alone hot Summer ones, while its just-over-the-elbow bell sleeves make it hard to add a layer on top during the colder months.

But ah those sleeves! Surely you can guess that this was one of the dress's selling points? And what about that fabulous print?

No need for layering that Sunday, as the temperature was just right for wearing the dress on this mediocre May day.

My necklace, with its colourful wooden beads, and the fuchsia vinyl belt, were charity shopped, as was the scarf I'm wearing with my faithful orange leather jacket, which was a Think Twice find.

In spite of the weather, our expectations for this end-of-season flea market weren't great, but we were still a bit letdown when we spied the half-empty hall, and the many gaps between stalls.

But if we'd initially thought we'd made a wasted journey, this turned out not to be the case. Still, it took us until we came across Tanja's stall for us to make our first purchases.

Tanja is a follower of my blog, and her stall is always a joy to behold. I even remembered to take some pictures of it for once. They're the ones on the top left and right.

On the bottom right is the stall of another one of my followers, Rita. The picture of the jumble of buttons was taken at a random stall. I'm usually far too busy browsing to take any pictures. Plus, lighting conditions at the venue aren't exactly ideal.

In fact, with my new glasses, my eyes had a bit of a problem adjusting to the event hall's light conditions. Their website boasts that it has natural lighting during the day, due to the profusion of oval openings in the roof construction. You can pay a virtual visit to the hall here, so that you can see what I mean. All very well in theory but alas, even on the clearest of days, there never seems to be enough light and what's more, those pesky skylights play a very annoying game with the artificial lighting.

But enough about that. I'm sure you're all dying to know what we found, so without further ado, here's a group photo of all our treasures, displayed on our garden table after we got home. And look, it turned out to be sunny after all.

In case you are wondering: yes, we bought the plants at the flea market too! 

Let's start with our finds from Tanja's stall. 

I love all kinds of vintage packaging, and even more so when they still contain the product, so a lovely little carton of laundry whitener and a pack of Q-tips have joined our collection.

Talking of Q-tips, here are some vintage ads for you to enjoy!

The floral canister decorated with quintessential Summer flowers like foxgloves and delphiniums, was made in England, and will be used for storing odds and ends in our bathroom.

Finally, I also fell hard for this turquoise beaded bag.

Tanja threw in the pink storage box for free! Isn't that sweet?

These leather watch straps were a bargainous € 1 each. The lady we bought them from had boxes full of them which she told us were deadstock from the shop her mother-in-law used to have. 

I have several cheap watches which I'm using on rotation, and I like having straps in a variety of colours, to coordinate with my outfits!

Always on the lookout for additions to my ever growing collection of brooches, I was happy to find no less than seven.

Five of them were picked up from the same stall, the odd ones out being the celluloid dog brooch (above, top left) from Rita's stall, and the Lucite roses brooch (below, bottom right).

There's an intruder in there! As I didn't have enough brooches to fill this collage, I sneaked in this gorgeous little flower, which is currently going strong in our garden. Self-seeding like mad and popping up in the most unexpected of places, Aquilegia 'Nora Barlow', with its frilly petticoated flowers, has been residing in our garden for many years. 

In one of the flea market's last aisles is a stall selling all manner of vintage haberdashery, where I usually have a good rummage through the boxes of buttons. 

As many of you are aware, I only have very limited sewing skills, but it often only takes a change of buttons to completely transform a garment. Some of my stash might never get used, but I simply cannot resist beautifully crafted old buttons. It must be something in my genes, as I remember playing with the buttons in both my grandmothers' sewing boxes when I was a little girl.

Our star find of the day were these vintage canisters, displaying their contents in both of Belgium's national languages, Flemish and French. I was instantly drawn to their swallow decorations and rich colours. Dating from the late 1920s, early 1930s, they are in extraordinary condition considering their age, with hardly any scratches and with only a smidgen of rust at the edges.

When we showed them to Tanja, she advised us to use some WD-40 to stop any rust in its tracks and give them some shine, a job which had been added to Mr. S.'s to-do list!

As we walked past the plant stall upon entering the flea market venue, we promised ourselves to buy some summer flowers before leaving. We hadn't made it to the garden centre yet, and the area just outside our back door was badly in need of sprucing up.

Apart from pots of Million Bells, Dianthus and Osteospermum, we chose a couple of pink Pelargoniums to be put into the green enamel cone-shaped planters hanging on our potting shed.

These were found at Blender Vintage Shop many years ago, and nobody seems to know what they were originally used for. There's a hole at their tapered ends, allowing for drainage, which makes them the ideal plant holders.

Now, what else can we add to our garden to rival with the flowers on my dress?

I can see clearly now

Hello my friends! No, you don't have to adjust your screens, nor is there something wrong with your eyesight! There is - or rather was - something wrong with mine though, and rather than just have my prescription lenses upgraded, I thought I'd splash out on some swanky new eye-wear.

Thanks to my Mum, I've been short-sighted since my early twenties. Well, probably even a bit longer than that, but as long as it was still a minor thing, I chose to ignore it, rather than having to wear glasses, which I dreaded.

