Clouds got in my way

Although it had been pelting down on and off since our return from our walk in the sculpture park on Saturday afternoon, the weather gods seemed to have temporarily dried their tears on Sunday morning. Without Saturday's partial sunshine, however, the day's highs of 5°C felt quite a bit chillier. 

I had a couple of chores to tick off my list, starting with wrestling a couple more Winter coats from their out-of-season hidey-hole, and putting away my lighter scarves in favour of some warm knits.

This was followed by the pleasurable task of assembling outfits for the upcoming working week. This is something I try to do every Sunday, playing around with my wardrobe and making sure I've got plenty of possibilities to choose from on dark weekday mornings, on which my inspiration seems to have done a runner.

By the time we'd finished the somewhat less pleasurable task of dusting the dining and sitting rooms, the rain could be heard lashing against our windows again.

With the world outside Dove Cottage's windows looking pretty uninviting, there was no way we would be stepping into the garden for outfit photos, so we made use of a corner of our kitchen instead.

I was wearing  a wool and polyester blend long-sleeved vintage dress, its deep forest green swirled with orange and mint green. The rust coloured marl knit cardigan was a charity shop find from several years back and helped to keep the worst of the chills at bay. 

For the sake of the photos, I donned my forest green wedge-heeled ankle boots, offering a generous peek at my dark rust opaques.

My belt with its intriguing buckle used to belong to a dress which wasn't me and was redonated sans belt. The brooch was a flea market find back in April 2016 and the necklace with its stack of tiny orange tiles was charity shopped last year.

I always think Dove Cottage really comes into its own this time of year, with its plethora of table lamps highlighting the treasures we've collected over the years.

One of our recently acquired treasures, of course, is Bess! Her latest thing is watching the wildlife in our garden from the edge of the sink below our kitchen window, often raising herself on her hind legs when she spots any quick-as-lightning blue tits making use of the feeder under the awning.

On the bottom right is a view from the kitchen into the dining room, with its original 1930s tiles.

The pretty wooden pendulum clock, found by Jos in a local junk shop, is ticking away in our sitting room, flanked by a pair of cheap as chips charity shopped Art Deco vases. The Bakelite radio dates from the early 1950s is still in working order, although its choice of stations is obviously rather limited, and was picked up at a charity shop event in March 2016.

The ceramic couple on the top left, wearing traditional Dutch costume, is identical to the pair which used to grace my paternal grandparents' mantelpiece. Alas, the originals didn't survive but these two offered an instant flashback to my childhood when I came across them when browsing at a flea market.

There's some Art Nouveau loveliness in the lamp base on the top right and the trinket box on the bottom left. The 1930s green deer lamp was love at first sight at an antiques fair. And what were the odds of finding the matching deer ornament on its left at a flea market only a few months later!

Typically, Monday saw a brief respite from the rain, although it was quite chilly in morning so that I wore gloves for the first time this season. It warmed up to 8°C with lots of sunshine though.

While I was waiting for Jos at our usual pick-up point after work, I thought I'd make a photo of Essentiel Antwerp's flagship store on the opposite corner for Sheila!

Tuesday the 30th November would have been my Mum Alice’s 86th birthday. Sadly, we lost her all of twenty years ago. As if on cue, the day was as dismal as they come, with hardly any daylight worth speaking of and a veritable deluge.

Here she is, in 1965, flanked by my paternal grandmother, a 4-year old me, and my Dad. The photo is taken at the zoo in Antwerp, and this delightful time capsule is one of my all-time favourites.

The rest of the working week brought a mix of sunny spells and showers, with the temperature dropping from a reasonable 9°C to a rather goosebumpy 5°C from Wednesday to Thursday.

In spite of the fact that I'm often finding it a struggle to get through my 4-day working weeks, they do seem to speed by at an alarming rate, with Friday rolling along in no time.

Not surprisingly, it was another dismal day. Although it remained mostly dry, a harsh, eye-stinging wind made it feel much colder than the 4°C indicated by the thermometer.

The powers that be had been sitting together trying to come up with a new set of rules since 9 'o clock that morning, but wild horses couldn't have kept us from our weekly charity shopping trip. Besides, some good-for-the-soul rummaging was just the ticket to take our minds off things.

Trying to give all my Winter coats the chance to shine, it was now the turn of my plaid vintage swing coat, charity shopped back in the mists of time. I'm sure my beret and scarf do not need further introduction.

