The cat's whiskers

Unbelievably, by the time you are reading this, the anniversary of Belgium first going into lockdown has come and gone. And not all that much has changed, really, as the pandemic is still very much with us. After the euphoria of coming out of Lockdown I in the early Summer, when for a moment it looked as if the end was in sight, and rules were being relaxed left, right and centre, things soon started to go pear-shaped again. It's been an uphill struggle ever since and, with infection numbers going up and down like a yo-yo, new variants popping up all over the place, and Belgium's vaccination strategy a painfully and shamefully slow process, it's no wonder that people are starting to lose heart and are quite literally at the end of their tethers.

For a couple of weeks now, I've reverted to my old la-la-la approach, giving the news a wide berth, and trying to concentrate on the positives, however trivial they might be.

Clothes for instance! When life continues to give you lemons, and you've had quite enough of lemonade, there's always that.

It was the last day of February, a sunny Sunday graced with balmy temperatures of up to 12°C. 

In spite of the weather, my back, shoulders and arms, stiff and achy from Saturday's rigorous pruning session, told me I wouldn't do much gardening that day.

Instead, I spent a happy half an hour or so in front of my wardrobe before deciding on this psychedelically patterned vintage dress with its glorious ochre, orange, lilac, purple, turquoise and burgundy colour scheme. I've got a gripe with it, though, as its collar refuses to stay put. Still, I can live with that, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Taking advantage of its multiple colour options, I accessorized the dress with a lilac vinyl belt, purple beaded necklace and a gold-tone brooch featuring two rows of tiny turquoise beads.

Burgundy was represented by my charity shopped King Louie cardigan and the Fly London boots with their turquoise trim. I chose a pair of bright orange opaques to shake things up.

I know I said I wasn't going to do any gardening, but I did plant up the basket hanging from our awning, replacing the withered ornamental cabbage and cyclamen it contained with plum coloured pansies and red pompom daisies. They are joining the surviving yellow pansy, which at that moment wasn't in flower but has made up for that since.

The rest of that Sunday was spent on the couch, resting my weary limbs and devouring my latest read, Christina Baker Kline's 2017 novel, A Piece of the World.  Although a work of fiction, this atmospheric novel is inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s mysterious and iconic painting Christina’s World and is based on the life of the painting's subject, Christina Olson (1883-1968). 

That evening, while I was catching up with blogland upstairs, Jos came up and showed me the details of a cat for adoption at the animal shelter where his daughter had adopted her beloved cat Spookje from. The cat's name was Bees (colloquial for a berry or a sweet), born in 2019, and in need of a calm environment without children or other animals. Although the accompanying photo (which you'll see later in this post) only showed her head, we decided to take the plunge and texted the shelter's manager, Maria, as required.

After having been on tenterhooks all through Monday, waiting for Maria's call, we finally heard back from her in the early evening. An appointment was duly made to go and meet Bees on Thursday.

As I had to work on Wednesday, this only left us Tuesday to go shopping for cat equipment, as we wanted her to have her own things instead of Phoebe's hand-me-downs. We sneaked into the garden centre's pet department together and bought a scratching post, a snuggly cat bed, a litter box, a ceramic food dish and a starter pack of dry food.

I'm sure that you've already been ogling my dotty Diolen frock in the meantime! I dare anyone to stay down in the dumps for long wearing this navy delight liberally sprinkled with pink, green, yellow and white spots! I can actually vow for the fact that it is virtually impossible!

With its empire line, it did not need a belt, but I added a green cardigan on top, pinned with a white felted flower corsage, and wore my wooden beaded necklace which has all the colours of the spots. Mustard-y opaques and my charity shopped blue Western style boots completed my outfit.

Wednesday was another hectic and stressful office day, which made my boss and I decide it was time for an extra day a week, starting that Friday. This was unavoidable, although far from ideal, as it would mean I had to go into the office the day after our new fur baby had taken residence.

