Vintage Style Me

Evening!

I harked back to classic Kezzie style when I returned home from Antwerp with this stripy 2Euro skirt.

I picked it up from Think Twice on their 2Euro sale day and really liked it.  From there, the outfit built.  I added leggings and my favourite black, nubuck Clarks boots which I don't wear very often as I worry about rain (and not so good for cycling).  An old Miss Selfridge top to team with it with an Icelandic vest top underneath (a present at least a decade ago from my Mum's penpal from Rekjavik).  Later, when we went out for lunch, I added an ancient Monsoon sale cardigan in royal blue and a purple Monsoon beret for warmth.

Didn't forget about jewellery.  A cute little bird brooch which was a present from Ann when we met in Antwerp (I will write about it!!!!) and then a heart necklace and cloud earrings.

It felt like quintessential me, that I've not shown for a while. My classic, blog style and that was pleasing!

I'm going to leave this post here. I was going to write about being sensitive and being sad that a nice, quiet child has chosen not to come back to choir next term after 2 terms in it  and wishing I didn't feel such a failure when kids don't continue with choir (& only 9 signed up so far for it next term when I had 22 this term)  but I'll only make myself feel sad again after watching some Death in Paradise and Bridgerton to cheer me up.

Hope you are well. xx

Weekend of plenty

 There's no TARDIS Tuesday this week as I had a Gamelan rehearsal in London tonight and hadn't photographed anything at the weekend- it was a busy one! 

Anyway, on Friday night, after school, I helped a work colleague who is very technophobic, as our payslip system (which has been online since 2018) is going to close and move to a new system so all of us need to download all our wage slips before it closes (we all know that pensions end up with issues if you don't check your paperwork- Ang, I think you had some issues with Teachers Pensions?  I've only ever downloaded 3 for a remortgage application so I need to do the same but she has never done any and had had them sent to a personal email address which she had never set up so I ended up logging into her email address, changing her mobile phone in the verification system, changing her passwords in the wage slip system and then downloading about 50 payslips one by one!  She was having kittens about the whole thing so it was nice to help her!

I then dashed off to the station and I travelled to Westcliff to meet CBC for dinner. We went to Il Palazzo, a traditional Italian restaurant opposite the Palace Theatre. It was delicious- I had Pollo a Milanese- a breaded chicken breast with spaghetti in Tomato sauce.

We then headed to the Palace to watch The Secret Lives of Words, a one-woman show by Susie Dent.  For anyone who doesn't know who she is, she is the expert in Dictionary Corner on British Programme, Count Down, a word and numbers show and as she is Etymologist and Lexicographer, she has extensive knowledge of words and their origins. 

This was incredibly entertaining and interesting. I learnt a lot and we were made to laugh as well as be educated.  For instance, do you know about orphaned positives?  Think of ruthless or gourmless. Apparently, they used to have a positive opposites- ruthful and gourmful which have been lost over the sands of time.

The next morning, despite getting back late, I was up bright and early to go and empty the teabags onto my raised bed, do the week's washing up (yes, I know....mostly not mine as I was out for most evenings) and get washing done etc.

We then headed off to Brentwood to go to a rehearsal for a concert of Tschaikovsky's Serenade for Strings (plus Ukranian National Anthem). I had a nasty shock that morning as I discovered the Lead viola player had Covid as did one of the extra players and there would only be me (leading-eek!) and one lady who had only been to one rehearsal and didn't know it that well!  And the viola part is quite hard and prominent.  We rehearsed and then CBC headed off for a quick hair cut in town whilst I had a quick tour of the charity shops, Wilko and the Larder, a refill shop.

I bought lentils and toilet bombs from the Refill shop. From Wilko, I bought some Colgate, Vegan, recyclable tube toothpaste and some early peas.

I bought this cute cartoon illusion satchel from the St Francis Hospice charity shop (best one in Brentwood).   I loved this satchel when I first saw in back years ago so was happy to find it second hand!