Underneath my coat, I was wearing a vintage black floral shift dress from Think Twice, topped with a maroon long-line cardigan and ditto pair of opaques. Pinned to my dress was a cream celluloid flower brooch, while a mint green flower corsage adorned my cardigan. The finishing touch was provided by a necklace combining both wooden and raffia beads in shades of green.

Everything except for the tights, but including my beloved green boots, is vintage or at least second-hand.

Pickings were meagre at the first shop we went to, my rummage only yielding these two necklaces. While the pink one is vintage, the chunky reddish brown and pale green one is by Belgian costume jewellery label Les Cordes.

If you're intrigued by the background these were photographed against, it belongs to a dress I found in our second shop of the day. An easy-going dress with sporty trim at the neckline and some very forgiving folds at the waist and hips, I simply couldn't resist its gorgeous print. 

A brown wool and polyester blend plaid skirt and a King Louie cardigan in a delectable shade of green were my final pickings of the day.

Back at home, there was news on the new rules, none of which concerned us very much. These included the wearing of masks for all children from the age of six, a week's earlier start to the Christmas holidays for schools and the cancellation of all indoor events involving +200 people. The main source of infections seems to be in primary schools at the moment. And then there's the new Omicron strain which seems to be slowly but surely heading in our direction.

The most surreal news of the day, however, came from the zoo in Antwerp, where two hippos turned out to have tested positive for Covid-19. I won't blame you if like me you had to read this twice to make sure that your mind isn't playing tricks on you ...

Crazy, crazy world! Surely this needs a cuddling session with our Bess. No enforced cuddles where she is concerned, though, she is actually asking for them. After spending 12 years in the company of grumpy Phoebe, we are definitely not used to this kind of cat behaviour!

It looked set to be a wet weekend, starting with a rainy all-dayer on Saturday. 

To make up for the lack of proper daylight, I dressed in sparkles! Well, I actually did that so that I could participate in Nancy's Good Buy/Good-Bye Book.

My outfit was based around this sparkly turquoise midi skirt with its striking black geometric pattern. After wearing it only once upon finding it in the Think Twice sales back in November 2017, it had been languishing in my wardrobe ever since, as admittedly it was somewhat snug in the waist.

A Good-Bye, then? Well, no. It turned out to be just a matter of moving the waist button a bit to make it a Good Buy after all! It only took me 4 years to think of this!

I added more sparkle with my turquoise cardigan charity shopped last year and if you look closely there's some sparkle in my ring as well. 

The black vintage blouse with its tan stripes and tan and turquoise flowers was another Think Twice find. My zebra belt was making another appearance too, while a charity shopped cream and turquoise necklace and a - yet again sparkly - bird brooch found at a flea market completed my outfit. 

With any outside activities out of the question, but needing to flee the house if only for an hour or so, we drove down to the slightly smaller charity shop in the neighbouring village of Reet. 

I've been on the lookout for more long-line cardigans, but so far the charity shops haven't exactly delivered. Much to my delight two of them were waiting for me here, a fluffy grey one and one in a delicious raspberry colour. 

My final find of the weekend has some sparkle too, although it turned out to be nigh on impossible to photograph. This festive green and red cardi is by the delightfully named but far too expensive Belgian label Lucy has a Secret. At just € 4, I'm sure you'll agree I couldn't say no! 

And with that, we have once again reached the end of this post. My 500th post, to be exactly! How did that happen?

Ain't no sunshine

Sunshine has been a rare commodity of late. When yet again we woke up to a dark and moody day on November's final Friday, we knew we needed all the help our daylight therapy lamp could give us.

After breakfast bathed in artificial daylight, Jos walked into the village to get a newspaper for us and an elderly neighbour, nipping into the garage for our car on the way back. 

As it was Friday, we were off on our weekly charity shopping trip, planning to take outfit photos afterwards, crossing our fingers for a ray of sunshine later in the day. But while the rain held off until we were back, it started getting gloomier by the minute. By mid-afternoon, realizing that we were running out of time, we returned our car to the garage, hoping that its white brick wall and skylight would provide sufficient natural light without having to use our camera's flash.

My outfit's main components, the dress and cardigan, both from contemporary retro labels, were charity shopped on the same day a couple of weeks ago.

When I dressed up Angelica in them to show you my finds, I loved the mix of caramel and blue of the dress with the butterscotch yellow of the cardigan so much that I decided to wear them together myself.

The dress was accessorized with a tan belt and a tan and black beaded necklace, while the squishy stag head's brooch provided a fun and funky element. I love how the cardigan's buttons echo the colour of the belt, which was serendipitous rather than intentional.