Thursday was C-Day, and as we hadn't slept very well for the last couple of nights, doubts had been creeping up on us. Were we making the right decision in taking on what was clearly a traumatized cat? And were we ready for another cat in our lives in the first place? On top of it all, after a string of dry sunny days, it was now raining quite heavily, and we had a 40 minute drive ahead of us. But as you all know by now, we did go ahead as planned and brought her home. 

As for her name, we initially had a totally different one in mind. On the way home, however, while I was sitting next to her in her carrier in the backseat, trying to put her at ease as the poor thing was literally shaking with fear, we decided that it didn't suit her, and came up with the name Bess (as it was close to Bees, which is pronounced base) almost instantly.

On the top left is the photo from the shelter's Facebook page. The one on the bottom right was taken after we got her home and she had taken refuge at the back of her litter box. The white stuff you can see in the foreground isn't a fleecy blanket, but cat litter! She ended up in there after she'd accidentally knocked over a couple of empty bottles when she tried to hide behind our bin, after which she fled behind a chest of drawers and had to be detangled from the cables and wires which live there.

Fast forward two weeks, and while she is still a bit wary of us, slinking back under the dining table whenever we come too near, her eyes are no longer looking as sad and fearful as they did at first. She's inquisitive, playful and has a healthy appetite. She's taking steps into the right direction on a daily basis. At the time of writing, we're alright on the napping and playing front, but still need to work on meowing and stroking. She might as well be mute, as so far she hasn't uttered a single sound.

We were too preoccupied for outfit photos that day, and although I re-wore my outfit in its entirety on Friday, it being an office day meant we had no opportunity for photos either.

After Thursday's one-off rainy day, the sun had reappeared on Friday, and remained with us on Saturday, when we decided to give Bess some peace and quiet by going for a walk in the park.

Although the temperature was barely above freezing point, it was such a gorgeous day, and we certainly weren't the only walkers taking advantage of it. Geese were throwing hissy fits while a congregation of inland seagulls had gathered on the shores of the pond.

There were hosts of golden Daffodils aplenty and patches of March Violets (Viola odorata) to delight us. 

As I'd foolishly packed my warmest coats away, I was wearing the vintage plaid swing coat I charity shopped several years ago, combined with a red and purple knit scarf and my purple mohair beret.

To combat the inevitable muddy patches, my chocolate brown boots came out to play once more.

In spite of the low temperatures, the sun's warmth was benevolent enough to divest myself of my coat to show you the dress I was wearing underneath.

In a rusty red textured polyester (you can see its circle pattern in the close-ups), it is one of the dresses I was stumped to find in the flea market boxes. It was promptly rescued so that it could shine another day. And shine it certainly did.

On top, I was wearing a fluffy sage green cardigan to combat any lingering chills.

We strolled for well over an hour, delighting in the abundant signs of Spring we met along the way and, as usual, ended up at the picturesque castle ruins, where its current owner sat honking loudly to deter any likely trespassers.

Before going back home and probably scare the living daylights out of Bess, we made detailed outfit photos against the white painted brick wall of our garage building.

My hair is looking quite flat here. Gone is the volume Michel created so expertly!

Don't you just love that dress's notched collar? 

I picked several shades of green for my accessories, including the scallop edged gold-tone brooch with its emerald green stone, and my favourite mossy green suede belt.

My millefiori glass ring contains a primary coloured symphony of green, red, yellow and blue.

Finally, here's a closer looks at my necklace, which is a curious arrangement of plain green and black and white glass beads joined by felted circles in the same shades.

On the right, a close-up of my grey opaques sprinkled with rose buds.

So, that is all I've got time for today. I've got a cat waiting to play games with. She is currently quite fascinated by a plastic wind-up mouse so that's my entertainment sorted for tonight. 

See you next time, my friends. As always, do stay safe, sane and sensational!

Good hair day!

If you've come here for cat pictures, I'm afraid I've got to disappoint you! Although Bess, our new fur baby, is coming along by leaps and bounds, she still prefers to dart away to her safe place under the dining room table, where four cat beds in the form of our wicker, Lloyd Loom style, chairs await her. For now, we don't want to upset her by taking photographs. We haven't got any idea of her past, but one thing is sure: at some point she must have lost all faith in humankind. Well, we can't really blame her, can we?

