A January state of mind

So far, January's weather has been a continuation of December's - and November's for that matter - offering an endless string of days in soul-sapping shades of grey, with sunny spells a rare and mostly short-lived commodity. On the handful of days that it doesn't rain, a persistent fog is overstaying its welcome, if not an eye-stinging beast-from-the-east wind is making one scuttle back inside.

In the last week or so the temperature, which had been up and down like a yo-yo, finally decided to duck below freezing point. Just a laughable couple of degrees to some, mind you, but quite enough to dig out my stash of jumpers. Gone are the days when the menopause made me break out in a sweat at the mere thought of them!

As I'm sitting here typing this post, rain is lashing against the window and I can hear the wind - the dregs of storm Éowyn which is wreaking havoc elsewhere - howling down the chimney, making it feel much colder than the 10°C promised by the weather forecast.

It was a different kind of weather we woke up to on Saturday 4 January. Miraculously, the sun managed to briefly break through the sky's uniform layer of grey once or twice, although the mercury got stuck at a mere 2°C. I needed an extra layer in the form of a chunky pink cardigan to combat the chill but, diligent blogger that I am, I briefly removed it to show you what I was wearing underneath.

The vintage wool blend Betty Barclay dress ticked all my boxes when I found it at Think Twice in November 2021. Making use of the pink stripe in its tartan pattern for my accessories, I added a textured belt from the high street, a charity shopped necklace and a vintage carved celluloid brooch I picked up from the Brooch Lady's flea market stall in 2017. My ankle boots are actually burgundy rather than the pink they appear to be in the photo.

As we had a family thing on Sunday, we needed to tick off a couple of chores on our to-do list on Saturday, which in my case included mending a fallen hem on the cord skirt I'd been wearing that week.

Not an easy task to accomplish with a feline who insists on making herself comfortable on your lap no matter what. 

Having reluctantly finished Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests a couple of days earlier, it was hard to find a suitable follow-up. I thought the playful tone of Nigel's Slater's Eating for England, a collection of short and often quite mischievous essays about the British and their relationship with food, would fill the gap nicely.

Sunday was an extremely wet day, during which the temperature gradually climbed from 2 to 12°C.

After dismantling the Christmas tree - much to Bess's chagrin, obviously - in the morning, we drove down to Jos's son and daughter in law for a family get-together and the reading of grandson Cas's New Year's letter (Nieuwjaarsbrief in Flemish). 

Flemish children are expected to write a letter with New Year’s wishes for their parents, godparents and grandparents, which is then read out loud in front of everyone. The tradition originated in the 16th century and was at first limited to the upper classes, who had access to education. At that time the letter was usually written in Latin and in verse. Since the mid-20th century, the custom has spread and is now an essential part of local culture.

Obviously Cas, at only 3 and a half years old not yet being able to read or write, got the necessary help from his Mum, Carolien.

The happy mix of stripy patterns I was wearing that day consisted of a knitted skirt from the German brand Bleyle and a faux-wrap jumper from C&A's Clockhouse label. Both items wended their way into my wardrobe through the charity shops, as did my necklace.

The green fabric belt with its scalloped metal clasp buckle - recently worn back in December  - used to belong to a dress which is no longer gracing my wardrobe, while my flower embroidered brooch was bought from Shrewsbury Antiques Centre in June 2019.

The weather during January's second week was quite a mixed bag, starting with a wet and very windy day with highs of 10°C on Monday. In spite of having had a fitful night's sleep, I managed to stay reasonably clear-headed throughout the day. Obviously, this might have been due to a cappuccino-fuelled catch-up with my friend Inez during lunch break! 

One of the perks of our catch-ups being at Antwerp's largest Think Twice shop is that we can go for a quick rummage afterwards. I might even have found a tartan skirt! 

The temperatures took a dive to the low single digits again the next day, where they would remain for the rest of the week and beyond. Lashings of rain and a gale force wind prevented me from venturing too far from the office, so that I inadvertently ended up at Think Twice again during Wednesday's lunch break.

This gorgeous mustard crochet purse insisted on coming home with me that day.

It started snowing quite heavily that evening, swiftly covering the world outside our window with a thick layer of the white stuff. Thankfully, it didn't stick and was all but gone by morning. However, as I was waiting for my bus, we were treated to another couple of flurries, which prompted me to whip out my phone and take this snap of our spotlighted village church.

