white shirtThe number of photos of this outfit with the white shirt, is limited for a change. Loes and I couldn’t think of a very interesting place to do the photo shoot and chose a park. That limited the options.

Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy this post.

Below: While we were shooting, this beautiful dog and his owner passed us. A King Poodle.

Beautiful doggie

Below: The white shirt is from kpa.haarlem which I told you about a couple of posts ago. I love the sleeves and the collar. And it fits across the bosom.

white shirt

Below: The trousers are quite old. You saw them before with a bright yellow jumper in this post. The green belt and the transparent green bag are by Essentiel Antwerp.

white shirt

Below: Found a bench to sit on…oh yes.

white shirt

Below: The low-heeled pumps are by Paul Noyen. The little veins are mine.

White low-heeled pumps

Below: And I adore these new green earrings by Lara Design. They were my favourite from the beginning, but Marcella did them with a heavier gold-plated creole, which was too heavy for my feeble earlobes. Now that she has attached the green wooden pendant to a hollow circle, it is lighter for me to wear comfortably. Because I help her with Instagram videos and such, she insisted these earrings were a gift. I gracefully accepted. If you want a pair as well (€ 69), they are on her website in red (search for Stef). She can also create them for you in green, black, yellow and blue at no extra cost, just email or phone her.

Green and golden earrings by Lara Design with a white shirt

Below: Very near the park is this pretty church.

Church in Haarlem

Below: After the shoot we had coffee and tea at coffee shop Cleeff, which is next-door to the church. We took this photo of Cleeff because the top of the building is so nice. As I was uploading the photos, I saw the waste disposal tankers. How horrible. Those poor people of Cleeff will not be pleased.

Coffee shop Cleeff

Below: Fortunately there is a cycle lane between the pavement and the waste disposal tankers. The photo taken from this side (around the corner), shows it might not be too bad. I have put a red circle around the tankers.

Coffee shop Cleeff Haarlem

Below: Lovely photo of Loes, waiting for her tea. She told me that a woman in her Pilates class recognised her from my blog and asked whether she was the photographer of No Fear of Fashion ! We are famous haha.

Loes

Below: Inside the coffee shop. The lines on the floor were put there during lockdown to indicate IN and OUT for customers to take away coffee.

Coffee shop Cleeff

It was short but sweet, as they say.

What happened in my life this week

Been busy like a bee. The funny thing is that on a Friday my agenda for an upcoming week seems pretty empty. By Monday it is chock-a-block. So strange.

Saturday I agreed to take Marianne to a place of her choice. Poor Marianne has a very painful left shoulder because she does everything with her left hand (and arm) while she is steering her motorised wheelchair with her right hand. The left shoulder is overloaded. She therefore didn’t want to go anywhere where there are cobble stones as that hurts as hell. I came up with an idea: the new outlet in Halfweg. All the pavement is smooth there (although it could even have been better) and there are very accessible toilets. We spent most of our afternoon in the Max Mara group outlet and on the terraces.

Below: Marianne and I were having excellent cappuccino before lunch. I was wearing my antique Japanese kimono. (Link to original post, although I am now against the high heels, I should have worn flat shoes. Apparently this short jacket is called a haori and a full length one is a kimono.)

Marianne and me

Marianne and I scored pretty well at the Max Mara outlet even though the prices were much higher here than in Turin. (Oh, how I long to go back to Turin and Daniela.)
Below: Marianna is wearing a scarf which she just bought (I bought the same one as it is warm, looks wool and is synthetic, so no itching). The big shopping bags by Intrend (the Max Mara outlet brand) are filled with purchases but also with a lot of air. We bought big handbags.
As I pointed at a particularly big bag, I said: “These are all the rage now and they are EXPENSIVE !!!!, sooo EXPENSIVE !” Then I looked at the price tag and it said €46…Marianne killed herself laughing. Obviously, the bag was no leather. We both bought one.

Marianne and our shopping

The next day, as I was ready to visit mum and drove away with my cool box filled with frozen home-made dinners, I heard a very disturbing sound, got out of the car and saw that my left front wheel was flat as a pancake. I drove the car to a safe spot and cancelled my visit. Then a whole circus started.

This is the third time in one and a half year that I have a flat tire and my Alfa Romeo Mito doesn’t have a spare wheel, not even a tiny one (a ‘get-you-home’ wheel, as it is called). It means that if I call in the help of the AA, they will take off the wheel with the flat tire, drive me and the wheel to a depot, put another tire on it, drive back and put the wheel on the car. “Fine”, you might think…”what is wrong with that?” Well, the depot doesn’t have my 4-seasons tires, so they will sell me a normal tire and I have to replace it with a 4 seasons tire as all four tires should be the same. Double the costs.

Anyway, on Monday I called my garage who sent a mechanic (not for free of course) who solved the matter. I was so angry with these flat tires that I said to the garage: “I am fed up with this. I think I am going to buy another car, one with a spare wheel”. The garage is a Volvo dealer (used to be an Alfa Romeo dealer) and the guy replied: “Then why don’t you buy a Volvo? Then you can continue being our customer”.

So I started to look at Volvo cars. Husband Ron thought I was off my rocker but he also knows that when you start looking at another car, you get into a flow of wanting it. To make a long story a little shorter…I am almost the new owner of a pre-owned Volvo V40, if the inspection by an independent company proves the car is good. There goes my old age saving. On the other hand, I live now; nobody knows how old you will become.

Marcella popped by, not for an Instagram video but to show her latest design with gold-plated and semi-precious stones jewellery. She was enthusiastic and wanted to share it. See below. One creole is missing from this set, as the two pendants on the right can be hung on two creoles. The creoles have a little gold dangle which means that the pendants don’t fall off and it also fills the little ring on the pendant. Or you can wear the creoles without pendants. Or you can buy another set of 3 pendants and vary. Nice !!

Necklace and earrings Lara Design

Kitty promised to photograph friend and neighbour Annelies, in a couple of outfits. It was her birthday present, with me thrown in as a stylist. I am not a stylist at all but apparently I did pick up a few things in the past 9 years, as I could give Annelies a few good suggestions. Felt really proud of myself.
The photo shoot went perfectly. It was the one day of this week with beautiful weather, we were so lucky. It was a lot of fun for the three of us.

Below: Kitty photographing Annelies on the swing with the beautiful Saint Bavo church in the background. Annelies wanted some typical Haarlem backgrounds for the shoot and Kitty remembered our shoot with the black Vivienne Westwood blouse.

Kitty photographing Annelies

I went for my last pedicure this summer. My feet are easy to maintain and I can do that myself. Only in summer I need a pedicure plus varnish on my nails. In winter, when my feet are in boots, I don’t bother with nail varnish.

Had a little brainstorm with Karlijn of kpa.haarlem about her business. Spent two afternoons investigating and searching for information and loved it. I like to crunch data. And now that I have time, I can google all the answers to my questions. Keeps my brain active.

We ended the week with a dinner at our friends Georg and Marla. They are marvellous cooks, so it was delicious as usual.

Miscellaneous

Below: Just to make you smile…this is Watson sticking his nose through the cat flap to smell the outdoors as he often does. He used to be able to go into the garden through this flap but definitely outgrew that. (The kitchen door is filthy because the rain spattered the soil of the garden against it.)

Watson with his nose through the cat flap

Below: Despite his size, Watson still things he is a lap dog.

Ron and Watson

Below: As I passed this tree in my neighbourhood I saw that somebody made a tableau around it.

Tree with tableau

Below: A woman told me that every night somebody closes the door in the tree with the dog doll inside. Funny.

Tree with tableau

That’s been my week.

Greetje

No Fear of Fashion

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