But she's eating like crazy -  and unlike Phoebe, she seems to love everything we put in front of her, and she's licking her bowl clean each and every time - playing ever more daringly and, most importantly, taking cat naps in between observing our comings and goings through her wicker screens.

Instead, you'll have to do with pictures of me, which I do realize all too well are a poor substitute!

My blog has reached the 25th of February by now. The day had been highlighted in my otherwise empty diary as D-Day. Or better: H-Day! Four months after my last haircut - and even longer since my last colouring session - I was finally able to go to the hairdresser's. 

As my hair had grown longer than I'd had it in at least twenty years, I thought perhaps now was the time for a new hairdo. Having had a bob from the second half of the 1980s until the late 1990s, I had it cut short in a moment of madness after we'd just moved to Dove Cottage in the Spring of 1999.

Lately, I'd been missing my bob, and the fact that people raved about my then hairstyle when I posted our 1995 wedding photographs back in February was the incentive I needed. It was with some trepidation, however, that I put my proposal to Michel, my trusty hairdresser of 26 years, so I was overjoyed that it met his approval. My previous hairdo being asymmetrical and fringe-less does mean it will take a while for it to be exactly how we want it, but it's going into the right direction.

Also, it will only look this thick and luxurious when I've just come back from Michel, as there is no way I could ever get it to look like that. So, let's enjoy the moment :-)

Outfit particulars: 

• Blue botanical print dress: Think Twice
• Sparkly mustard cardigan with red trim & blue Western style boots: charity shop
• Blue, gold-tone and diamanté bird brooch & gold-tone tiger's eye pendant: flea market
• Mustard opaques & suede belt shopped on the high street

As I was in Antwerp, I popped in to the office for an hour or two. As I'd already hinted, my workload had increased substantially in the last couple of weeks, and my regular two office days were no longer sufficient to deal with it all. That day, I even took some files home with me.

That still left me with enough time for a nosey around the garden, noting with delight that a second flower bud had opened in the cream speckled hellebore I planted back in Autumn, and that the lonely tête-à-tête daff had been joined by a host of winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis), which keep popping up all over the garden.

If the temperature had still been a very balmy 17°C on Thursday, it had plummeted to just 10°C by Friday. Nevertheless, it was still gloriously sunny and mild enough to shun the warm woollens which I was hoping against hope to have seen the last of this Winter.

My outfit was built around the skirt - a Think Twice find back in February 2018 - with its symphony of olive, burnt orange, magenta and bright blue flowers. This was joined by yet another € 1 bargain from the same shop, a sparkly blue pussy bow blouse. As I usually do, I secured the bow with one of my scarf clips, this time choosing a cameo one with a burnt orange backdrop.

I wore a dark chocolate brown leather belt - a charity shop find like most of my belts - at my waist.

Burnt orange appeared yet again in my opaques as well as in the plaid vintage jacket which once again came from - you guessed it - Think Twice! My Fly London burgundy ankle boots trimmed with turquoise were a charity shop find in October last year.

Basking in the balmy rays of the sun and enjoying the fact that my almost but not quite bob was still in reasonable shape after a night of tossing and turning as I am wont to do at night.

It was Friday, and time for another trip to the charity shops. We did only visit one, though, as for some reason wearing a mask for a rummage tends to trigger hot flushes!

Pickings weren't too abundant, the rails which were on the last of their winter legs being quite lacklustre, but then my eyes alighted on this stunning velvet trimmed jacket, its lining an iridescent burgundy.

Isn't it magnificent? There's a lot going on in terms of colour and texture. The contents label even mentions 10% metal! The photo on the right is a detail of its back.

What I didn't like, though, were its buttons, which you can see in the photo of the left, next to their teal vintage replacements.

I also found a plain orange thin merino wool jumper (not pictured) and two more necklaces for my burgeoning collection.

Before driving home for lunch, we stopped at a discount outdoor garden centre, where Jos remained in the car while I went a bit wild and loaded my trolley full of goodies.