I've been wearing my houndstooth patterned coat on repeat, as it's keeping me and my legs warm and toasty in all kinds of inclement weather. With the thermometer stuck at 4°C, it was very welcome indeed. 

Here it is book-ended in tans by my beret and boots. The scarf with its jigsaw stripes in orange, purple, green and blue, is a repeat offender too, and has been darned in various places where it got stuck in zipper teeth.

That Friday, our shopping trip first took us to the outskirts of a town called Mechelen, just under 10 kilometer from Dove Cottage. The charity shop here is a large, two-floored one, with the second floor entirely dedicated to clothing and textiles.

This time it was Jos who struck lucky, as we found him a chunky grey zip-up cardigan - not pictured - and this rather fabulous brown jumper striped in blue, orange and white.

We also splashed out on this € 1,5 vintage Antwerp souvenir plaque, showing the cathedral in all its glory and without scaffolding, with the River Scheldt in the background. It has already joined our Wall of Souvenirs in the hallway.

There were some treasures waiting for me in our second shop, which was the famous three-floored one in Duffel.

Here I found a short-sleeved blue and white marled knit jumper closing with a row of three shoulder buttons, as well as a thin green long-sleeved one, a turquoise chunky scarf and - oh joy - a vintage slip still with its tags. It is inset with Dentelles de Calais, a type of lace which has been produced in the Calais area for at least two hundred years. According to their website, Dentelles de Calais is the label of an iconic lace, the stuff of dreams with its beautiful craftsmanship and timeless glamour. The lace is inherently linked with French chic, elegance and femininity and talented designers use its sublime beauty and transparency to show off the body’s curves and delicate skin.

My final find were these magnificent denim blue Western style boots. It was only when I got them home that I noticed they were by Sasha, a Dutch label established in 1909. There's a Sasha shop near my office, and when I went to check them out during one of my lunch breaks, I was delighted to see similar boots with a € 175 price tag. Mine were just € 4,50 and in near perfect condition. Oh, the joys of charity shopping.

To make the most of the sparse amount of daylight streaming in through our dining room window, I posed for photos while standing on Bess's round orange carpet directly in front of it. 

I was facing Bess's battery of Snooze Bays across the room, and this is what I saw. Oh Bess!

There was no change in temperature on Saturday, but lo and behold, there was strange yellow orb in the sky that morning. 

According to the weather forecast, we were in for more rain in the afternoon, so that wasted no time in making the most of this short-lived stroke of luck by going for a walk.

Pinks and greys were my outfit's main ingredients that day. I've had the zig-zag jumper - charity shopped, obviously - for absolutely ages, but the skirt, in a fine corduroy fabric with a swishy lining, only crossed my path last Winter.

The jumper being rather short, it kept escaping from the skirt's waistband, so I wore it on top, cinching in my waist with a snake print belt. The latter was bought brand new on the high street during the January sales. My pink beret came from a high street shop as well.

The liquorice necklace - dubbed as such by an Instagram follower - came from Oxfam, while the brooch with its hand painted rose was an old flea market find.

Layered between my jumper and my favourite vintage fur-collared jacket was a fluffy cardigan to combat the cold, but you'll have to take my word for it as there's no photographic evidence. 

The pink boa matches my beret's colour exactly, so that I am treating them as a set and often wear them together. I wore the burgundy boots - picked up at Think Twice several years ago - just for walking to our garage and taking these photos. Courtesy of all the rain we've had, it was far too muddy, so obviously I didn't want to take the risk of ruining them, exchanging them for my old brown boots for our intended walk.

Although a wintry blue sky filled with patches of innocent looking white clouds was trying to trick us into believing we'd be in for a sunny day, the predicted return of the rain clouds kept us close to home. 

Weighing our options, we decided on yet another visit to the sculpture park. We had to wade through a succession of puddles to get from our car to the entrance, but once we'd circumnavigated the worst of these we were fine.

I have no idea what kind trees these are, but aren't their alternating yellow and red berries delightful against the blue of the sky? 

The container installation is a work of art too, by  Belgian architect, urbanist and artist Luc Deleu. It dates from 2004 and it called Orbino.

We said hello to the three Walking Nuns (1960-61) by  Elia Ajolfi (bottom right) and chuckled at Girl Looking Down (1956-57) by Reg Butler (bottom left) who we were pretty sure wouldn't be able to see anything much looking down but her own rather impressive bosom!

