Stripes and flowers

Weather permitting, this time next week we might be watching the sun go down over the domain surrounding our holiday cottage in Belgium's west country. Because yes, it's that time of year again when, for a week or so, we'll be exchanging life in the fast lane for a slower pace of life in a part of Belgium which has truly captured our hearts. 

Before we leave our worries on our doorstep, however, there's still two days of work to be wrapped up at the office, the dreaded packing to be done and, including this one, two blog posts to be churned out.

As I'm still in the throes of catching up after our mini break in the first week of August, let's get on with it, shall we?

In my last post, I did mention an iceberg of vintage and charity shop finds, so why not start with these?

We had reached the end of my first week back at work, and boy was I glad when Friday finally rolled along!  As you might remember, I'm taking up last year's leftover holiday quota by working 4-day weeks until I've used it all up.  This turned out to be a wise decision, as I'm finding my return to the full-time grind to be quite the balancing act.

Fridays are therefore for fun things only, and as a bonus, Friday the 13th of August turned out to be our lucky day in more ways than one. Not only was it a bright sunny day, with the temperature climbing to an unheard of 23°C, the goddesses of the charity shops more than rewarded us for our trouble.

The dress I was wearing was a € 3 Think Twice sales bargain snapped up during lunch break the day before, which I was so besotted with that I decided to wear it immediately. 

In a polyester blend with a touch of linen - hence its slightly wrinkled appearance - this classic fit and flare shirt dress was an absolute joy to wear. I've got a bit of a thing for stripes lately, so my eyes instantly picked it out from the rail of otherwise mediocre offerings. The bodice's red, blue and yellow stripes meeting in a chevron pattern in the button through skirt set my heart aflutter. And that was before I noticed the pockets!

Both my blue moulded flower ring and the 1930s Gentian brooch I accessorized it with did their best to compete with the floral exuberance supplied by the garden. 

The pots grouped at the back of the garden seem to be doing surprisingly well, even after having been left to their own devices for days on end. I just couldn't be bothered to do any deadheading after work, and the watering can had only be used very sparingly. Must do better!

But let's get back to the matter at hand, which is what I found at the charity shops that day!

If initially I thought I would leave the first shop empty handed, finding the orange midi skirt with its purple Paisley pattern and the yellow short-sleeved top with its subtle tiny leaf pattern in quick succession must have been what turned the tide.

Both are initially from the high street but were simply too good to be left behind at a snip of their original price. 

Then along came one of the shop assistants, wheeling a rail full of new stuff. Immediately, a gaggle of thrifty shoppers gathered, pouncing on the new offerings even before the rail had come to a standstill, the shop assistant beating a hasty retreat. 

Without even looking at sizes, I quickly grabbed the two items which stood out for me. 

First up was this midi dress from the Danish Only label, with its Autumnal millefiori pattern. As it was a size 36, I thought it would be too small, but it fit me perfectly. 

Next up was this perfectly formed and rather funky Scapa jacket, which I suspect had hardly been worn. It even had its tiny paper bag of spare buttons still tacked inside.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the vintage Worcester Ware tray, to be admired on the bottom right of the above collage, which we spied on our way to the till. 

Before returning home, we stopped at the charity shop at the edge of our village, where I tried on several things but ended up buying just two items. 

While queueing at the till to pay for the zigzag patterned dress by the London based Louche label, I spotted a shop dummy wearing the chartreuse Zoë Loveborn cardigan, which we managed to wrestle off the poor thing just in the nick of time.

Saturday turned out to be another sunny day, with glorious highs of about 25°C.

After breakfast, I pottered in the garden, which culminated in another massive cutting back session. 

We had to run an errand after lunch, then decided to continue to the park in Boom for a walk. In spite of our best intentions, walking seems to have ended up on the back burner again, which I'm sure we'll have to pay for when walking up those Flemish hills next week!

It was high time I gave my recently charity shopped embroidered red cotton skirt an outing and found it its perfect companion in my peasant style green broderie anglaise blouse. Picked up in the New Look sales several years ago, it is one of my favourite Summer tops.

A shiny white vinyl belt, red and white beaded necklace and a couple of bangles completed my outfit. Oh, and have you noticed the almost perfect match between the embroidered poppy on my skirt and the poppies on my vintage ceramic brooch?