Stubbornly, I kept squinting and sitting in the front row at the cinema until it was no longer comfortable and there was nothing for it but to purchase my first pair of glasses. I hated them with a vengeance and only wore them when strictly necessary, so that at first not many people saw me wearing them!

So reluctant was I to give in to the inevitable that by the time I was in my late twenties, I decided to try contact lenses. Bye, bye horrible glasses!

Then, in the early noughties, I developed a problem with one of my eyes, and was advised to stop wearing lenses for a while. Not wanting to be seen dead in my old pair of specs, I treated myself to some sassy new ones. They had thin, rectangular red frames, and were tiny, which was all the rage back then. I loved wearing them and got so many compliments that I never went back to contact lenses at all. I even bought a second, similar pair in purple!

I've had my current pair, the ones you've all come to know, for about six years and while I still love them, I thought it was time for a change. Besides, I needed another adjustment and, since age-related farsightedness had cropped up over the years and I've had a prescription pair of reading glasses for quite a while, I thought I'd take the plunge and try multifocals!

They felt weird at first, and although I'm still not fully used to them, I can definitely appreciate the advantages.

Last weekend started early, as I'd taken Friday afternoon off, to allow myself two and a half days of trying them out, without having to sit in front of a computer screen for most of the day.

My outfit that day was a happy marriage of retail and second hand. The floaty floral dress was a sales buy at C&A two Winters ago, while my pink cardigan, the belt and beaded necklace, as well as the velvety PANK (Sheila's word!) jacket were charity shopped.

Both the plum coloured shoes (they're from Hotter, and were a silly € 2) and the brooch were flea market finds.

Speaking of charity shopping, this is what we usually do on Saturdays. Plus, I felt the need to try out my glasses in all kinds of situations, including shopping!

And what a joy it is not having to squint when trying to read labels and book spines, or checking over a garment for any defaults or stains.

But the weather was gorgeous, so a walk in the park was on the cards as well.

Oh, how I love the fresh greens of Spring, the lushness still full of promise and hope. The park is sprinkled with flowers: from the timid lacecap Hydrangeas to the showy Rhododendrons, they all fill my heart with joy.

It must be a good year for daisies, as the lawn near the pond was absolutely covered in them.

Just look at them, all innocence an purity, their pollen covered yellow hearts slightly staining my peachy pink ankle boots, which had their very first outing. They're from the New Look closing down sale, and together with the necklace I was wearing, they were the only retail buys in my otherwise second hand and shop-my-wardrobe outfit.

I've had the Diolen skirt, an early Think Twice find, for many years and I'm still very much in love with its exuberant floral print. The orange velvet jacket was charity shopped back in April, while the brooch I pinned to it was a flea market find from December 2017.

The basket bag is one of my favourites but I've been racking my brain as to where it came from. If you're reading this sentence it means I still haven't got a clue!

The short-sleeved top is another old favourite, bought from Think Twice at around the same time as the skirt. There was no way I could resist its funky print! The brooch I pinned to its collar was part of a huge haul from a Carmarthen antiques shop on a rainy day in June 2017.

And here's the other retail buy, my necklace, which came from Accessorize, who used to have a shop near my office. After more than ten years with regular outings, it has earned a permanent place in my jewellery collection!

If you half-close your eyes, the banks of Rhododendrons reflected in the pond turn into an impressionist painting. There's cow parsley everywhere, as well as the first of the dog roses.

Mingled among the reeds bordering the pond are the gently nodding heads of Yellow Flag Iris, thought to be the inspiration for the fleur-de-lis symbol.

With its variety of views, from long and mid distance to close-ups, our walk in the park proved to be the perfect exercise for my eyes. 

So was our visit to the charity shop within walking distance of the park.

Scrutinizing the jewellery stand, I found these three bangles, two of which are Bakelite! Nobody seems to have a clue at this shop, as they're all priced the same, € 1,50 each.

These two necklaces came home with me as well! I particularly love the one on the left, which reminds me of a set of wooden mosaic tiles I played with as a child.

My final buy, and the only one from the clothing aisles, was this cute top with unusual lobster print, complete with tag and spare button. It's from Flair Goes Retro, and was produced in 2015 for Belgian magazine Flair, which is aimed at young women. I used to read it when it first appeared in the early 1980s.

There's no way I would ever forked out its original retail price of € 49,95, but couldn't resist it at € 4.

Last weekend's adventures weren't finished yet, as we had a flea market on Sunday. But that will be for my next post!

Linking to Patti's Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style!

Like diamonds all the raindrops glisten

I'm the first to admit I'm feeling more than just a little bereft now that I've finished my travelogue. Telling you all about our little holiday was such a pleasure and reliving it all in the process was almost like having a second holiday.

But that's it for now, it's back to earth and the order of the day. What's more, with all that travelling, I really do owe you a recap of what else has been going on in my life.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

~William Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII

And what about steady downpours, drenching showers, hailstorms and temperatures in the low single figures? That first weekend of May we were served it all, including those rough winds. Not that there weren't any sunny spells on the menu, but they were brief and I'm sure they were only thrown into the mix to taunt us.