That afternoon, I - foolishly perhaps- exchanged my two warmest winter coats for lighter ones, and organized the boots which were cluttering the hallway. 

We then deep cleaned the hallway carpet, the rug in front of Jos's wardrobe and the rug on the landing. Then while Jos was returning the car to the garage, I swept and mopped the staircase, which I'm ashamed to admit was a long overdue job.

Saturday's weather initially didn't look very promising. The forecasted morning fog lingered well into the afternoon which, in addition to the 6°C shown on the thermometer, rather put us off the pruning job we'd planned for the day.

We were just about to admit defeat and snuggle up on the couch, when the sun finally succeeded in lifting the gloom by parting the curtain of dull grey clouds. 

We wasted no time in donning gardening apron and gloves, grabbed a pair of secateurs each, and got stuck in. I rigorously pruned back the rampant ivy, the dead wood in the winter jasmine, and the remains of the dry and lacy flower heads, cutting the stems back to the first healthy pair of buds down from the blooms.

Look at that mountain of prunings ready for the council collection the next week!

Before I proceed to show you what I was wearing that day - which I changed out of when gardening - here's a mystery for you. We've got a beast in our garden which seems to love yellow flowers in particular. It has been nibbling any daffodil that's daring enough to rear its head, has been eating holes in some of the winter aconites and reduced our single yellow crocus to tatters. Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to like the purple and purple and white striped crocuses! Now what can it be? 

Now, to my outfit!

Standing in front of my wardrobe that morning, my eyes were roaming the black floral section until they caught sight of this delicious frock.

Perusing my blog, I was horrified to see that it apparently didn't get a single wear last year, its last outing dating from December 2019.

The dress is one of my favourites, though, its print featuring orange, lilac, green and white flowers. It has got a solid black cowl neck and cuffs as well as a wide circle skirt, which I cannot help but twirl whenever I wear it. Needless to say, it was another Think Twice find.

With so many colours to choose from, accessorizing is easy. Still, apart from the matching green opaques and perspex ring, I decided to go slightly against the grain by adding a crochet belt and stag's head brooch in a rusty, reddish brown.

The belt was a post-lockdown I sales bargain and the only retail item apart from my opaques and the eons old textured white metal 1960s style necklace.

I still had all those delicious Spring plants to deal with, but as we'd rather overdone it on Saturday, resulting in sore limbs and backs, we thought we'd enjoy them as they were for now.

This is the sight that greats us when looking out of the kitchen window!

I will be back in a couple of days as usual. Wherever you are, and whatever the weather, do stay safe, sane and sensible, but do not forget to have fun and be fabulous!

The seldom seen cat

Allow me to introduce you to Bess! She's almost two and we adopted her from an animal shelter last Thursday.

She's been with us for 5 days now, spending the first 2 hiding under our 1930s cupboard. In order to allow her to get used to her new surroundings, we left her in peace, although we talked to her whenever we passed. We put out food and water, as well as her litter box in the vicinity of her hidey hole, and were quite relieved when on Friday afternoon and Saturday we noticed she'd made use of all her facilities.

On Sunday morning, we found her in one of our wicker dining chairs. Apparently, overnight she'd played with almost all of the toys we'd provided her with, which we found scattered all over the dining room. She'd also devoured all of her wet and dry food. She's still extremely shy so although our hands are itching to do so, we refrain from trying to pet her, continuing to talk to her in a soothing way instead until she's used to us. By this time, she has already tried out all of our wicker chairs, from where she can spy on us in safety.

For now, she'll remain the seldom seen cat!

As is often the case, I'm getting ahead of myself, but how could I possibly have kept this wonderful piece of news from you? But now I'm inviting you once again to step back in time with me, to Saturday the 20th of February.

If I'd woken up feeling a bit morose, my mood was soon improved considerably courtesy of the sunny and Springlike weather. 

After our final fruit & yoghurt breakfast of the week, I got dressed. Actually, make that twice, as my first outfit of the day was the Clara Oswald outfit I dressed up in for Kezzie's virtual Dr. Who cosplay party. This is what I changed into afterwards! 

