These August days

Where does the time go? Summer's almost over and, looking back, it's all a bit of a blur, one week segueing almost seamlessly and featurelessly into another. 

Healthwise, August was a month of two halves, as the issues caused by my eye problem kept plaguing me on and off and making my stress levels go way up through the roof in the first two weeks of the month. But then, slowly but surely, the good days started outnumbering the bad, and my lazy left eye seems to have finally gotten a wake-up call. In short, even if the problem is still there and isn't expected to go away, my brain seems to have accepted the situation for the time being.

In the first week, the weather gods weren't exactly on their best behaviour, treating us to a seemingly endless string of grey and rainy days and with temperatures very much below par.

At least there were a couple of sunny spells on Friday the 4th of August, when I was finally able to take the day off again. If the mercury climbed to the low twenties, it felt decidedly chillier, so that I needed to layer a cardigan on top of my dress.

The dress in question is another of my Diolen Delights, its pattern a fireworks of white and royal blue flowers erupting on a Summer sky background. 

Apart from the cardigan, more orange was added with my necklace. An off-white stretchy belt with faux tortoiseshell buckle, amber coloured glass ring and one of the ceramic shard brooches I bought from a Ludlow market stall completed my outfit. Oh, and I pinned a royal blue flower corsage to my cardigan to match its buttons. On my feet, my navy blue flapper-style shoes.

It was a day of gentle pottering and well-needed rest after weeks of working full time while not feeling well. In fact, the only outing on the agenda was a quick dash to the charity shop in Mechelen, where I found a pair of as good as new Tamaris shoes in a delicious olive green.

Don't they look gorgeous paired with the lavender cat patterned scarf I got as a present from my friend Inneke for our - well, mostly Jos's - cat-sitting services?  Inneke and Maurice also treated us to a pack of Ethiopian coffee beans and a yummy homemade cake! 

The weekend's temperatures were more akin to Autumn than Summer, starting with a measly 17°C on Saturday and dropping to a bone-chilling 15°C on Sunday with a non-stop succession of showers on both days. We even had to resort to putting on the heating in our front room to keep the chills at bay.

No outfit photos were taken on Sunday, but this is what I wore on Saturday.

My groovilicious maxi skirt was part of a charity shop haul in June 2022, when it was promptly added to last year's holiday capsule. 

For this year's outing, it was accompanied by a Vera Moda blouse, a wide burgundy belt with  unusual metal buckle and a sage green wooden necklace, all of which were charity shopped as well.

The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed I was already wearing the olive green Tamaris shoes I found on Friday!

Rainy days are made for curling up on the sofa with a book, which is exactly how I spent most of that Sunday.

Meet my latest read! Who Was Sophie? by Celia Robertson traces the life of Celia's grandmother who, as young woman, was a promising poet with two volumes of poetry published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press and with a bright future ahead of her. By the end of her life she was essentially a bag lady, paranoid and living in precarious destitution. Her life story is a fascinating yet harrowing read.

As a testimony to the weather deities' fickle nature, the temperatures were on the up again by the end of the next week until they reached a dizzying 28°C on Friday. Just in time for my day off!

The perfect occasion to wear some tried and tested Summer staples, all of which - except for the necklace - were bought on the high street at one time or another. 

I've had both the half-elasticated orange belt and the top with its naive flower print for absolutely ages, so that it's safe to say they've deserved the slow fashion moniker by now.

The blue, organic cotton skirt was picked up in the Mango sales in the Summer of 2021 while the tomato red sandals wormed their way into my wardrobe as a post-Lockdown sales bargain one year earlier. 

The yellow cat brooch came from the wonderful Katshop (linking 'cause I love, as Sheila would say) 

A night of interrupted sleep had left me feeling tired and a bit jittery and I couldn't settle to anything until we decided on a trip to the edge of town charity shop.

It looked as if the goddesses of the charity shops had taken pity on me, as finds were unexpectedly plentiful. 