Sick of my Winter coats, I braved that wet and chilly Saturday wearing the slightly inadequate Phase Eight raincoat I charity shopped on the first day of our Salopian (*) holiday last year.

One upside of the unseasonable weather was that I was able to wear the long-sleeved frock I found while out vintage shopping with my friends on  Easter Saturday, before putting it to bed until Autumn.

The orangey tones in its print prompted the addition of an orange polka-dot cardigan, while I opted for a green belt and necklace to provide some contrast. The same shade of green appears in the brooch I chose, a multi-coloured enamelled butterfly.

Speaking of green, our little jungle of a garden was (and still is!) looking at its lushest, as it always is this time of year, and I'm sure it was welcoming the life-giving rain-drops with open arms. 

We weren't too pleased, though, as we had been looking forward to our first outdoor flea market of the year. Needless to say, the stormy weather firmly put paid to our plans so, desperate to be out of the house, we went charity shopping instead.

At first it looked as if we would be out of luck in that department as well, as we left the first two shops empty handed. Not wanting to give up just yet, we decided to try one more shop, and visit the one in our village before calling it a day.

And I'm glad we did, as less than a minute after walking in, I happened upon this fabulous book, a heavy and richly illustrated tome on Art Nouveau in Belgium.

The clothing department can be a bit hit or miss here, so I was happy to find these two new-to-me dresses in similar hues. On the left, another King Louie one and on the right, a pussy-bowed frock from Belgian label Mer du Nord, which I wore to work later that week.

There was a pair of  raspberry red suede Tamaris shoes waiting for me too. I didn't really need another pair of shoes and in fact I wasn't even looking, but what can I say? They caught my eye and they were my size and at € 4 too good a bargain to be left behind.

The weather gods continued to plague us on Sunday, so we stayed at home, making a start on browsing the bagful of holiday brochures and leaflets we brought back last year, and getting into the mood for our UK holiday towards the end of June.

In her comment on my previous post, Veronica asked me where exactly we were off to, which will be Shropshire and the Welsh borders, same as last year.  Less than 5 weeks to go now!

There was some improvement in the weather in the week that followed and one evening after work, I cut a posy of Lily of the Valley so that we could enjoy their intoxicating scent inside. 

We've inherited the plants with the garden, but they tend to travel around a bit and, having currently taken up residence in a small patch behind our garden angel, they're not in the best position for us to properly enjoy them.

Watching the bees stocking up on nectar, darting from one tiny flower of our Cotoneaster bush to another, is quite hypnotizing and the soundtrack created by their buzzing choir is nothing if not mesmerizing. 

Watching the garden grow and listening to the sound of honey being made is such a privilege, soothing my frayed nerves after a particularly stressful day at work. 

Modern technology is all very well, but being without internet for almost two days meant life at the office came to a grinding halt, and it certainly wasn't much fun having to catch up on a mountain of work when it was finally fixed.

As wearing colourful clothes always makes me feel better in my skin, I opted for full-on colour by choosing a blue skirt, in a textured fabric speckled with green, cream and red, and a black pussy-bow blouse covered in blowsy multi-coloured flowers.

A wide tan belt with a rectangular buckle, a red plastic ring and a pink and blue flower brooch pinned to my green cardigan were my accessories of choice.

Now that we're on the subject of brooches, how gorgeous is this vintage metal flower brooch? It was a present from my friend Inez, and I'm swooning!

And so, another weekend rolled along, bringing with it another charity shopping trip on Saturday before last.

In spite of the chill in the air, I was determined to wear short sleeves, and planned my outfit around this groovily patterned blouse in hues of navy, lilac and orange. However, I didn't feel the solid green skirt I'd originally planned to wear with it. Casting around for a suitable substitute, I finally hit upon this green plaid midi skirt in a polyester knit fabric.

A purple flower ring, cream beaded necklace and ditto flower brooch completed my outfit.

The yellow-based floral blazer, made from a light-weight tapestry fabric, wasn't nearly warm enough for what looked deceptively like a Spring day but I was determined to wear it anyway.

I was carrying the basket bag I bought in a cheap pop-up shop in Antwerp back in April and which I'm feeling slightly guilty about, especially after reading Vix's post.

I'm ending this game of catch-up by showing you our charity shop finds of that day.

The shop we went to is a new one, opened as a pop-up only the week before, after the lease of their previous premises had ended. We never liked that rather cramped little shop and are happy to report that their new location is not only larger but much better laid out too.

The jury is still out whether the dress Angelica is wearing here is me, but I love the unusual cutlery print and the olive colour. Oh, and it's Orla Kiely! Not bad for € 4, surely? And I've never ever found any Orla Kiely in a Belgian charity shop before.

I always love having a rummage through the boxes of belts and scarves for inexpensive additions to both of my already extensive collections. In fact, the vast majority of them are second hand.

This time, my finds included a funky scarf and two very different belts. The chain and tortoiseshell plastic belt is stamped with a Made in West Germany mark, which confirms that it is vintage.

Linking to Patti's Visible Monday and Mica's Weekday Wear Linkup.

(*) relating to or characteristic of the English county of Salop, now known as Shropshire, or its inhabitants.