In Oxfam and Cancer Research, I bought 3 books and a game. I received the second two books in MG Leonard's Adventures on Trains series for my birthday but I had borrowed the first one from the library so I was pleased to have my own copy of book 1.  The Bastien book is a pretty new release and I wanted to read it (and then give it to the school library!) The Girls football one is a nice shorter book for younger children and the Codswallop game I bought for my friend Lara for her birthday. 

This lovely light Monsoon top was £4 and looked lovely and wafty for the Summer.

This Max and Co linen dress looks modest for school but lovely and light.

These two garments are inspired by an outfit I saw Vix by: a light cotton top by Anokhi at East (£4) and a brand new light denim midi skirt (£8)

After this, I headed back to the concert venue where we began our performance at 3.30pm. I was really happy to see the President of the orchestra. He's about 84 now and he used to be the head of my music school and it's thanks to him that I was introduced to the orchestra and indirectly, why I  met my husband CBC (he introduced me to the 1st flute player who worked with CBC, who got us to play in a concert together). He's quite frail now after a stroke and some very sad life events but he looked really cheerful and happy to be there.

The concert went well though I have a feeling I skipped a bar in the last movement, I realised after about 24 bars...and skipped back a bar! I THINK. Not really sure.

After our item, the brass players took over and I quickly grabbed my stuff, bid CBC farewell and ran to the train station where the delayed rail replacement bus took me to another rail replacement bus to another town for my NEXT rehearsal and concert!

For this concert, I was playing flute for a piece with choir and then had to perform a piece by Frank Xavier Wolfgang Mozart.  The rehearsal began at 5.30pm but didn't finish until 7.15pm!  That meant no time for dinner for me (hadn't really had much lunch).  I was asked to page turn for the other pieces for the piano accompanist.  This meant 2 things... 1.  I had to stay to the very end of the concert when I could have gone home at the interval.  2.  A very nerve-wracking concert. It is MUCH more scary turning pages than having to play the flute.

My solos went well and I had a chance to chat to some of the audience (who I know from church).  The page-turning went ok....

The concert ended up finishing really late, around 22.15 so I bombed it to the train station to be ready to catch the 22.36 rail replacement bus home.

Except, there was no one in the station to give information and the 22:36 didn't turn up!  I had to wait until 23:06 for the next one. It was really cold waiting at the bus stop. Around 10 minutes before the bus came, a group of drunk hens wearing skimpy dresses and no coats turned up trying to find their way back to Southend.  They were trying to get an Uber or a taxi unsuccessfully and weren't sure how to get home.  At the moment before the bus arrived, they turned to me and asked how I was getting home and I was able to usher them, mother hen style onto the bus and assure them it would take them back to Southend, around £80 cheaper than a taxi.  They obediently boarded and I reassured them that they would be warm and get home safely.

The bus took me around an hour to get to my station and it was 00:05 by the time I got there. I was not impressed.  I had to get  taxi as CBC was not wide awake enough to come and back me and by the time I got to bed, it was 1am old time, 2am, new time (clocks went forward!) 

The next morning I got up around 8.30am new time (old time 7.30am-ouch!) and quickly showered, then headed to the station to get the rail replacement bus to Southend and then bombed it to the other Southend station (had 5mins between trains) to catch the train to my Mum's.

She picked me up from the station and took me to hers.

I gave her the beautiful bouquet that I was presented at my concert last night- they were all Purple- her favourite colour. I told her they were my bouquet. I was going to buy her some but since I would be out all week, I wouldn't get to enjoy them so she should enjoy them.

I played with her tabby kittens who were really fun and affectionate but totally nuts.  The boy cat was obsessed with my long FabIndia skirt and kept getting under it and jumping up and chasing it.  Girl cat was lapping up attention and snuck into the loo when I was in there and left up onto my shoulder and settled down, bum on my head, lying down my back.  The pair of them got into my cycling pannier.

After a while, Mum and I headed out to town where I treated Mum to brunch.  I had a delicious Mediterranean flat bread with fried eggs, Harissa, lamb sausages, chillis, pickled onions, avocado and orange zest.  Mum had a veggie breakfast. 