The title of Floriano Bodini's Ladies (1961, top left) is rather misleading, as one glance at the sculpture makes it clear that they are scarred by life. In fact, the sculpture radiates fear and horror.

The rather grumpy looking creature in Will to Live (1952) by Hildo Crop was looking non too pleased by the Autumn leaves which had landed in its lap!

We, on the other hand, rejoiced in the fitted carpet of Autumn leaves at our feet, and were delighted to see a colony of tiny mushrooms climbing up the tree on the bottom right. That's one of them up close on the top right.

Fiery red leaves and Clematis seed heads join the pure whites of the Braem Pavillion (1971, bottom right) and "L" by Augustin Cardenas (1968, top left).

At barely above freezing point, we did feel a tad sorry for Sitting Figure (1929) by Georg Kolbe.

We'd brought sandwiches for a picnic, which we ate sitting gingerly on pieces of oilcloth we keep especially to spread on wet or soiled benches. 

Then we spotted some empty tables on the terrace of the museum café, where we had cappuccinos and cakes, wrapped in thoughtfully supplied blankets.

My glasses had misted over by the time I'd climbed the stairs to the toilets where I blindly snapped a handful of pictures of the bird's eye view of the park.

It was only afterwards that I noticed the delightfully painterly properties of this one.

In the meantime, clouds had gathered, and we'd only just made it home before darkness descended and it started to rain once more.

Adrift

It absolutely boggles my mind that we have once again turned the calendar's final page to December. 

Is it just me, or has the year really sped by even faster than usual?

2021 was supposed to be a year filled with hope, but sadly it seems that we're still in the same boat as this time last year. What's more, it has sprung a few more leaks and is now more adrift than ever. I'm paddling like mad to reach the shore before it starts sinking.

In my blog, we've only just made it into the second half of November, as no matter how fast I'm paddling, it seems to be nigh on impossible to catch up. Not that I would want it any other way. I'm finding that hindsight does tend to put things into perspective and generally helps me to accentuate the positive.

Saturday the 20th of November dawned yet another dismal day with a distinct lack of sunshine and temperatures just into double figures. 

I had my outfit all figured out, or at least I thought I did. However, the skirt I'd originally earmarked to wear for my blouse's maiden voyage turned out to be all wrong. Still determined to wear the blouse, which is by CKS and was charity shopped back in Spring, I suddenly remembered this burnt orange cord button-through skirt. I'd actually downgraded it to gardening wear after its first wear in October last year due to it having a mind of its own which kept me tugging at it all day.

I'm glad I gave it another chance, as this time I felt completely comfortable wearing it, giving in to its slouchy properties and shoving my hands into its satisfyingly deep pockets.

The rest of my outfit was child's play, using teal for my belt, cardigan and opaques - not that you can catch even a glimpse of the latter - and pinning an orange centred brooch to my cardigan. My long beaded necklace combines both teal and emerald green, while my footwear of choice were the greyish green waxed nubuck boots I'd charity shopped on Friday.

Something else we'd picked up on Friday was a new blind, which we bought brand new from a DIY and home decor store.  We'd had our previous IKEA one for over twenty years so we definitely got our money's worth. Instead of off-white, we went for a coffee colour this time. In my mind's eye, I can see Beate rolling her eyes at the fact that we didn't go for a more exciting colour, but in our defence we do have boldly striped curtains to provided the necessary colour pop. 

We'd earmarked Saturday to catch up with some chores, the first one being hanging up the new blind. It just needs steaming out the creases, but we haven't got around to that yet, hoping that the problem would solve itself.

The rest of the day was spent doing a load of washing, stripping the bed and putting on fresh bed linen, running an errand at the supermarket, doing a spot of cleaning, catching up blogland and writing a new blog post. Oh, and I started a new book, which turned out to be a much-needed lighter read. It wasn't all that bad but rather superficial, and it's definitely not a keeper. There aren't too many books which make the grade nowadays, and I can hear our groaning bookshelves breathe a sigh of relief whenever I'm putting another book into the re-donation bag. I fully admit to buying the book for it's rather marvellous cover!

There was another edition of our recently restarted indoor flea market on Sunday, which is why we'd made sure to do all our chores on Saturday. What with all the alarming news messages about the current Covid-19 resurgence, however, we had second thoughts and decided not to risk it, even with the requirement of having to scan one's Covid Safe Ticket and wearing our masks.

For fear of sounding like a broken record, we'd once again woken up to rain on Sunday, and it continued raining on an off all morning. When it finally stopped, we thought we'd drive down to the garden centre for a mooch around. Me and my twin couldn't wait to wear our vintage C&A burgundy velvet coats!