Having arrived at the park, we decided to walk its perimeter path, until we arrived at 't Kleibrood, which is a centre for environmental education. There's a herb and flower garden which, in spite of looking a bit sparse and past its best, was still a sight to behold.

There were giant sunflowers towering over the house, Calendula, and a patch of one of my favourite high Summer flowers, Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty' (top right), which I had to share with the resident bee population.

 

Near the house, several roses were intoxicating us with their heavenly scent, while Brachycome and Agapanthus filled a stone trough and an old brick well respectively.

Soon after passing the garden, we took a side turn into the heart of the park itself, where we did a circular of the lake, finding a gold-hearted stone of joy in a tree trunk.

What better way to display it than together with the pair of vintage, Italian made sandals I found in the charity shop we briefly stopped at on our way to the park!

There isn't much to tell, and even less to show you about Sunday and the rest of the week.

In view of our upcoming holiday and the possibility that we will cross the border into France, we downloaded the so-called CovidSafe app on our phones, which shows that we are fully vaccinated.

In other Covid related news, we were happy to learn that the vaccination percentage in our village is now well over 90%!

On Monday the  temperature took a dive to just 17°C, dipping even lower, to 15°C on Tuesday. These decidedly unsummery temperatures came accompanied by at times heavy rain, which prevented us from making outfit photos in the garden after work.

Tuesday, however, was made a whole lot better courtesy of the arrival of a package all the way from Bosnia-Herzegovina! The lovely Ivana had sent me a handmade brooch and some of her fashion illustrations including the one of yours truly on the right. It goes without saying that they will get a place of honour here at Dove Cottage!

It was only on Thursday - which was dry, with the odd ray of sunshine and 20°C - that we managed to make the first outfit photos of the week.

I was still wearing ankle boots, though, my sandals certainly haven't been doing overtime this Summer.

The dress which was lucky enough to get an outing that day was this green vintage one, picked up from Think Twice in March 2019. Combining my favourite colour with a chevron pattern makes this a winner in my book!

It originally came with a self-fabric belt, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't exchange it with one offering more contrast, going for an off-white stretchy belt with a round faux-tortoiseshell buckle.

The brown and burnt orange enamelled butterfly brooch was a flea market find.

For once, it was a quiet day at the office, so that I was able to enjoy my lunch break hairdresser's appointment in peace, and have a good old gossip with my hairdresser, Michel.

As you might have noticed in the outfit photos, the area next to the bench, which is our favoured spot, is becoming quite the jungle. I swear, hand on heart, that I didn't plan on having such an overwhelming amount of Nasturtiums! Most of them are the offspring of last year's Triffid-like climbing variety but, rather than removing the most rampant ones like I did earlier this Summer, I am now just letting them be.

Meanwhile, tiny buds have started appearing in the herbaceous Clematis 'Mrs. Robert Brydon' which we planted to grow up the remains of our old, deceased Lilac back in April. Some of them have opened into tiny lavender flowers as I type.

And in spite of Phlox, Crocosmia and Co. still giving it their best show, there's no denying that Autumn is lying in wait around the corner, complete with spiders weaving their webs right, left and centre.

There's a rusty tinge to some of the leaves in the Virginia Creepers covering the garden shed, from the top of which Bess's boyfriend was making moon eyes at her, while she was watching him from our bedroom window. Not quite the Lovecats, though, as she usually chooses to ignore him entirely.

So, that was it for now. I expect to be back with one more pre-holiday post, which might very well be a scheduled one.

Hope to see you again soon!

August's rare delights

Goodness me, time has really been slipping through my fingers lately! Happily churning out the episodes of my travelogue, recreating those short-lived holiday vibes in the process, I almost literally lost track of time so that I now have the mother of all catch-ups on my to-do list. I have to hurry up too, as in just over a week's time we will be going on another adventure!

Let's not waste any further time then, and see what I've been up to since we came back from our little trip. Although, in hindsight, I haven't been up to very much at all in this second month of the Summer that never was.

After our return on Thursday the 5th of August, we had a late lunch, after which I watered the thirstiest of the patio pots and baskets and made a start with unpacking with Bess following me around and demanding cuddles. What with uploading photos and catching up with blogland being next on the agenda, I was glad I'd had the foresight of taking Friday off as well.