After that, I headed home, picking up some vegetables from the greengrocers back in Southend before getting my onward train.

As I came home, I noticed that quite a few of the new Daffodil bulbs in my 40th birthday planter were out.

For dinner that night, CBC cooked one of our favourite dinners.  Lentils cooked in stock with tomatoes, Cavolo Nero and then buttery fried leeks. It was delicious.  The picture above is of night two of it on Monday night where I cooked rice to go with it and broccoli.  I do wonder if I might have a slight intolerance to red lentils though as I had some tummy, gut issues on Sunday night to Monday morning as well as some other issues that meant I felt very unwell on Monday morning.  I'm not sure as sometimes I do have issues when I eat them.  I hope it's not that as I really love them but I do keep wondering.

It was a weekend of plenty!

Hope you are well.

TARDIS Thursday - Yaz Khan in Spyfall

Hola Amigos!

Tuesday night, I was way too tired to post after orchestra and Blogger was not playing ball so this is TARDIS Thursday instead.

A couple of nice things to comment on from the week so far:

• A parent who can be quite critical of the school told me yesterday that her son is doing really well at music in Secondary school and she said thank you to me for my input to him at primary school and said it had made a real difference and she was really glad she'd pursued music lessons. I was touched and amazed as was my Headteacher who was incredulous that she had actually given us a compliment!
• A message from a parent today asking if I could send her the lyrics to Loch Lomond (which we are learning in Singing Assembly) as her daughter really wanted to practice it at home.
• Went to play my flute for a tiny choir last night (I am playing for their concert on Saturday).  I had to sit around for about 2 hours and play for about 15minutes but the group was so lovely and wholesome- they were quite an old demographic and I always feel happy when I am in a group of older folks and it was really comforting to see the love and respect they have for each other in this group.  The conductor is 82 and he and his wife (who sings lead Soprano) are celebrating their 50th Wedding anniversary next week.
• Had an orchestra rehearsal on Tuesday and had to hang around for an hour before it.  I suddenly had the bright idea to go and have my dinner in Wetherspoons.  It meant I had a proper meal and was able to sit comfortably to eat it without the embarassment of sitting on my own in a restaurant, Spoons being a bit more informal.
• My year 1 kids really enjoyed Peter and the Wolf this week.  By the time I taught the 3rd class, I honed what I was doing with them to work better for them.
• Year 2 children really got into their lesson on Bird song this week.  Even difficult kids were really super enthusiastic about it and participated well.
• Year 6 class beginning learning about Beethoven's 5th symphony-super excited by how many Beethoven pieces they knew already and really enthused to learn a version of his symphony! There are often children who can be a bit awkward in there but they didn't show that side at all!

 Let's have a look at the outfit:

Last time I used this outfit as inspiration was December 2020

Image borrowed from 
The Ultimate Guide to the Fashion of Doctor Who

Yasmin Khan wears a mustard chiffon blouse with ruffles and an acorn print.  She accompanies it with her ubiquitous All Saints Leather jacket (black this time) and blue jeans with grey trainers.  Her hair is in a  high plait which is pinned to her head.

Here's my 2022 version:

I wore the same Acorn blouse as Yaz, it's from French Connection- for some reason, my one seems to look longer than hers and I would prefer to tuck it in.  This time, I had a better match for Yaz's All Saints jacket.  Last time I wore a fake leather jacket without lapels (£2 from the Charity shop) but this time, this fake leather jacket (£3 from the charity shop) is a much better match.

I don't have light blue jeans so I just wore some slightly cropped indigo jeans from ASOS (a rare brand new buy).  To be honest, they don't really work with this outfit, nor do my choice of boots- should have worn trainers!

What would you do to improve this outfit?

Hope you are having a good week!

xx

Thankfulness

Hi there,

I didn't manage to post yesterday because the computer I was using was not interested in loading the internet properly yesterday so I gave up.