The thin magenta jumper, which I charity shopped in December 2019, has a bit of sparkle in its weave and a triangular inset at the collar, and is from the mail-order company 3 Suisses. The blue and pink brooch I pinned to it was a flea market find. 

I picked up the floral pleated skirt at Oxfam pre-lockdown II, in October 2020, while the bottle green belt was charity shopped in December, just after non-essential shops were allowed to re-open again. I'm sure you've already spotted the bright green ankle boots I found the other day.

As I wanted to pay tribute to all the colours in my skirt, I added a pair of sky blue opaques.

With the temperature a balmy 16°C, I gave in to the lure of the garden, which was in sore need of some TLC. Most of the plants on the plant tables just outside our back door had suffered during our recent week of sub-zero temperatures. There were plenty of geraniums still cheerfully flowering before the cold wave hit us. Now they were limp and blackened and, in all probability, dead. Nevertheless, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and cut them back, grouping the pots at the back of the garden.

There were several terracotta pots and a leaky enamel coffee pot of pansies which, although flowerless, seemed to have survived unscathed. As, remarkably, did the pots of pinks, one of which is now going into its third year!

My garden chores were accompanied by the heady fragrance of Sarcococca (Winter box), an evergreen winter-flowering shrub whose diminutive flowers are highly scented (top right and bottom left).

Another sunny, early Spring day awaited us on Sunday, with the temperatures reaching highs of 18°C.

How resilient we humans are! Only just over a week ago the thermometer indicated sub-zeros down to minus 10, a difference of almost 30 degrees Celsius!

After our Sunday breakfast of omelettes, I dressed in my gardening gear (rust cord skirt and green jumper) and hopped into the garden again. I finally cleared the remains of the climbing  Nasturtiums and cut back armfuls of ivy, of which Jos made two large bundles for collection by the council in the first week of March. Surely he deserved that pot of vanilla and chocolate pudding after all that hard work :-)

Afterwards, I rewore Saturday's sky blue opaques, this time combining them with a handmade purple floral frock I found in a vintage per kilo shop in the Autumn of 2019. In fact, until I was typing this, I'd quite forgotten the existence of that shop, which I regularly frequented, alongside Think Twice, in my Pre-Covid lunch breaks.

I added a sky blue belt with a double-prong buckle, a white and blue beaded necklace and my blush pink retro style shoes, all of which were charity shop finds.

The Lucite brooch is vintage, and was charity shopped as well. I found it in a shop in Oswestry, Shropshire, during our last UK holiday in June 2019.

Monday was a cloudy day but, at 17°C, still unseasonably warm. It was insanely hectic at the office, leaving me a nervous wreck by the time I got home.

All clouds - except those inside my head - had dispersed by Tuesday morning, when we woke up to yet another gorgeous Spring day. However, realizing my days of leisure would soon be over, I was feeling jittery and unsettled all day. In a bid to dispel my apprehension, we thought a visit to the garden centre might be in order.

Of course, it was impossible to resist bringing home a box full of Spring colour!

The shop also has a pet department which, as we were thinking of adopting a new feline friend, we wanted to check out. Here, resistance was futile as well ... and money well spent, as they have all been played with already! Bess particularly likes the little balls, which came in a variety pack of three and have a tinkling bell inside.

Back at home, I planted up all my new treasures, which include tiny but striking Iris reticulata, which is one of the earliest Spring flowers, as well as a pink double flowered Bellis perennis (a cultivar of the common daisy) and a selection of Primulas.

Apart from the ubiquitous large-flowered polyantus Primulas, I was delighted to see several varieties of Primula acaulis hybrids for sale. These produce a profusion of smaller, individual flowers on single stems. I've read that they will self-seed profusely, so I might get some more for the garden as well. 

Here's the pot of yellow Primulas and Iris reticulata, taken a couple of days later, when courtesy of the continuing Springlike weather, most of the Irises had erupted into a firework of deep violet blooms with central yellow splashes.

I was wearing a firework of colour myself, picking an outfit whose main components (skirt, blouse, cardigan and even my ankle boots) were charity shopped during the pandemic.