I'd skipped the bookshelves as browsing them made me feel dizzy, but then I found the Taschen book on the most iconic chairs of the last two centuries waiting for me on a chest of drawers halfway through the shop. Taschen books are always such eye candy!

Other finds included a magenta beaded necklace, a large blue raffia basket bag and a stripy painted wooden bangle.

The shop's rather confusingly arranged clothing rails yielded a golden yellow denim jacket by H&M and a labelless forest green long-sleeved blouse, most gorgeously patterned with roses and crane birds.

On Saturday the temperature had dropped to a more bearable but still delicious 24°C. 

Again, one of my beloved Diolen dresses made it out of my wardrobe. Although I couldn't possibly part with the majority of my painstakingly collected vintage frocks, I find myself not wearing them as much as I used to. 

This mustard one is among my favourites, though, and is still getting regular outings. It's got a blue sister, which I wore earlier this Summer.

It would be downright silly not to make the most of such a perfect Summer's day so, after lunch, we walked to the garage to pick up our car and drive to Middelheim. 

According to my blog, we hadn't been to the sculpture park since March, so that it was long overdue a visit. One of the reasons for our 5-month absence is that the park is currently being overhauled and that consequently there seems to be no rhyme or reason to its layout as a lot of the art is on the move.

By the end of this year, a total of 224 works of art will have been given a new home in the park or the adjacent open-air depot. Some parts of the park will be upgraded in close partnership with the city of Antwerp's department for green spaces, so that the new themed presentation will bring art and nature even closer together.  

We started out in Middelheim-Hoog (or High) where we walked under a canopy of trees, whose dappled shade turned out to be rather confusing for my eyes. As we walked back towards the avenue bisecting the two parts of the sculpture park, my eye was caught by this fountain. It was designed by Belgian architect and sculptor Jacques Moeschal (1913-2004) for the patio in the Belgian pavilion at the Montreal World Fair in 1967, where its water play was visible from different levels. 

Crossing the avenue and walking into the part of the park called Middelheim-Laag (or Low), we briefly sat down on a bench, from where we spotted another, unfamiliar looking, water feature in the distance.

This striking new fountain sculpture is called 'Adrift’ (2023) and is by Camille Henrot (Paris, b. 1978), a French artist, to whom the Middelheim Museum dedicated the solo exhibition ‘Wet Job’ last summer. 

The fountain is surrounded by the formal Hortiflora garden, which was incorporated into the park in 2012. 

Rather less formal is the wildflower meadow behind the Het Huis exhibition pavilion (above, top right).

The transparent green notice board shows the future layout of this part of the park, when Never Mind (above bottom right and below) by the Welsh artist Richard Beacon (Bangor, b. 1949) and dating from 2017 will be joined by a handful of other top pieces from across the park.

I loved how the green screen has added a nostalgic time-machine quality to the spaceship-like sculpture!

Taking a short-cut across another meadow, we passed Envelope (below, top right), a fruit-like sculpture which lies pleasantly relaxed in the landschape in the afternoon sun. Dating from 1996, it is by British artist Tony Cragg (Liverpool, b. 1949), who created packaging, in this case an empty envelope with air on the inside and air on the outside. Not my words, but the artist's!

The Column Pavilion (1984-1992) is by Belgian architect Charles Vandenhove (1927-2019) and is both a work of art and a pavillion for exhibiting smaller open-air art. There was actually a figure hiding inside which we confess to never having seen before.

Across the pond, we spotted some menacing figures (above, bottom left), so we quickened our step towards the exit. I haven't been able to find out who they are and by whom they were created, but I promise to sneak up to them next time we're there.

Taking Richard Deacon's time machine to the near future, we ended up one warm and sun-drenched week later, on Friday the 18th of August.