The sermon at the church I visited yesterday spoke to me in various ways but the main one was a reminder to give thanks in all circumstances, for all things, be they big or small. My joy of being thankful for things is long documented on this blog but I will hold to it again and again.  I absolutely think that making a point of identifying the things that I am thankful for is super important and as well as giving one a little perspective on things, it really does make you feel better.  It's an important part of prayer, thankfulness and it's one aspect that anyone should be able to try and do!

So, in the interests of that, here are some things I am thankful for:

1.  I had a really lovely weekend.  I had no fixed plans but this was a good thing.

2. CBC and I enjoyed a 5 mile round walk from near Leigh/Chalkwell to Southend and back. It was cold but sunny.  We were glad to have the time to do this.

3.  We went out for a Thai meal on Friday night. It was delicious but we couldn't eat it all so luckily, I had brought containers so we boxed up our remainders and that was our Saturday night dinner.  I love Thai food so much! I had Tofu for a change instead of Prawns in my Green curry and it was so scrumptious! Also really enjoyed the Egg-battered aubergine!

4.  I enjoyed the 2.2mile cycle ride to the church I have been to for the past 2 weeks. Admittedly, I was a sweating wreck by the time I got there, but it was still good to have done it. It was much nicer on the downhill way home! Much better that way round!

5.  I stopped to pick nettles in the church yard on the way home and made Nettle soup when I got home.  CBC and I enjoyed a portion for a late Sunday lunch (with sourdough) and then I carefully took 3 portions in my pannier for lunches at school this week. The nettles were young and tender looking and I am gleeful at how tasty, yet healthy it is! CBC was also grateful for it after his 82 mile cycle ride! I'm happy to have lunch ready for 3 days!

6.  Managed to stock up on lots of lovely vegetables from the Greengrocer on Saturday in Leigh- so many options PLASTIC FREE!

7.  The privileges we have.  CBC and I were able to eat a healthy lunch out on Saturday at Wild Health.  All vegan, lots of fresh, healthy ingredients.  Not everyone can afford to do this.  We are fortunate.

8.  The majority of children today in year 3,4 were willing to work hard at what we were doing. Yes, there were a few limited individuals who weren't (and I am sad about them) and they make me a bit blue, but the major part, they TRY!  The ones that didn't, are quite hard to crack but I suppose there's always another week, even if they depress me.  Also, very dominant and domineering (clever and works but does constantly demand your attention negatively and leads others astray, which detracts from giving your attention to those who need it) child was away today in one class and it was therefore a really peaceful and personable class today.  I think the children really enjoyed the change in atmosphere afforded by the freedom from the dominance temporarily.

9.It's only 2 weeks till the Easter holidays! So grateful to have a holiday always on the horizon!

10. Picked some Perpetual spinach and onion scapes in the garden this weekend- my Perpetual spinach is FINALLY growing! Hope the wee beasties stay away from it!

11. Staff at school are getting used to the official 'tea bag caddy' and are directing others to use it- it may be a small thing but at least 400 teabags have been saved from landfill and instead have been ripped open and composted since January.

12.  I actually had fun playing my viola last week at the local orchestra I attended.  Had great fun with the desk partner I was with. She's really good and the funny thing was, there were only 2 of us, compared to 6 1st violins 8 2nd violins and 6 cellos. We got told off for playing too loudly! TWO of us compared to the others! We had a hilarious moment where we discovered that the viola part had TWO extra bars at the end of the first movement of the Tschaikovsky we were playing- it's a good thing we realised now as otherwise, we might have made a very loud mistake at the end! Must be the ultimate viola joke!

13.  Daffodil bulbs I planted in my 40th birthday planter in my front garden have started to flower!

14.  Having had a really chilled Sunday, I am SO grateful for the calmness of where I live, my comfortable and spacious home and the solitude of a quiet afternoon.

I challenge you to make a gratitude list for all the things you are grateful for this week on your blog! You feel super positive once you have done it!

x

Amazing Antwerp Day 2

 Well, when we woke up on Sunday morning, both CBC and I were very pleased to realise that we had slept deeply.  The bed in the Sud D'Anvers corner flat was incredibly comfortable! Both of us were very reluctant to get up!