Funnily enough, in spite of the wintry weather my bus arrived on time for first time that week! Belgian public transport definitely has its little idiosyncrasies - which is a nice way to say that most of the time it actually sucks big time.

As that morning my phone alerted me that another Think Twice sale was kicking off that day, I couldn't help but heading once more into its direction during my break. 

A green, yellow and white floral pussy-bow blouse and a green and purple midi dress were duly snapped up at 30% off. 

It was nothing short of a relief when Friday rolled along! What's more, it turned out to be a gloriously sunny but cold day, the mercury flitting around freezing point. The kind of Winter's day, in fact, that I would sign on the dotted line for. 

With my new-found need for wearing jumpers, I've been avidly adding to my collection, so that my wardrobe is more than ready to deal with this kind of weather!

Apart from my accessories - a mix of flea market and charity shop finds - the main components of my outfit were picked up from the high street.

I bought the chunky lilac and purple striped jumper in Belgian label Terre Bleue's closing down sale back in October, while the mustard flannel skirt was a bargain from Uniqlo two years previously. It's from the shop's collaboration with the French model and fashion designer Inès de La Fressange and I had been lusting after it for months. Having initially been told it was sold out, I couldn't believe my luck when I was able to buy the one which had been in the shop window at a reduced price. 

The unexpected bonus of sunshine was making me feel quite giddy and raring to go for a walk. If the weather forecast was to be believed - and they are usually spot on when bad weather's in the offing - it was actually now or never, what with the rest of the weekend looking quite atrocious.

After tossing around a couple of ideas over lunch, we settled on Den Brandt, one of the pearls in Antwerp's crown of parks to the south of the city centre.

Just like our beloved Middelheim sculpture park, those of you who have been reading my blog for a while have accompanied me here many times before. In fact, its entrance is just across the street from the part of the sculpture park called Middelheim-Laag.

I was remarking to Jos that we hadn't visited for months, but he was adamant that the last time had been after he'd been discharged from hospital. And while I was quite certain that it had been longer ago than that, I was still shocked when a search on my blog revealed that our last walk here was back in August!

After checking out the offerings made to the Gautam Buddha in the picking garden, we ventured into the park itself, relishing the fact that it was so much quieter here on a weekday afternoon in Winter than it was on that sunny August Sunday.

Back then, I photographed Jos against the backdrop of one of the park's veterans, a 200-year-old weeping beech (Fagus sylvatica pendula), at the height of Summer still fully and lushly in leaf. After Autumn ravaged its green canopy, its crooked and twisted branches (above, top left) might be looking dead to the world, but I'm sure this ancient giant will go on to live another day.

Nothing much remained of Thursday's snowfall, but I made a point to purposefully crunch through some of the patches we came across. After all, it might very well be my only chance to do so this Winter.

There was a flimsy layer of ice on the pond behind the recently renovated English-style cottage. This fairy-tale gingerbread cottage (see the ornamental stork perched on its roof on the top left) is purely ornamental and was placed in the garden as a romantic element, a folly if you like. Even after its renovation its door remains firmly locked and its shuttered windows do not allow for a peek inside ... which is a shame really!

Having meandered the park's paths for well over an hour, we now found ourselves at the front of the late classical castle which lies at the heart of the domain. Looking like a perfectly iced wedding cake from afar, up close it is clear that it is yet another victim of shameful and ongoing neglect. 

Before making our way back to our car, I photographed these mad-looking maidens which have been dancing around the fountain in the castle's front garden since 1911. 

Created by the German sculptor Walter Schott, I greatly prefer their nickname, the Dancing Nymphs rather than their official Three Graces moniker. 

The water in the fountain's basin was frozen solid and I imagine the maidens in their flimsy frocks were close to hypothermia!

Nothing but grey skies

Apologies to all of you who have been leaving comments on my posts these last couple of months. Ever since Jos started having health problems back in September, there seem to be fewer hours in my days, so that replying to them has been falling by the wayside. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get back into my stride. I'm just hoping that once Jos has recovered from his op (which is scheduled for 28 February, by the way), things will get back to normal. 

As we are in desperate need of a change of scenery, we have thrown caution to the wind and have booked a couple of nights at our favourite B&B in Beernem near Bruges in February. And we might even have booked a cottage for our annual UK holiday in June ...