With 28°C forecasted for the day, I thought it was high time this fabulous cap-sleeved zigzag patterned dress got an outing. Charity shopped almost exactly two years ago, it's from the London based Louche label. Not only is it an absolute joy to wear, its joyous pattern is guaranteed to put a spring in one's step.

I made use of almost all its colours for accessorizing it, starting with the blue pleated belt, which yet again was a charity shop find. 

My yellow tiled necklace is making another appearance - the third in this post alone - and I added an orange ring and green swallows-in-flight brooch.

And yes, my tasseled yellow sandals from the outlet shop finally made it on my feet! 

We found a perfectly matching spot for outfit photos as well. Aren't those sunflowers at the museum garden down our street a joy to behold? 

Well, that was it for now. I didn't manage to include all my August outfits and outings in one post, so I'll be back with more after our September getaway. To say I am looking forward to the latter must be the understatement of the year!

See you on the other side!

Leaving Shropshire

And so the last day of our holiday dawned on Friday the 23rd of June. 

Upon drawing the cowshed's curtains, it instantly became clear that the weather gods had decided to commiserate with us, having prepared a grey canvas of a sky and even shedding a few tears. Now, although we could definitely have done without the latter, we were adamant not to let the weather nor the inevitable last-day-of-the-holiday blues, spoil the day. 

In order to occupy our minds and fill our hearts with gladness instead of sadness, we were off to make use of our National Trust Touring Pass one final time and visit the 8th property of our two-week stay.

We even left Shropshire behind, crossing the border into Herefordshire. Our property of choice: Berrington Hall, a Neo-classical mansion about 3 miles from Leominster, set in Capability Brown's final landscape and gardens.

A steady drizzle accompanied us on our way up and still persisted while we were parking our car, so we took our umbrellas with us. I'm pleased to report, however, that they never made it out of the bag Jos was carrying them in.

There was the usual excitement about our Touring Pass at the ticket office, the person in charge taking the opportunity to explain the procedure to a trainee. 

Having finally been admitted, our first port of call was the Walled Garden, which we entered through the ornamental gate on the bottom left in the first collage. Rabbits were once again denied entry so we were admonished to make sure to close the gate behind us.

The National Trust has recently launched an ambitious campaign to conserve Capability Brown's rare surviving Walled Garden, which was built of warm red brick in an unusual horseshoe shape.

Like many kitchen gardens, it fell into disuse during the Second World War, but it still contains flower borders, an orchard of historical local varieties of apple, and an extensive vegetable plot, which continue to serve the needs of the house.

However glorious the flower borders were, it was the orchard which particularly enchanted us.

Herefordshire is historically famous for its orchards, so it's only fitting that heritage varieties of apples that have fallen out of modern cultivation have been replanted here. We loved wandering around on the pathways cut through the meadow grass and wildflowers - No Mow May had apparently been continued well into June here - and delight in the apples' often weird and wonderful names.

What about Pig's Nose Pippin, Ladies Finger of Hereford, or Maiden's Blush?

And no, Jos wasn't tired already. Nevertheless, he made sure to enjoy one of the famous National Trust deckchairs for a final time this year.

With forecasted highs of 20°C, I'd started out wearing both a cardigan and my denim jacket, but I'd already removed the latter by then, sufficiently warmed up by excitedly darting around the garden.

My denim maxi skirt from Think Twice got another outing, this time combined with a pink short-sleeved thin knit jumper (a retail sales bargain), a green wooden necklace by Les Cordes by way of a charity shop, and my beloved bargain-of-the-century Clarks Cloudsteppers.

Reluctantly tearing ourselves away from the garden - and making sure we closed that gate behind us - we made our way towards the courtyard at the back of the mansion. Here, a set of stone steps leads down to the Servants' Quarters in the basement. 

Always a favourite part of our visits to such properties, we loved exploring where the butler, footmen, housekeeper and maids worked, offering a sense of what working life was like for people in service during the Georgian period and beyond.