So, this was what I was wearing on Friday. This orange and brown Diolen delight with its lethal dagger collar was found at - you've guessed it - Think Twice several years ago. 

 

It was Monica and the fabulous orange and purple outfit (see here) she recently posted that made me break the habit of accessorizing this dress with blue and use purple instead. I added a purple woven belt, purple, pink and orange wooden beads and an iridescent purple and emerald green peacock feather brooch. All of these were charity shop finds, the brooch picked up on a flying visit to Llangollen in 2019.

Even the tiny buttons on my chartreuse cardigan were a matching purple! The cardigan, being an XS, is slightly too tight in the bust area, hence its initial relegation to the giveaway and donation pile, from where I dug it out again. A regret-me-not, as Sheila would say.

I was matching the purple of the Delphiniums too! In their second flush, they were looking lush and magnificent, although overnight showers had made the tallest of the flower spikes top heavy with water so that it was in danger of toppling over. A rummage through the potting shed was rewarded with the discovery of two sturdy cast iron spikes, originally intended as garden candle holders. They turned out to be just perfect for the job!

The strawberries in their hanging bucket, which I'd given a good feed in the week before we left, was rewarding my efforts with a second flush of slowly ripening fruits.

Phlox and Foxgloves are still vying for attention wearing their brightest pink frocks. There were a couple of surprises too: the first of the Toad Lily (Tricyrtis hirta, top right) flowers had opened - and would be followed by many more - and tiny magenta flowers had appeared among the silvery carpet of foliage supplied by Lamium maculatum 'Beacon Silver' (bottom left).

We'd slept late-ish that day, with Bess keeping us company for almost the entire night.

Initially sunny, it soon clouded over, with scattered showers later in the day and highs of 22°C.

After our usual fruit & yogurt breakfast, Jos went food shopping, while I lavished some well needed TLC on the garden, deadheading and cutting back the Malva which has been growing too big for its allotted space. 

Saturday saw a repeat of Friday’s weather and, in spite of its 22°C, it felt more like an Autumn day than a Summer one. 

After a morning of aimless pottering, we decided on a visit to the garden centre, where it was even quieter than the last time we were there and sadly quite empty of interesting seasonal plants. 

Still, a couple of plants managed to make their way into our trolley, including an orange Garvinea to brighten up the plant tables outside our back door. We had a pink one last year which lasted well into Autumn last year, so expectations were high. 

As for my outfit, I still needed to squeeze in at least one wearing of this vintage flower infused yellow dress, so that's the one I went for. It was a charity shop find in December 2017.

Matching the mood I was in, I went for blues all the way, using the colour for all my accessories, including the delicate butterfly wing brooch (this post explains it all!) found on one of our last pre-Covid indoor flea markets in January 2020.

The jacket, from the Spanish Kling label, was charity shopped around the same time.

We also bought two Erigeron or Mexican flea bane plants, which I planted in the half basket under the awning outside our back door, to replace the very leggy Petunia and its companion I don’t remember the name of, as both were looking well past their best.

Finally, Aster ‘Alice Haslam’ and Anemone sylvestris came home with us. I planted them together in a pot at the back of the garden, where they will hopefully provide us with some Autumn and early Spring cheer respectively.

Meanwhile, the Nasturtiums are still going strong, popping up in the most unexpected of places and doing their best to take over the garden. 

And look at that splash of fiery orange supplied by Crocosmia 'Carmine Brilliant' (top left)! I'd almost given up on seeing burst into flower this year.

Sunday was yet another cloudy day, with the temperature dropping to just 20°C. 

Keeping myself busy in a bid to keep the back-to-work blues at bay, I swept the front room, hallway, staircase and dining room, after which I called it a day on the cleaning front, as it's not exactly my favourite activity.

Instead, I finally finished my book, Julia Glass's debut novel Three Junes. Started several weeks ago, I hadn't been making much progress until we went on our break. Not that I didn't enjoy the book, far from it, but there just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day for reading apart from at bed time, when I kept falling asleep after only a couple of pages.

Then I started my current read, The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman which seems to be faring a bit better as it's quite unputdownable.

My outfit of the day consisted of one of my rare black floral Summer dresses, its blue, pink and russet flower print joined by a blue butterfly brooch. I added a magenta beaded necklace and wood and purple mother of pearl bracelet, both of which were charity shopped. 