If the latter still seems like a long way off at the time of writing, I won't be fooled as time has a tendency to fly whether one's having fun or not. 

For the sake of this blog's continuity, however, I'm taking you back to 2024's final days as, try as I might, I hadn't finished telling you about them yet.

On Sunday the 29th of December it soon became clear that Saturday's sunny outlook had just been a blip, the weather having reverted to its former gloomy and mizzly state, with highs barely above freezing point.

It was far too cold to make outfit photos in the passageway and, with barely a smidgen of daylight making it through our kitchen window, we had to make use of our daylight lamp to show you what I was wearing. Pardon the ghost-like appearance of yours truly :-)

My black floral Diolen balloon-sleeved dress was a Think Twice sales bargain back in August, while I picked up the caramel short-sleeved cardigan during our Boxing Day rummage at the charity shop. Both the necklace and chunky flower brooch were old charity shop finds.

Bored with spending my time reading and occasionally napping on the sofa, I decided that now was the time to head upstairs for some long-overdue dusting and sweeping. In fact, whole generations of dust bunnies had been reared in our upstairs rooms since they'd last been properly cleaned.

The ladies on the spare room mantelpiece were duly relieved from their gossamer veil of dust as were the myriad of objects and heirlooms which reside on every available surface in our bedroom. Keeping everything squeaky clean all the time is verging on the impossible but as I'll never be a minimalist that's something I've learned to live with.  

We didn't venture outside all day, except for a short walk to our neighbours across the street to feed their cats Bob and Billie while they were off to New York for a week.

Monday's weather was a carbon copy of Sunday's. What's more, as those who are supposedly in the know had us believe, the weather gods' offerings of infinite shades of grey would be repeated as December segued into January.

I'd woken up with a blocked left ear and a niggling headache which simply refused to budge so, apart from accompanying Jos on the year's final supermarket run, the sofa is where I spent most of the day.

It was late afternoon when I finally got my act together as we were invited by our friends Inneke and Maurice to have a rummage at their deceased neighbour's flat which they are helping to clear. It felt a bit awkward going through this late lady's cupboards and wardrobes, but I was reassured by Inneke that she would have loved it that her things were going to such a loving new home.

With Dove Cottage already bursting at its seams, we did have to leave behind any bigger items, picking up some smaller odds and ends instead. These included a couple of tote bags, some hand-embroidered napkins, a pink denim jacket and yet more belts.

I couldn't leave behind this twosome of owls, who are now enjoying the company of the Tiffany-style owl lamp which was a gift from Jos's daughter An last year.

The walnut chocolate mould (above, top right) has joined our kitchenalia collection and we are now the proud owners of a fancy new coffee machine (above, bottom left).

These new additions to our kitchen prompted another cleaning session on Tuesday the 31st. I've got to strike the iron while it's hot, as I never know when the mood for this level of domesticity will next take me. And speaking of ironing, I did indulge in some of that seldom seen activity too! Get me!

This is what I was wearing! Both the skirt and the jumper were bought on the high street. While the rust coloured faux-suede paperbag waist skirt was a sales bargain, bought at 70% off in January 2022, the green poloneck is an old wardrobe stalwart having resided there for at least 15 years.

The indisputable star of my outfit is the tooled leather cowboy belt. It's the genuine article and must have been picked up by Inneke and Maurice's neighbour on her travels. 

The Edelweiss hiking souvenir brooch I pinned to my poloneck was a flea market find in February 2024 and the orange and brown hued wooden beaded necklace was charity shopped.

In order to keep cabin fever at bay we decided to drive down to the small charity shop in the neighbouring village of Reet after lunch. The shop's stock can be rather hit or miss and we were fully expecting the latter, so imagine our delight when it turned out there was quite a bit of treasure to be found this time around.

Apart from a Mango jumper (which you'll get to see me wearing in a minute) there was a pair of floral denim trousers, a dress by posh label Essentiel Antwerp and a cushion printed with Vizzini (Sheila's lovely boy) lookalikes. For some reason, Bess initially wasn't a fan as she was clearly freaked out by it.