The wooden sink is where the maids would wash up and, according to the label attached to the tap, it was designed to reduce the risk of chipping or cracking the expensive tableware used upstairs.

I particularly loved the fascinating array of quirky old-fashioned cures which would have been kept by the housekeeper. 

Although I won't be keeping an onion as a cure for baldness, the cures for noise of the ears and giddiness might come in handy. But even if Dr. Quincy recommended the slimy juice of snails as a cure for weakness and consumption in the 18th century, the mere thought of snail water or syrup of snails is enough to make me feel ever so slightly faint!

Back on ground level, we decided it was time for a spot of lunch, so we purchased egg and cress sandwiches from the tea-room in the Old Servants’ Hall. 

After eating these outside on the courtyard terrace, we rounded the corner for a visit to the mansion proper.

Berrington Hall was created as a country retreat more than 230 years ago for city banker and businessman, Thomas Harley and his wife Ann Bangham, who wanted to escape to the country. After buying the estate in 1775,  Harley commissioned Capability Brown to lay out the park, which has spectacular views west towards Wales and the Black Mountains.

In 1778 he also called in Brown’s son-in-law, Henry Holland, to design him a new house in the latest French-influenced Neo-classical style.

There's quite a contrast between the red sandstone exterior, which is austere and deceptively plain, and the richly decorated light and elegant interior.

The interior is characteristic of Holland’s refined Louis XVI style which, not having visited Paris until after the completion of Berrington Hall, he gleaned from the illustrations in contemporary French Neo-classical pattern books.

Holland brought in the finest craftsmen: there was a specialist painter and slater, carver and gilder, and even a scagliolist from Italy. Scagliolia was a technique for making plasterwork columns, sculptures and other such features resemble more expensive stones such as marble. 

The blue marbled columns in the boudoir (above, top left and right) and those in the Staircase Hall with their Corinthian capitals (below, top and bottom right) are perfect examples.

The Staircase Hall is the core of the house, rising through its full height to the domed skylight above.

Henry Holland was a master of dramatic staircases and the Staircase Hall at Berrington Hall is amongst his most spectacular achievements. It is a cantilever staircase, meaning it appears to be unsupported, and the stair rises clockwise around three sides of the room, while the fourth is spanned by a shallow arch.

One of the jewels in Berrington's collections is the magnificent mid-18th century court Mantua or formal gown, which came up for auction in 2016. Because it was described as having belonged to Ann Bangham, wife of the Hon. Thomas Harley, it was bought for Berrington. 

The fabric is cream ribbed silk brocade with coloured silk and gold threads woven through it, and is in extremely good condition. Indeed, it may have been worn only once, probably at court, as Thomas Harley served as a Privy Councillor to King George III.

The deconstructed Mantua gown arrived at Berrington Hall in 10 pieces. To understand its construction and structure, the team at Berrington commissioned Michelle Barker of The Georgian Costume Company to make a replica, before their own conservators carefully reconstructed the original.

Several Mantua replicas are on display on the first floor, together with a handful of replicas of other gowns believed to have been worn by Ann Bangham, in an exhibition called  'A Dress Fit for a King'. 

There are dress-up opportunities galore, which obviously we were unable to resist!

Back outside, we contemplated going for one of the waymarked walks on the estate but in the end we decided against it, vowing we would come back for these next year.

Instead, we sat ourselves down on a bench overlooking the undulating sweep of grassy parkland with the lake shimmering in the distance. We were starting to feel a bit maudlin by now ...

Nevertheless, we thought one final round of shortbread and cappuccinos wouldn't hurt!

So, that was it. We packed our bags that evening and set our alarm clock for early the next morning, when we reluctantly said goodbye to the cowshed for another year.

As we'll be going on another adventure in about a week's time, I'll be starting another series of travelogues very soon. However, before we go, I'll be squeezing in another catch-up post, in which you'll be glad to note I'm slowly but surely starting to feel like my old self again.