The tan faux leather belt with its rectangular faux leather buckle was charity shopped as well, while I stumbled across the plum coloured suede Hotter shoes on a flea market back in May 2018, where I bought them for the silly price of € 2.

In preparation for the working week ahead, Sunday afternoon called for a little nap, followed by reading in bed. I was joined by Bess, who made sure I had to stay where I was by putting her paws on my leg. As I had my phone with me, I caught the moment on camera, then sent out an S.O.S. to Jos, who was downstairs.

She's the Queen of Cuddling, and in fact we've had more cuddles with her in the six months she's been with us than we had in our twelve years with Phoebe.

My first week back at the office passed in a blur. After a busy Monday trying to catch up with work, we arrived home only to discover a dent in the back our car. Apparently some nitwit had bumped into it while it was parked out front and of course whoever it was had driven off without leaving a note. Needless to say, we were both shell-shocked. The car's only just over a year old, for goodness sake! As luck would have it, though, we'd just extended our full-coverage insurance, so that repairs would be virtually painless.

Chaos continued to reign at work, and it actually took two days without a lunch break to fully catch up and deal with the printer failure which had popped up in the meantime.

I wasn't in the mood for outfit photos on those days, and I can't for the life of me remember what I was wearing. However, this is what I wore on Wednesday. 

First wearing of the Nathalie Vleeschouwer skirt I was lucky enough to find in a charity shop in March. The outfit was one I'd assembled weeks ago, but hadn't got around to wearing yet. The short-sleeved salmon pink openwork jumper with its bow collar is vintage, and matches the waterlilies in the skirt's pattern almost exactly.

I'm wearing the same belt as I did in the previous outfit, while the butterfly brooch of the day was a green enamelled one. The jumper's bow was kept in check with a second brooch, a tiny green Cameo.

If in the photo on the top left I'm looking like the cat that got the cream, it's because I had finally been able to go out during lunch that day. What's more, the sales at Think Twice - which of course is where I was headed - were in full flow, and down to € 4.

Both the bottle green - and very hard to photograph - dress and the navy based one are label-less, so I expect they were both someone's handiwork. The green one is a bit shorter than my usual length and with its darker colour I'm thinking of wearing it with a burnt orange long-sleeved top and ditto opaques come Autumn.

This black and white midi skirt is Finnish vintage and with its wool and polyester blend will be perfect for Autumn too.

Finally, there's this gorgeous sleeveless midi Summer dress with pleated skirt and bow collar. Its exotic flower pattern in yellow, lilac and white on a blue background made me fall in love with it on the spot.

Little did I know that this would be just the tip of the iceberg of vintage and charity shop finds, as I'm definitely finding myself on a roll in that department. But that, my dears, will be for next time!

Just a perfect day

Years of experience have taught me that time flies whether you're having fun or not, but it most definitely shifts a gear when you do, and particularly so when you're on holiday. 

And so our final day - Wednesday the 5th of August - dawned, and it was another perfect one, with the sun lighting up the early morning haze.

Lesson learned, we'd set the alarm on Jos's mobile, so that we were up and about with enough time to spare to get ready at a leisurely pace. Stepping outside, it turned out that our opposite neighbour was up early too and was watching us dolefully across the Hydrangeas in her front garden. Probably she hadn't had her breakfast cereals yet!

From my travelling capsule wardrobe, I dug this red and white three-quarter sleeved Breton top and red floral wide-legged trousers, which was one of the outfits I'd put together when packing. The top is ancient, and it was the blue charity shopped one I wore on our first day that reminded me of this one which, after a frantic search, I found hidden away at the back of a drawer, together with its navy sister. 

The trousers, which were a sales bargain from New Look a couple of years ago, have accompanied me on many a holiday ever since. Apart from their good looks, they have the advantage of being slightly cropped, so that their hems aren't being dragged through mud and puddles when out walking.

The wooden beads were charity shopped, as were the pink floral trainers (or sneakers, if you prefer to call them thus), which were a lucky £ 4 find in a Shrewsbury charity shop during our last UK holiday.

They might look a bit fancy, but they are extremely comfortable and have survived many a walk on moderately muddy paths. Which is exactly what we had in mind that day!