I also ended up buying this magnificent red wool dress. Trimmed with faux fur at the cuffs and neck and with braided frog buttons decorating its bodice, I though it was fit for a Russian princess. Not for this particular princes though as, while it fit me perfect in the waist and effortlessly skimmed my hips, it was just a bit too narrow on top. Although I wasn't able to try it on in the shop, I'm generally quite good at guessing my size. Obviously not this time, so I'm letting Angelica do the honours. I even generously lend her my muff which doubles as a handbag!

Wednesday the 1st of January was a complete write-off. Although the mercury had climbed to 9°C by now, the day was even more miserable than those barely above freezing point ones courtesy of a nasty gale-force wind. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was feeling a bit maudlin and wasn't at all looking forward to my return to work the next day. And wasn't it just typical that this turned out to be a sunny one? I bet the weather gods must have been laughing behind my back! 

After the shortest working week ever of just one day we've arrived at Friday the 3rd of January, and the final day covered by this post. A frosty but sunny day, with highs of 2°C, it offered the perfect opportunity to wear that Mango jumper I'd charity shopped on Tuesday.

Biscuit and cream might not be my go-to colours, but add a generous helping of custard and suddenly it's very me indeed. As its companion, I picked a vintage chevron patterned knit skirt in shades of biscuit and chocolate. More custard was added with my fleece-lined opaques - a gift from lovely Kezzie - and charity shopped woolly hat.

The belt by Massimo Dutti and the orange beaded necklace were charity shopped as well, while the brooch was picked up from Think Twice a couple of months ago.

Clouds had gathered by the time we'd had lunch but there were still enough patches of blue sky to tempt us outside for a walk.  For a change of scenery, we opted for the park in the nearby town of Boom [boːm], which apparently we hadn't visited since early October. 

As our last visit was just days before everything went truly pear shaped, bad memories needed to be chased away, so that we entered the park with some trepidation. We needed have worried though, as any lingering negative vibes appeared to have been swept up and buried beneath a deep pile carpet of Autumn leaves. 

Still, instead of circling the ponds as we usually do, we headed to the park's tapering town-side end. 

Here, a modernist water garden punctuated with several bronze sculptures by well-known Flemish artists was laid out in 1931.

The building with the Art-Deco tower beyond belongs to Jos's alma mater and was built at approximately the same time.

The most prominent of the sculptures is Solidarity (above) by the Belgian sculptor, draughtsman and graphic designer George Minne (1866-1941), famous for his idealized depictions of man's inner spiritual conflicts. 

With the remaining sunshine on the wane, the temperature was soon making its way below freezing point. As the cold was numbing our faces and making our eyes water, we decided to call it a day and make our way back to where we'd left our car.

Waffles and hot chocolates were waiting for us at home!

Two Twixmas walks

Time has clearly been running away from me again. Back on the work-eat-sleep-repeat wagon since the 2nd of January, I've just woken up with a jolt, realizing that we're already heading towards the middle of the month. It's quite uncanny how being back on the hamster wheel for just over week has already managed to make my Christmas break recede into the far distance.

With barely a smidgen of energy left at the end of each working day - which isn't at all helped by the mind-sapping greyness of these short January days - it's all I can do to keep up with blogland, let alone pen a new post.

By rights, this one should have been published yesterday and, in fact, I had every intention of doing so if a life-affirming frosty yet gloriously sunny day hadn't lured us outside for an afternoon walk.

Obviously, my blog hasn't made it this far yet and is still firmly stuck in those final December days.

The weather on Friday the 27th of December initially looked identical to that of its predecessors. Mizzly, foggy and of a uniform grey, with highs of just 3°C, it wasn't extending an invitation to spend it elsewhere than inside Dove Cottage's cozy confines.

Cozy is the exact word too for this flower pot patterned vintage frock in the softest of wool blends. Found at Think Twice in November 2019, it is one of my go-to dresses when the temperature descends towards freezing point. Both the teal plastic flower brooch and the wooden pansies-and-leaves necklace were charity shopped, the latter being one of my Boxing Day finds.

The weather forecast insisted that we were in for a dry afternoon so, as we were in desperate need of stretching our legs and clearing the cobwebs from our post-Christmas heads, we chose to believe they'd got it right for once and drove down to Middelheim.

Contrary to our previous visits finding parking space was a doddle this time. In fact, we were able to park our car right next to the new entrance to the part of the park called Middelheim-Laag.