We made breakfast- granola, tea and juice for me then toast.  CBC had Coffee instead of tea. There were wonderful church bells ringing as we ate breakfast and sad musician that I am, discovered that my three china receptacles (I had two cups of tea there...shhh) created harmony with it so I had 10 minutes of amusedly joining in with the bells. Our apartment had birdfeeders attached to it and we delighted in the blue tits who came really close to our window landing in the tree. They didn't seem to notice us!

Once we were ready, we started walking up the main street from our apartment until we reached Nationalestraat.  We passed a T2 shop that sadly didn't open for another hour or so.  We headed through town, marvelling at the sunshine.  Our first destination was the MAS museum. Museum aan de Strom.  You can visit the terrace on the 9.5th storey for free to gain a wonderful 360 degree view of the city and port.

The building is really intriguing itself with vast curved, rippled glass panels and imported Indian red sandstone with medallions representing those who built it (I think!) . 

The museum's exhibits and galleries are mainly about Antwerp and its connection to the world but there are temporary exhibitions too. We didn't go into visit it as we wanted to get out and about though I was intrigued by the exhibition about people and a picture that represents their heritage and who they are. People of all ages were photographed with something representing their heritage. People were pictured with sports equipment,instruments, tools and all sorts.

Once we had climbed all the escalators, admiring the view from the boulevard on each floor, we reached the rooftop where we saw views all around.

Once we had climbed back down the escalators, we decided to go and seek the Naval Port Authority building which had been added to by the renowned architect Zaha Haddid in 2016.  We decided that we'd like to use the Velo hire bike scheme which, for those of you in London, is a bit like the Santander/Boris bike scheme.

I recommend this as a great way to get around Antwerp quickly  Yes,the bikes are pretty heavy and not the best bikes but they are really reasonable. You can either register by App or by internet.  

It costs 5 Euros a day, 11 euros for a week and I believe 55 Euros for a year.  How it works is, once you have paid for your time period, you type your passcode into the screen at the end of each Dock for bikes. It then tells you which number bike to take and it releases it to you. You can then use that bike for 30minutes maximum but you must return it to another dock by then.   You always enter your passcode to check it has registered your return. You must then wait 5 minutes before you can get another bike. 

This works brilliantly for short trips and really helps you to get around. You can get quite far by the bikes.

We registered and then headed out to the Naval building.  Here it is:

Once we'd taken photos, we decided to dock our bikes and then after 5 minutes, picked up a new one to return to the main part of town.

Our next destination was the Vleehuis, recommended by Ann- the history of music and musical instruments in Antwerp.  It's only open Thursday-Sunday, so this was really our only day (Sunday) that we could see it.   It cost 8Euros to enter

The museum is housed in the former Guildhall, Vlee Huis means "Meat house".  In around 1899, after another building was built to house the Meat House, the building was sold to become the place for storing the Municipal archives. It was renovated and in 1913, opened as the Museum of antiquities housing some 80,000 objects included musical instruments, ceramics, metals, architecture and iconography.  By the 1970's, the museum became more focused on musical instruments as more and more keyboard instruments were being restored and eventually, in 2006, reopened with the main focus being music, dance and sound in general with particular regard to the history of Antwerp.

The museum was quite dark inside, probably to ensure preservation of the instruments but it also makes it atmospheric.  There were some brilliant chronological display boards charting the history of music in Antwerp.

The artefacts include instruments, manuscripts, books, paintings, models, manuscripts.  In terms of what part of music history is covered, there is particular reference to Minstrels, military music, bells ringing, public concerts, dance, opera, music in the home and dance.