The folksy skirt, with its print of blowsy pink roses towards the them, is vintage and wide and swooshy enough for a twirl or two. I wore it with a burgundy, flower infused Esprit blouse in a lightweight jersey fabric. On top, a mustard coloured cardigan by Belgian brand Van Hassels. It is slightly sparkly - which isn't easy to catch on camera - and is trimmed with red at its collar.

To the blouse, I pinned one of my vintage flower embroidered brooches. I added a multicoloured wooden beaded necklace and a tan belt with a rectangular buckle.

My outfit, combined with the Spring colour provided by the flowers, did wonders for my muddled soul.

In fact, the only thing that bothered me was my hair.  It might look reasonable enough in these photos, but its general unruliness and the grey which had appeared unbidden on the sides - if you look closely, you can see a wisp of grey on the right in the below photo - were doing my head in.

But not for much longer, as I'd managed to grab a slot at the hairdresser's on Thursday the 25th! 

All will be revealed in my next post!

In the meantime, what about this bevy of natural beauties? The daff on the top left is one of the few which are currently rearing their heads in our garden. They have re-grown from a pot of flowering bulbs I managed, with great difficulty, to procure in March 2020, when all non-essential shops were closed during the first stage of lockdown I.  I allowed them to die down in peace after flowering and planted them out in the garden back in Autumn.

See you next time, until then, it's the same year-old mantra: stay safe, sane and as sensational as possible!

Five years, what a surprise

If the last couple of weeks have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, they have been quite hectic as well, with this and that, and the increase of my workload at the office in particular. So much so that I'll be working an additional day a week from now on, adding Friday to my repertoire of office days. After almost one year at a two-day regime, it's a bit of a shock to the system and I'm desperately dreading the not-so-far-off day when I'll have to return to the office full time.

With my head all over the place, it almost escaped my attention that today, the 5th of March, it has been an incredible 5 years since I hesitantly published my first blog post. But while I marked my first four blogiversaries with a retrospective post, I'll refrain from doing so this year.  As we all know, it has been an extraordinary year, to put it mildly, with more than its average quota of ups and downs. A strangely distorted year which has turned our lives inside out and upside down. I just don't need a reminder of all that.

That doesn't mean that it was all bad, though. I can't stress enough how much I relished all the free time I had at my disposal, which in its turn triggered the revival of our previously much neglected little garden, and the rediscovery of my green fingers in the process. 

Apart from the gardening frenzy, I thoroughly enjoyed not having to rush in the mornings. I know I've said it more than once before, but being able to take my time to assemble outfits and accessorize them has been an absolute joy, stretching the limits of both my imagination and my wardrobe.

Meanwhile, my blog has arrived at the start of the third week of February. By Monday morning most of the snow had gone, with only the odd patch turned brown and marooned at the roadside. 

That morning, it weren't the weather conditions but roadworks and diversions which thwarted the journey into Antwerp. Work itself was super busy, so I was especially thankful for Tuesday's respite, to be enjoyed while it lasts.

The blue pleated fit and flare dress with its sprays of pink-hued flowers was a Think Twice find back in November 2017. Once again, its original boring buttons were soon replaced by more suitable ones. 

 Accessorizing this dress is a no brainer and always involves copious quantities of pink, this time in the form of my opaques and cardigan. I usually add a pink-ish belt as well, but thinking outside the box I opted for a caramel brown one instead.

My multi-coloured beaded necklace and gold tone bow brooch were both fairly recent charity shop finds, as were the calf-length blue Western style boots.

Now that the temperature had climbed to 10°C, I thought it safe to presume I wouldn't be needing my thick woollen jumpers again any time soon (although at the time of writing they are on the verge of plummeting towards freezing point once more), so they were washed on a gentle wool cycle and dried on the fold-out rack in our spare room.

Consulting my journal, it seems I washed and dried my hair, uploaded the previous week's batch of photos and did a massive blog catch up. For some unfathomable reason, I keep getting behind with replying to comments, for which I herewith apologize. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading The Savage Garden by Mark Mills, which I'd made a start on during the weekend. Set in the Tuscan hills, it is basically the story of two murders, four hundred years apart. Intriguing as this may sound, it was just a mildly enjoyable read.