Instead of making straight for the large open space where the majority of the works of art are, we meandered along the path through the green belt which encloses it. This is part of the former flower garden of  Nachtegalenpark (transl. Nightingale Park) which was incorporated into Middelheim Sculpture Park in 2012. 

The lingering fog caught between the trees was adding a magical twist to the rock garden with its tiny pond and the rust-coloured remains of the dying ferns surrounding it.

Still circumnavigating the large open space, we continued our walk into the semi-woodland beyond, where I had a disastrous encounter with a couple of white, red-roofed houses. Oops!

Joking aside, obviously no real harm was done, as the houses are of course a work of art! They are called Musterhäuser (Model Homes), Typ "Bomarzo" and are by the German conceptual artist Timm Ulrichs (°1940).

The murky, brown-ish water of the pond had no problem adding to the overall gloom of the day, reflecting the skeleton trees surrounding it. A lonely cormorant sat digesting its lunch while spiky silver giants kept watch from the opposite bank. Dating from 2012 and by Belgian sculptor Peter Rogiers (°1967), they are supposed to represent palm trees, although the artwork's name, Silver Fruit, Silver Cakespoons, The Garden, doesn't really give the game away.

Belgian architect Charles Vandenhove's (1927-2019) Pillared Pavillion (above, top left) consists of two parts: the pavilion itself and a gateway. Both betray the influence of ancient Greece. The pavillion is strictly geometric and soberly constructed, while the gateway is a slightly more frivolous interpretation.

Inside the pavillion two sculptures are hiding from the dismal weather conditions. They are Sibilla (above, bottom left and top and bottom centre), dating from 1947 and by the Italian sculptor Pericle Fazzini (1913-1987), and Grande Bagnante N°1 (above, top and bottom right). The latter dates from 1956 and is by another Italian sculptor and contemporary of Mr. Fazzini, Emilio Greco (1913-1995).

Finally arriving at the heart of Middelheim-Laag, I briefly joined the queue for the spaceship called Never Mind (2017) by Welsh artist Richard Deacon (°1949), but then decided against boarding it as the weather forecast for its home planet turned out to be truly atrocious. 

At least, our weathermen were adamant that we'd get to see the sun on Saturday!

At a measly 2°C, though, it was time to break out the woollies! 

With its generous wool content, this grey, white and black diamond patterned Trixi vintage skirt is one of the warmest in my wardrobe. It was joined by a 100% wool purple jumper, the diamond lace knit pattern at its yoke echoing the skirt's, an embroidered leaf or flower nestling in each of the diamonds.

My "faux sheep" gilet was a fast fashion find from a local shop, now going into its eighth season. The deer brooch was a flea market find and the pale green fabric belt with its scalloped metal clasp buckle used to belong to a dress I no longer own.

 

As it was the first time in many weeks that we'd actually get to see some sunshine, we wasted no time in driving over the the park in Duffel for a stroll. However, we were tempted to have a brief look at what the charity shop goddesses had on offer in the charity shop across the road first.

My spoils were a cinnamon openwork knit jumper and no less than five belts! Oh, and another cardigan, which you'll get to see in my next post.

Afterwards, we recrossed the road and entered the park where a meeting of all sorts of waterfowl seemed to be going on. Apparently someone had just emptied a bag of stale bread near the pond, which was very much appreciated by all and sundry, by now including a flock of screeching gulls.

Lord and master seemed to be a rather agressive, loudly honking goose (below, top left) which was having a hissy fit whenever another bird even dared to come close to a choice piece of bread it had its eye on. 

The day's sunshine and blue sky were veiled by persistent rags of fog which kept blotting out the horizon.

Silhouetted against a blurring blanket of white, the trees, now completely devoid of the final of their leaves, seemed to be at peace with their lot, knowing their time will come again in Spring.

The blanket of fog which was swaddling the park only allowed the sun to be a mere pinprick reflected into the water of the rill, recently dug to avoid flooding of the main pond.

We decided the risk it and take the path around the latter, which in times past used to be flooded in the Winter months. The rill must have done its work, however, as rather than being faced with a partially submerged path, we only had to negotiate a couple of muddy patches.

The dregs of low-slung sunshine was adding an eerie glow to the almost opaque surface of the pond, rendering it picturesquely atmospheric.