Here are a few exhibits I enjoyed:

Here's one of my favourite instruments, the Hurdy-Gurdy.  It is operated by means of a handle/crank on the right hand side.  When you turn it, it turns the wheel which then rubs the strings (like a bow on a violin, but bow on a wheel rather than a straight bow). You press your fingers down on a sort of button keyboard which then presses down the strings to change the pitch- a bit like you would on a violin or guitar but via buttons doing the pressing rather than your fingers touching the string.  It has various strings including the Trumpet strings (which make a rasping voice) as well as more sonorous violin-sounds.  It's a bit like a musical meat mincer! I think they are SUPER cool and I would LOVE to learn to play one but they are reaaaaaaaaally expensive!

Here's a video from Patty Gurdy, telling you about them if you are interested:

Bells are an important part of the history of music in Flanders cities and here's a great carillon featuring various sized bells. You can hear concerts of these in the Summer in Antwerp cathedral. Lots of church towers have Carillons.

You can see that one of the hall is devoted to the history of keyboard instruments.

Here's an example of one of the scores. You can open various drawers to view these closely. It's very neat and compact.

One of my favourite early instruments is the Serpent- which is apparently an early form of the tuba. It's a bass instrument and you play it by buzzing your lips and blowing into the mouthpiece at the top and changing pitch by adding fingers to the holes.

This hilarious picture pictures a Shrove Tuesday special instrument called The Bladder Fiddle. On Shrove Tuesday, the world turned topsy-turvy and normal conduct went out the window and things went a bit crazy.  This mad instrument was extremely noisy:  a rope acted as a string, a pig's bladder as the sound box,  and a serrated wooden stick acted as a bow. Bells and cymbals on top completed the cacaophony! 

Here's a sub-contra bass recorder. Yes, it is that long!

Did you realise how big some church tower bells are?  I often wonder how on earth they raised these so high up considering they are made of bronze?  Tiny towers and stairs? How did they raise them!?

Here's an early salon piano.

What a beautiful string instrument this is!

I wouldn't want to meet this one on a dark night!

Here is a beautifully ornate harp.  Nowadays, even a modest priced concert harp might cost you £20,000 or more. Plus, you need an Estate car to transport it!

CBC and I loved this exhibit piece which shows you how the piano developed in terms of pitch range over the years up until the 88 key concert grand of the Romantic era, as extended by Pleyel.

Here was an example of a military tabor drum used in the army, usually accompanied by the fife.

Here's a set of early clarinets as well as some bassoons and a flute.  Flutes didn't become metal until the  Romantic era, 1847, when Theodore Boehm introduced the metal, keyed flute at the Paris Exhibition.  The clarinet was not introduced to the orchestra until the classical era, the time of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.  It was invented around c1700.  I only discovered at my concert last weekend, that Haydn didn't include clarinets in any of his symphonies until his 99th symphony (which we performed)- that means he only used it for 5 of his 104 completed symphonies!

Downstairs in the crypt of the hall were several very interesting exhibits.

You can see a really well-explained workshop for the making of brass instruments here.

Another part of the basement included mechanical music devices like music boxes.

The best part for me was a bell foundry which shows you the different stages of creating bells! What an amazing craft. I remember Ang telling me about the sad closing of the Whitechapel bell foundry and I was really glad to see this!

Once we left the Vleehuis, we were hungry so we headed towards the square where  St Charles Borromeo church is and found a cute cafe for some lunch.  I got this delicious Smashed avocado on toast (with beautiful salad) and CBC had a salad.

On the way home, CBC and I took bikes back to the nearest Velo bike dock near the Centre for Tropial diseases and then CBC went back to the apartment and I headed to THINK TWICE on Nationalestraat...but more from that another day! 

We chilled out at the apartment for a while- I read my book and we drank tea.

For dinner, we had booked a table at the hugely popular Thai restaurant opposite our apartment.

As we were due to sit outside in their covered outdoor area, I wore a grey cashmere sweater (bought in Florence when we got engaged in 2012) along with a grey skirt I bought in Think Twice plus my brown brogues.

The Thai restaurant was really delicious- we had a wonderful platter and of course, I had my beloved Thai Green prawn curry then we headed home for a relatively early night!

Day 2 was really fun and interesting!