See you soon!

As far as the eye can see

As we're well past August's half-way point by now, I thought it was high time to wrap up what was left of the month of July after my previous non-travelogue post.

Frankly speaking, I haven't been feeling myself lately, and as I already hinted to problems with my left eye, I wanted to give you the short version of what's been ailing me. After all, I've been sharing my life's ups and - thankfully only few - downs with you for almost 7 and a half years!

So here goes: the ophthalmologist detected some damage to my left eye's optic nerve and, although my eye pressure is low, I failed my field of vision test miserably with my left eye, while it was near perfect with my right. The verdict's that I've got Low-Tension Glaucoma. There's some minor loss of vision  which often - and most significantly when my eyes are tired - makes me feel unbalanced, in both senses of the word. This, in its turn, has been causing anxiety attacks and hyperventilation, for which I've been given medication. I've also been prescribed daily eye drops, for the time being to be administered to my left eye only.

It's not my intention to turn this into a sob story, particularly since I know a lot of people - like Ally - have got it so much worse, so why don't I dust myself off, pick up the pieces and ... show you some of the outfits I've been wearing in the second half of July?

Take this jade green vintage frock sprinkled with white, light green, yellow and pink flowers. I wore it on a rare day during the month's penultimate week when I had enough energy left after work to step into the garden for outfit photos.

I picked both yellow (necklace, belt and ring) and pink (flower brooch) for my accessories. Although not matching any of the colours in my dress, I wore a comfortable pair of red shoes by the Portuguese Kiarflex label. This is one of only a handful of pairs of non-sandal shoes I'm able to wear barefooted without causing rubbing and blisters. Everything but the belt was bought second-hand.

With my colleague being on holiday, I have been working 5-day weeks in July. However,  Friday the 21st of July was Belgium's National Holiday, so that I was able to stay at home and sleep in that day!

My life-saving journal tells me I packed away the unsold items of our flea market stall, filling a couple of bags for the charity shops in the process. The weather was a strange mixture of clouds and sunny spells, with lots of wind, and highs of about 20°C.

We only briefly nipped outside to take photos of my red, green and white outfit. If I'd been a loyal Belgian, it would have had to be black, yellow and red, but that's not a combination I'm particularly partial to!  The dress was another old Think Twice find and once again, the only retail item is the belt. 

Note that I was wearing the same shoes again, which this time do fit in with the colour scheme!

The rest of the day was spent reading Sarah Water's Night Watch, which I loved, but which left me a bit confused at the end, feeling there were quite a few loose ends. 

Sunshine was conspicuous in its absence on Saturday and once again the mercury didn't climb much higher than 20°C. 

My energy levels had somewhat returned after a good night's sleep, so I rid the upstairs rooms of most of the dust bunnies which had gathered there while our backs were turned.

I also ventured outside to water the plants under the awning and those which live in pots in the passageway.

The changeable weather hasn't been kind to our Hydrangeas: the combined forces of alternate harsh sunlight and heavy showers have slowly but surely faded their colour, from brightest blue to lavender to cream with a tinge of pink at the heart of each individual flower. But aren't they gorgeous in every stage of their decline?

In between showers - as yes, we were treated to some of those as well - we took photos of what I was wearing that day.

Charity shopped back in May, it was my pleated skirt's first outing.  At first, I was at a loss what to wear with it, as its pattern of pastel blue, pink and green foliage had me stumped. Then, while halfheartedly rummaging through a pile of lightweight long-sleeved blouses, I came across the Morris & Co x H&M blouse I found at Oxfam at the tail end of 2020. I opted for wine red accessories - all charity shopped - and a black stretchy belt, which incidentally was the only item I bought new.

With the possibility to go for a walk ruled out by the weather, we drove to the charity shop in nearby Mortsel to drop off our bags of donations. And surely it would have been rude not to have a wee rummage while we were there? 