Underneath, I was wearing one of my black based dresses, a 1970s Swedish "Petri" one, with a riotous geometrical pattern in white, red, orange and the palest of yellows. It has made it to the blog many times before and I don't need to revisit these past posts to know that orange often featured in its accessories.

Although I did wear a pair of burnt orange opaques, I tried to break the mold this time by adding a red rather than an orange cardigan and opt for black and white accessories. I'm finding that my zebra print belt seems to go with rather a lot of things.

On our way back from the garden centre, we were regaled by a brief sunny spell, a moment I swiftly eternalized with my phone's camera!

Apart from picking up a new bird feeder, we also came home with a replacement Snooze Bay for Bess.

When we bought the original blue one before Bess came home with us, we were fully expecting it to be totally ignored, so we were chuffed to bits when she started using it. Then she developed the habit of flattening it by jumping on top of it, where we often found her curled up and fast asleep. Nevertheless, the minute we put it up again, she was in there like lightning, kneading and purring like mad. It never lasted though, and she'd flattened it again before we knew it.

We'd tried giving her an open cat bed but she never went near it, so we thought we'd buy her a second Snooze Bay to use as originally intended. 

After giving it the side-eye for a couple of minutes, we were pleased to see her go inside and, after a spot of sniffing and kneading, actually lie down in it. Result!

The new working week went off to a good start. It was slowly but surely getting colder, just 8°C with a touch of frost in the morning on Monday. We were in luck, though, as the sun joined us for most of the day.

In spite of it getting busier and busier at work, I went for a walk during lunch break, having made the conscious decision to do so every day - weather permitting, obviously - and make some photographs of things that caught my eye.

Although just a stone's throw from my office - and actually visible from my office window - I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never been inside the small Chapel of Our Lady of Refuge. Hemmed in between high street shops on the Schoenmarkt (Shoe Market), it is locally known as the Shoemakers’ Chapel, although apparently it has nothing to do with the trade.

I couldn't help but smile at the plaque just inside the entrance (top left) which urges you not to set foot inside without saying a prayer to Mary.  It doesn't sound like much this way, but it actually rhymes in Flemish, which makes it quite charming!

On the bottom right are just of a few of the dozens of ex-votos, votive offerings in gratitude, or thank you-notes if you please, lining the entrance hall.

The small Gothic chapel dates from the 15th Century and has been renovated many times over the years. It used to belong to some almshouses established in 1343 for twelve destitute women.  

The chapel is an oasis of quietness and devotion - an older lady and a young Asian girl were praying there during my visit - and has, through the years, offered a refuge for everyone regardless of rank, social class or age. 

In fact, until the 1970’s quite a few of Antwerp's prostitutes came here to say their prayers, which earned the chapel its alternative nickname of the "Whores' Chapel"

Tuesday started off in the same way as Monday, and this time I decided on a slightly longer walk during my break. 

After passing one of Antwerp's multitude of city bike stations, belonging to a public bike hiring system called Velo, I entered the Hendrik Conscience Square. Named after the Belgian author (1812 – 1883) who is considered to be the pioneer of Dutch-language literature in Flanders, this square used to be the haunt of us punks back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

The square is dominated by one of Antwerp's gems, the lavishly decorated baroque Sint-Carolus Borromeuskerk (St. Charles Borromeo Church).

Built for and by the Jesuits between 1615 and 1621, in the middle of the Counter-Reformation period, words failed to fully describe its magnificence even back then, certain people calling it heaven on earth or the eighth wonder of the world.

None other than Peter Paul Rubens played an important role as a painter, decorator and architect. His influence is visible in the tower, façade, high altar and the vault stucco in Our Lady’s Chapel. Sadly,  the 39 ceiling paintings by his hand were lost in a fire when lightning struck the church on 18 July 1718.

Since 1803 the St.-Carolus Borromeuskerk has been in use as a parish church. 

During the Dutch reign preceding Belgium's independence in 1830 the church's lavish interior was stripped and turned into a Dutch Reformed Church. A restoration campaign in the 1980s brought the church back to its original splendour.

The church wasn't open at the time of my visit but I promise to return one day during opening hours and take you along with me.

I'd only just returned to the office when clouds started gathering, bringing along torrential rains which lasted for most of the week. 

Even the weather forecast for the weekend ahead looked pretty dire, but that, my friends, will be for my next post.

Until then, do stay safe and healthy, everyone!