After another finger-lickingly delicious breakfast, we set our car's controls a.k.a. Truus, our satnav with the Dutch accent, for Bulskampveld, the provincial domain we briefly visited on Monday. Along the way, we stopped off at a small local supermarket to get some sandwiches for a picnic.

Rather than just a stroll in the castle grounds, we'd planned a longer walk in the woods and fields surrounding the domain, making use of a handy map based on numbered markers.

We've got a whole library of such maps, adding to them whenever we visit somewhere new and we love them for their ease of use, although they offer no guarantee for people like us who are prone to getting lost. So, after arriving at our destination, we parked our car, and went in search of number 7, which would be the start of our walk. Easy-peasy, surely? You can see the number 7 at the top of the map, with the P indicating the car park directly above it.

Imagine our confusion when after searching high and low number 7 remained elusive, finding only a signpost with number 38 instead. Looking at the map didn't get us anywhere either, as number 38 was nowhere to be found! We could only surmise that some of the routes and numbers had been changed since the map was printed. It wasn't the first time we'd come across this problem.

Not wanting to admit defeat, we started walking into the direction of where the next marker, number 8, should have been if all was well, but I'm sure it won't come as a surprise that there wasn't any sign of that one either. Instead, we arrived at a fork, with the path up ahead being a private one, while the other was going right instead of left, which was the direction we wanted to go.

Retracing our steps, we eventually found a narrow track leading into the woods (bottom left in the above collage), which soon ended and disappeared into a marshy meadow (above). We could see an obvious track meandering through the high grasses, so we followed it into the direction of a line of trees, taking care not to step on the tiny frogs which leapt to safety upon our approach.

Just following our instincts, we took a left turn when we finally made it back into the woods and onto a woodland path when - lo and behold! - we spotted a number 9 signpost. 

In the full belief that we were back on track, we started following the signs which would ultimately lead us towards number 9, the path making twists, turns and zigzags until we were no longer sure of the direction into which we were going.

At some point, the obvious path ended at a closed gate, with the signposts directing us along an initially overgrown boardwalk, with a pool of water shimmering beyond, reflecting the white cotton wool clouds floating into the blue Summer sky.

Poring over our map, even these two self-confessed "topographically disoriented" could see that there wasn't a pool of water in the approach to number 9. And no, it isn't the splash of blue beneath number 8, as that's the castle lake!

With a view as gorgeous like this, who were we to complain? 

Still intrigued about the sudden appearance of this watery slice of heaven, I trawled the Internet when we got home, finding a reference to a boardwalk crossing one of the newly constructed ponds created by altering the course of a brook called the Bornebeek in 2016. Mystery solved!

Back on solid ground, a number of gates indicated that we were passing through grazing land, and indeed at one point we spotted a magnificent specimen of the Galloway cattle which are roaming the nature reserve. 

When we finally arrived at number 9, we were dismayed to discover that the next number signposted was number 12 rather than number 10 as indicated on our map. But at least it was going into the right direction, along a long and straight semi-surfaced tree-lined avenue (bottom left), so we confidently proceeded accordingly. Soon we even found a bench on which to have our picnic. 

It was then that things started going ever so slightly pear-shaped when, instead of going straight ahead, the next marker pointed us to the left and then, annoyingly, left again, so that we were actually walking back into the direction we'd come from. I decided to use common sense, ignore the marker and go right, and right again, which brought us back onto the straight and narrow. Still, doubt had set in and I was about to panic when I caught a glimpse of the ivy clad water tower we'd seen on our first day. Phew!

When I posted some photos of our walk on Instagram that day, I captioned them with: had a wonderful day of not getting lost in the woods and not being eaten by wild animals! 

Quite chuffed with the fact that in spite of the out of date map - or perhaps because of it - we managed to not actually get lost! 

The day wasn't finished yet, of course. In fact, it was only about 1.30 pm when we found ourselves back at the car park, ready for our next adventure, which started with a 15-minute drive to Loppem, a village about 10 kilometers south-west of Bruges.

Here, a small cobbled lane leads towards a little-known and well-hidden gem, Loppem Castle. 

Entering the castle grounds through the gatehouse (above, top left) it all looks deceptively peaceful, but in reality there is no escaping the constant noise of the traffic passing along the busy E40 motorway which is virtually skirting the domain.