There was nothing whatsoever on the bookshelves nor on the clothing rails which tickled my fancy, but the jewellery display near the tills came up trumps with these four brooches, which set me back at total of € 2. 

It looked as if the weather gods had decided that Summer was on its way out in July's final week. Although the temperature hovered around 20°C and we were treated to the odd sunny spell, it was mostly overcast and showers were rife.  In short, the kind of gloomy weather which makes one's head go foggy. Or, in my current circumstances, foggier!

One day, as I felt an anxiety attack coming on, I grabbed my bag and coat and escaped outside.  It was well before my actual lunch break time when I walked into the direction of the picturesque traffic free Conscienceplein, a square which has the feel of an Italianate piazza, and which is only a couple of minutes' stroll from my office.

The square's undoubted eye-catcher is the Sint-Carolus Borromeus church, which was commissioned and built by the Jesuit order between 1614 and 1621, and considered the most important Baroque church in the Low Countries.

Much to my surprise, I found its doors open as I was under the impression the church could only be visited from 2 pm onwards. Turns out it closes between 12.30 and 2 pm, so that, whenever I pass the church during one of my regular lunch breaks, its doors are closed.

Obviously, I wasted no time in going inside and, while I was taking photos with my phone's camera, my brain fog disappeared completely.

Once inside, the impressive high altar draws your attention.  During services, worshippers can gaze at the gigantic ‘screen’ that hangs behind it: a painted altarpiece over five metres in height. A unique historical system of pulleys and grooves means that you are able to see three different canvases here – it used to be four – in the course of the year. Rubens is believed to have been involved in the design of the high altar, particularly its wide, black marble surround.

The church's interior is stunning, its opulence almost impossible to capture on camera. I just snapped away right, left and centre, concentrating on the two long rows of wooden confessionals decorated with sculptures of angels. The one on the bottom right is guarding the steps leading up to the richly decorated pulpit. 

The Lady Chapel, which is situated on the south side of the church, is a perfect example of baroque interior architecture. There are many decorative elements, such as garlands, masks, flowers, shells and angels on the ceiling. 

I was in the middle of admiring these, when a church attendant came up to me and told me they were about to close. 

No outfit photos were made that week, so let's move swiftly to Saturday, the 28th of July.

It was another day of pottering and not doing very much at all, on which the temperature reached the dizzy heights of 22°C.

I was wearing another skirt which got its very first outing. Originally from Veritas - a well-known Belgian chain selling haberdashery, hosiery and the like - it came home with me from a charity shop at the end of last Summer. 

My King Louie blouse and wooden beads were charity shopped as well, while I picked up the vintage brooch in an antiques shop in Shrewsbury. 

Both my ring and belt were retail buys, the latter one of my recent sales bargains from Veritas. Yes, them again!

Although windy, it looked set to remain dry on Sunday so we wasted no time in going for a long overdue walk. After driving to a local beauty spot, but failing to find parking space, we ended up at Den Brandt, one of the cluster of parks on the edge of Antwerp which also includes Middelheim.

As usual, we entered via the picking garden, where our eyes are always instantly drawn to the little Gautam Buddha on his perch in the left-hand corner. We panicked as we couldn't immediately spot him but, drawing nearer, we saw that he'd escaped his perch and was now sitting on the grass!

We continued our walk past the park's many beauty spots, and stopped for photos on a wooden bridge with a view of the wedding cake castle beyond.

I'd picked an as yet unworn Diolen Delight from my wardrobe, a rare vintage charity shop find over Winter. Its funky pattern of blue dots just begged for a spot of yellow. 

My accessories were a mix of retail and vintage. The brooch, which is hardly visible in the photo is the one on the right here, found in a vintage shop in Bishop's Castle on the very first day of our holiday.

So, that was it for now. Thank you for bearing with me.

It'll be time for the final part of my travelogue in my next post. Until then, take care my friends.