After Wednesday's moderately busy office day, yet another 4-day weekend rolled along. 

Following a night full of weird and vivid dreams, I felt a bit off on Thursday morning, but that was soon repelled by a game of dress-up. 

The dress that caught my attention that day was bought during a trip to Bruges in April 2019, when by pure coincidence our itinerary took us past the city's tiny Think Twice shop where, lo and behold, they were having one of their sales.

I took the lead from the blue flowers in its pattern for my accessories, which included a textured belt, brooch, opaques and beret. My ring combines blue with green and purple, while my necklace with its multi-coloured, crochet covered beads is making yet another appearance.

The dress's bodice is finely pleated, making it slightly stretchy. My only gripe with it is that it is a bit roomy on top, so I'm still on the fence whether it is a keeper or not.

The cardigan with its Paisley-esque green, blue and grey pattern is from the high street by way of a charity shop, and I have it in a burgundy, green and grey colourway as well.

Apparently, I was quite a busy bee that day, as not only did I vacuum the upstairs rooms, we deep cleaned some of our rugs, including the new-to-us one, and I finally got around to dusting the two bottom shelves of the camera cabinet.

This camera, a Voigtlander Bessamatic, was Jos's first 35 mm camera, which he used in the first half of the 1970s. He bought the camera from a colleague, who in his turn got it from a friend, who was a professional newspaper photographer. 

Neither of us remembers where we got this boxed Kobold camera flash, but it has been in our collection for many years. So far, we haven't been able to determine its exact date, but I suspect it's from the late 1950s or perhaps the early 1960s.

This late 1950s Kodak Brownie Starlet camera isn't making its debut on the blog, but I'm gladly telling you its story again, as it is one of the stars of our modest collection.

Jos found it, complete with its box containing flash unit and flashbulbs, in the waste disposal area in the communal basement of the block of flats we used to live in before we moved to Dove Cottage. 

We've got several other Brownie cameras, two of which were found at our much missed favourite indoor flea market. Clockwise from top left are a tiny Baby Brownie, produced between 1938 and 1954, a Brownie "Holiday Flash" (1953-1962) and, finally, the second incarnation of the popular Brownie 127 camera, from 1959-63.

If Thursday had been quite miserable and grey, the day's only redemption being its temperature which climbed to 12°C, Friday saw a return of the sun. The weather was gearing up for the weekend, when Springlike temperatures had been forecasted.

This black based long-sleeved Crimplene dress, with its pussy bow, is one of my all time favourites. I'm always describing its pattern as a kind of trellis, against which an abundance of tiny, red-hearted, white flowers is growing.

For obvious reasons, I often veer towards red as its companion colour, although I have worn it with a white belt several times. Again thinking outside the box, I selected a zebra print belt - a retail sales bargain after the first lockdown - to wear at my waist.

The belt was the only second-hand item in my outfit. The striped cardigan and red perspex ring were charity shopped, my red beret came from Think Twice and the vintage celluloid brooch - also one of my favourites - was a flea market find. 

As mentioned in my previous post, Friday has become our weekly charity shopping day. Obviously, we will have to pick either Tuesday or Thursday instead now that I'm working Fridays again.

That particular Friday, the 19th of February, saw us visiting the pop-up charity shop in Lier again.

While Jos took a couple of bags of donations to the drop-off point at the back of the shop, I masked up, grabbed a compulsory trolley and went inside. Browsing the bookshelves, there were several which caught my attention - including some I'd donated myself. These three were added to my trolley.

The clothing aisles were uninspiring, and I was about to give up and join the queue at the till when a flash of bright green entered my peripheral vision. Now, you know me and green. I just had to backtrack and investigate, and couldn't believe my eyes when that flash turned out to be the most gorgeous pair of green ankle boots ever! In my size! The rest, as they say, is history.

Well, that's it for now, my friends. I'll be back soon with my first post of my sixth year of blogging. Until then, I am counting on you to stay safe, sane and fabulous!