The original Loppem Castle was built in the 17th century and destroyed in the 18th. A century later, in 1856, Baron Charles van Caloen and his wife, Countess Savina de Gourcy Serainchamps, appointed the English architect Edward Pugin to draw up plans for a new castle on the site of the original one.

Finding Pugin’s style too English, Baron van Caloen wanted a more Flemish look to his castle, so he roped in his friend, the Belgian architect Jean Bethune, to amend the plans. Construction of the castle was completed by 1863 and the result is an excellent example of the Flemish neo-Gothic style. 

The prominent sandstone bay extension houses the family chapel.

The blues sky we'd woken up to had done a disappearing act by now and as it seemed as if rain was imminent, we were glad of the opportunity to visit the castle's richly decorated and furnished interior

In perfect harmony with the neo-Gothic architecture, the furniture designed by Pugin as well as Bethune’s stained-glass windows, chandeliers, staircases and fireplaces were all executed with immense skill by local craftsmen.

The impressive entrance hall or vestibule (below, top left) is where van Caloen and his guests played billiards. With its height of 17 metres and designed as a three-storey hall, it combines the idea of the English baronial hall with the grandeur of the staircase hall in a French chateau. The stunning encaustic floor tiles were produced by Minton Hollis from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

While the neo-Gothic interiors and the domestic living quarters downstairs show life as it was in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the first floor rooms are largely devoted to the rich art collection many of which was collected by Charles' grandson Baron Jean van Caloen (1884– 1972) on his travels.

The family chapel (above, bottom right) obviously was a notable exception.

We were largely on our own during our visit, so that we could explore the castle's many treasures at ease. That is, until our solitude was rudely disrupted by the entrance of a couple and their three children, including a boisterous toddler whom his parents mostly left unsupervised. And then there was the not-quite teenage daughter who taunted us by standing directly behind us whenever we wanted to take a closer look at something or stood in a room's doorway to gaze at its plexied off contents.

Case in point were the rooms on the first floor used by the Belgian King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth during their stay at Loppem. This was at the end of the First World War, when the Belgian royal family requested that the castle be temporarily made available for their use.

There's a maze in the grounds, for which a separate entrance fee has to be paid. Designed in 1873 using red and green hornbeam by the brothers Albert and Ernest van Caloen, it is rumoured to be notoriously easy to get lost in. We never made it there, as the pesky family was last seen making enquiries on how to get there.  Perhaps we'll come back here one day outside the school holidays!

It would have been the perfect opportunity for a proper walk around the castle park as well. But as we - and especially Jos, who was suffering somewhat from backache - were all walked out by then, we just took the lane skirting the back of the castle to return to the car park. Doesn't it look especially fairy-tale like meeting its reflection in the lake?

With the afternoon still too young to call it a day, we roped in Truus again to take us to Blijzaak, a charity shop devoted to vintage and design which I'd come across when trawling the Internet.

It had started drizzling by then, but hardly enough to spur our windscreen wipers into action. By the time we'd reached our destination, the sun had reappeared acting as if nothing had happened.

The shop was a lot smaller than we'd imagined, but we still found a funky vintage lamp for our sitting room. The shop also had a café with outside seating, where we had cappuccinos served in 1960s Boch cups, just like the ones we have at home. 

Then it was back to our B&B where we collapsed on our beds for a nap (Jos) and a couple of pages in the book I was trying to finish. We'd ordered another tapas board, so that was our evening meal sorted!

So, that was that! If you've come here hoping for the solution of the out of centre empty cupboard mystery, then I'm afraid I have to disappoint you, as we forgot to ask Veronique about it. But that's more than enough reason for another visit, isn't it?

Instead you'll have to made do with the outfit I was wearing for our journey home on Thursday. 

One of my favourite vintage maxi skirts was joined here by a modern, but charity shopped, blue and white short-sleeved knit, topped by one of my collection of thrifted King Louie cardigans. The belt and beaded necklace were charity shop finds as well.

We made it home in one piece, although it wasn't without its hick-ups. Truus, whom we seem to shout at just as much as Marie-Jeanne, our old satnav, made us do a detour all the way via Brussels. At least that meant we didn't have to face delays at the Kennedy Tunnel, although we are counting ourselves lucky there weren't any queues on the equally infamous Brussels orbital.

We were glad to have this one waiting for us, that's for sure!

It'll be business a usual - whatever that may be - in my next post. See you again soon!