Here and there, a fiery carpet of bald cypress leaves joined forces with the banks of bleached reeds edging the pond in adding a splash of much-needed colour.

It turned out that we'd be seeing the year's final rays of sunshine that day and we'd be back to endless grey to see out its last days.

These, as well as our first tentative steps into the new year, will be the subject of a next post. Hope to see you again soon!

What's Another Year

So here we are: January 2025, and the start of a spanking new year. If the 60-odd years I've been spending on this planet have taught me one thing, it's that absolutely nothing changes as we yet again hang a fresh calendar on our walls or gingerly crack open a new diary, its pages still virginally blank. 

Well, I got news for you: time doesn't give a damn that it's supposed to be another year, it just keeps marching on relentlessly from one day to the next. There's no wielding of magic wands or sprinkling of clouds of fairy dust to make things different or - god forbid - better than they were in December.

I've given up on New Year's resolutions a long time ago, as they usually die an untimely death before the first weeks of January are over. So I just continue to live my life, adapting and making changes as I go along. 

Meanwhile, the tale of those final December weeks is still begging to be told, so I'll be starting where I bade you goodbye in my final post, which was on Sunday 15 December.

Yet another gloomy and drizzly day, we were both feeling a bit morose so, after a morning of aimless pottering, we hit upon the idea of driving down to the garden centre to buy a new (fake) tree. But I already told you all about that ...

The day's highs of 8°C might have been a bit too warm for the dress I was wearing that day. It was love at first sight for this wool and acrylic blend vintage C&A dress found at Think Twice in February 2022.

The beads and beret - which once again I wore to hide that day's less than perfect hairdo - were charity shopped as well, while both the belt and the flower corsage worn in lieu of a brooch were picked up on the high street.

The weather continued along the same vein in the working week that followed, the mercury flirting with the low double digits, the drizzle often almost horizontal as a result of a quite unpleasant wind.

Sales at Think Twice's had reached the € 2 mark on Monday At this stage I wasn't really expecting to find anything, but then this groovily patterned 1970s frock was winking at me from its hiding place among a rail of coats.

Then a surprise was waiting for me when I got home on Wednesday. My friend Inneke had found these two brooches among the contents of a deceased neighbour's flat which she and Maurice are helping to clear. Obviously, I was happy to give them a home, which I hope they don't mind sharing with 800-plus brothers and sisters.

I'd taken Thursday 19 December off to accompany Jos to the hospital where he was due to have another batch of tests. To cut a long story short, we were told that he would need surgery as part of his prostate is blocking his urethra. No date has been set yet as I type, so we continue playing a waiting game while Jos is still having to deal with the unpleasantness of a bladder catheter.

Needless to say, we were both feeling quite low and overwhelmed after being the recipients of yet another piece of bad news ...

Having taken Thursday off, I'd promised my bosses to come in for a couple of hours on Friday, which as a bonus did manage to take my mind off things for a while. 

When Jos picked me up from the tram at around 1 pm, he told me he was a bit worried about the car, as it kept showing a message that the battery was almost empty. When the message appeared again after we'd driven off, I asked him why it mentioned the word "key" in front of the word "battery". Then the penny dropped that it was the car key battery which needed replacing :-) We drove straight to the garage where the matter was fixed in minutes ... Phew!

Back at home, I walked into town to pick up some Christmas cards from the bookshop, finding a book which I thought would cheer up Jos in the process. It's about how daily life in Belgium changed in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and I'm currently waiting for my turn to read it.

Reading my journal for that weekend doesn't make for much fun. For fear of sounding like a broken record, the weather was simply atrocious. Although on both days the thermometer insisted on temperatures of around 6°C, rain, hail and wind, culminating in a thunderstorm on Sunday morning, made it feel quite a bit colder.

The list of household and other chores which occupied me would make for a yawn-inducing read, so I'll limit myself to the outfits I was wearing.

On Saturday, I wore this groovily patterned vintage wool-blend dress found at Think Twice back in the mists of time. With so many colours to choose from, accessorizing it is a doddle, this time picking up the tiny bits of orange in its pattern with my suede belt, fluffy cardigan, necklace, ring and brooch. The only non-second-hand items were the belt - and my ancient tan boots.

On Sunday, this handmade vintage dress came out to play. It was a charity shop find at our most local shop once upon a time, but due to its - in my eyes, at least - Christmassy print, I only seem to wear it this time of year. 

