Sand and stone and pool and dell

Yesterday we went for the longest and the most adventurous walk I've had this season. 

We've looked at the Google map, chose a faraway lake as our destination, packed the photocamera and set out. 

We left the city on foot and explored the deserted military base, which has been slowly reclaimed by the forest ever since the Soviet army left.

We've also seen the modern trenches dug by today's draftees during their training.

All around us, the pines were outlined by the sun, and the pale dry moss muffled our footsteps.

Then we reached one of the flooded sandpits, which is now a place to come for a picnic and a swim, and on its banks Maestro caught some of these fragile beauties with the eye of his photocamera:

The lake we were looking for, however, was supposed to be somewhere on the right, as the map told us, so we decided to cut the angle and go directly through the forest.

At first, it was dry, smelling of pines and old leaves, the brushwood cracking loudly under our feet, the spiderwebs clinging to our faces. 

In some twenty minutes, however, we found ourselves in a bog, with small fir trees and pools of dirt between the grassy hummocks. The air was hot and motionless, heavy with the damp smells, and the moss, which had all the colours of coral and ivory, with rich scattering of foxberries, was soft and springy under our feet. Heather added its tender colour to the scenery, which was both gloomy and wonderfully vivid.

After floundering through the bog, we finally came to the firm ground... and ran right into the old trenches, overgrowm with wild raspberrycane and nettle. We made our way chest-deep in the bushes, the nettles biting hard at our naked ankles.

The air was so thick with smells of the forest, you could almost scoop it with hands and drink.

I must say we were really glad to find a decent road again :)

The road took us to another sandpit turned into a lake, where we stopped, rested and swam, washing off the weariness and the spiderwebs.

Then we turned our steps towards home, and entered the city on foot - that's the first time in my life I ever did it.

However, we have not reached the lake chosen as our aim. I guess, that's going to be the cause of another adventure ;)

Lecte

Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.
Tree and flower and leaf and grass,
Let them pass! Let them pass!
Hill and water under sky,
Pass them by! Pass them by!

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
Apple, thorn and nut and sloe
Let them go! Let them go!
Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Fare you well! Fare you well!

Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!
Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
And then to bed! And then to bed!

J. R. R. Tolkien