I can't remember whether the faux-ivory carved beads were a charity shop or a flea market find, but my tall red boots definitely were the latter. The eagle-eyed among you may recognize the brooch as one of those I got from my friend Inneke earlier that week.

 

Monday 23 December was my last working day of the year. For some reason, my bosses had insisted that we come in, although the office turned out to be dead. This prompted both my colleague and me to  cheekily run a couple of errands during office hours in order to beat the hordes of Christmas zombies which would descend upon Antwerp's shopping streets by lunch time.

The day started and ended with rain with a couple of sunny spells in between. On the left is the sight that greeted me when I stepped off the metro's escalator that morning. By late morning, the sight of the sun bathing the cathedral's tower in an eerie white light while dark clouds were gathering behind it, prompted me to whip out my phone. The heavens opened just a I was waiting at the tram stop in front of my office, and had become quite torrential while it was taking me home.

Grey and mizzly, with highs of around 8°C, Christmas Eve was spent doing nothing much at all, our only outing being a trip to a small local supermarket for some last-minute shopping, where things were much quieter than we'd thought it would be.

One of the perks of not having to go into work is the time I can spend playing around with the contents of my wardrobe, which that day resulted in a happy mix of old and new items.

Both the blue cord skirt and the tan mock-croc belt were retail buys which have more than earned their keep in my wardrobe. My vintage blouse is actually a jumper and blouse in one, with a knitted bodice and cuffs and flower patterned collar and sleeves. I picked it up from Think Twice for just € 1 in the Autumn of 2019.

The tank top recently came home with me from the charity shops while the brooch I pinned to it was found at Shrewsbury Antiques Centre in June 2019. The blingy perspex ring was, again, a retail buy.

Apart from editing photos and making a couple of collages for my next post, most of the day was spent on the sofa, totally engrossed in my latest read, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, and the only one of her novels which was still in my reading pile.

That night, we had the first part of our traditional Xmas gourmet for dinner. For those who are not familiar with the concept, gourmet is kind of a thing in the Low Countries, involving a variety of tiny pieces of meat one fries individually in tiny frying pans on a raclette-like device. As we are currently without a proper dining table and it would be too fiddly on our small-ish kitchen table, Jos just fried up all the pieces in a large frying pan, and we enjoyed them with potato salad, a selection of veggies and home-made cocktail sauce. There was enough for two meals, so we'd be eating the remainder on Christmas Day.

We were treated to the same un-Christmassy weather on the day itself. 

After sleeping in and enjoying a leisurely breakfast while still in my pyjamas, I stood in front of my wardrobe and assembled this outfit, which might very well be a contender for favourite outfit of the year.

The vintage, flower patterned velvet skirt was yet another old Think Twice find, which I combined with a vintage 1980s jumper I rescued from being sold at our flea market stall by my friend Inez. What was she thinking?

The massive orange suede belt was last Summer's sale bargain, the ring was a flea market find and the brooch with its blingy threesome of cats came from a Shrewsbury charity shop last June.

My outfit was bookended in purple with my bargainous Western-style ankle boots and mohair beret from Think Twice. It might have been Christmas, but I wasn't in the mood for washing my hair!

As a Christmas treat, we'd picked up these mini Yule logs from the supermarket the other day. Yummy!

Another tradition we are trying to keep up is going for a walk at Middelheim on Boxing Day. Unfortunately the weather gods weren't being supportive of our plans and sent us another grey and rainy day.

As we were champing at the bit to escape the house after those two days of inactivity, there was nothing for it but to go for another rummage at the charity shops.

These two wicker handbags jumped into my trolley mere minutes after entering the shop in the nearby town of Mortsel.

I also couldn't resist these glittery gold-tone ankle boots by Schmoove, a French brand founded in 2001. With boots on their website retailing at well over € 200, the € 5,90 I paid for these are nothing short of a steal.

Flush with our success, we then tried our luck at our most local shop, where I found these two almost matching items.

The unlined cotton jacket (it's not a shirt, as I first thought) with its turquoise and purple Paisley-esque pattern will have to wait until the weather's warmed up, but I've already worn the wooden necklace with its row of pansies and leaves.

I'll be back with more Twixmas tales and other news in my next post. 

See you soon!