Trick is a Treat!

My Horrible Halloween Monsters!

Happy Halloween, everyone



Lecte ;)

Stained

Making Halloween cards is a dirty business :)

Lecte ;)

Hot and Spicy

I've been looking for some pictures to illustrate the phrase "I am dancing" for my 7-graders. We are reviewing some tenses, you see :)

...And then I encountered my long-forgotten love, and spent twice as much time as was actually necessary, just browsing through the photos of all these amazing Flamenco dancers.

I've never danced myself, but I love/lovelove this dance of the flames.

So here are some photos and a video from the Riverdance performance.

None of these belong to me, the pictures and video have been found on the Internet.
Lecte ;)

Misty October

Autumn colours are so gorgeous and overwhelming, I don't seem to have enough eyesight, enough breath and soul to take all this beauty in, and just keep wondering around, like a lunatic, wide-eyed and staring.

It was a moist, foggy day, with so much water in the air, we seemed to be floating it a small aquarium, decorated with gold leaves.

 SOme of the last flowers, sof and soggy, with delicate, almost transparent petals.

Orange and ochre filled the air, as we we were floating slowly towards home with warm cats and hot coffee.

Lecte ;)

Cascading Gold

The weather has changed so abruptly; the rain pats on my windowsills all day, both at work and at home, where I keep it away from myself by lighting rum and lime-scented candle and drinking hot tea with honey.

Me and the cats, all four of us, sleep together on my bed, a purring snuffling pile on top and under the woollen plaid.

A week ago, however, things were very different - blazing and festive, with layers and layers of golden ruffled leaves streaming down from the branches of maples, and birches, and linden trees.

 

This shot makes me think of a tiny miniature model of a world - the moss like faraway pine forsets under the fantastic golden skies.

Glorious gold was mixed with royal crimson, and all that - on the brightest azure background.

We walked to the river, lazy dense water, like molten metal, carrying the leaves into the sea.

Under our feet, the fallen leaves, brownish, some dry, some damp and rotting, smelled deliciously.

...And only the pines remained unaltered, perfectly green.

Have a cosy autumn, everyone

Lecte ;)







Shattered

 Shattered glass, shining in the october sun like so many jewels.

Bits and pieces

Some bits and pieces of this August and September, things I've just picked up on my way.

A tiny bit of the Baltic sea.

Some 19/th centiry windmills from the open/air museum. These are the original buildings, taken apart, transported from where they had originally been built, and reassembled on the territory of the museum.

Last flowers \I photographed in August, bright and strongly scented.

AUtumn apples in a bowl on my table, bright as the setting sun on a windy evening.

The tree behind my window, with the mass of its leaves heaving up like multicoloured waves. It feels like looking at a tempestuous sea sometimes.

Texture: a rustic fence. 

Texture: onions somd on the village market, where we bout honey, brean with cherries and fresh goat cheese.

Red/red/red

Leaves sptinkled with rain.

Lecte ;)

That Sweetness

I've never tasted so much sweetness mixed with so much salt and bitterness as this summer has brought. Members of my family have been taken away on an ambulance, and put to the hospital, and got fired, and experienced all kinds of anxieties. Just when we thought it was laa happily over, my doctor came up with the news that the X-ray showed that I might have tuberculosis which, apart from the obvious health problems, would have left me unemployed, unable to continue working at a school. After two weeks of racing from one hospital to the other, I've finally find out that I had had the disease more than two years ago (and never knew up to this August!), but, luckily, am quite healthy right now, and may continue working. 

While the results of the tests were still unknown, I had almost got another job, but then decided to return to school, at least for a while. 

These trials being over, and the others still on their way, I have a brief moment of peace now.

These are the pictures of horses whom me and Maetro love to visit once in a while. 

This one is accepting an offering of a baby carrot ;)

And then we went to the sea, just in time to see the huge ripe fruit of a sun setting down into the mist.

We returned home when it was already dark. I love these little trips of ours so much it hurts - the flapping of the masses of leaves in the dark, the acute smell of pine resin, the layers of clouds sweeping over our heads, the faint smell of the sea, the strong, overwhelming smells of damp grass and whortleberry bushes, the illuminated windows of the houses, like huge orange aquariums... I can never get enough, cane never breathe enough of it all, and miss it desperately.

Well then, it's off to school tomorrow, so I should go to bed early today.

Good night :)

Lecte ;)

Down west sinks the Sun

I haven't been out with a tent for what seems like a thousand years, and was very pleased when we finally took the road last week. We've travelled Laulasmaa - "The Land of Singing Sand" - and set our tent on a sandy belt between the sea and the pine forest. 

The smell of pine resin was so strong, I felt tingling in my nose, and all the tiny life was busy bustling about in the still-hot August sun.

Maestro found a gorgeous orange-cop boletius, which I couldn't stop drawing.

As the sun began to set, we hurried to gather the firewood enough to last us through the night. It is amazing how these instincts sleep inside one's mind, and wake up when the time is right - I mean, we did, of course, know we would need to light a fire, but it was the image of the sun declining towards the horizon, which almost made me panic at the thought of a black fireless time ahead. That was when I actually remembered how important it is to get the wood, how important the fire is, and why has the man always feared the dark. 

Then we watched the sunset until the sky mellowed from blood and fire into mild watercolour.

I stood on the brink of water, and above my head a huge dark blanket was slowly being pulled over the blue and peach stripes. It was such a relish to come back from the faintly glowing horizon into the utter darkness of the unageing night and head for the only bright spark visible - our own campfire.

Soon, the stars appeared.

The full moon was blazing from behind the ink-black pine boughs, and long bight stripes of silvery light lay on the sand and the sedge.

In the morning, we walked for a couple of km to a small town for a cup of hot coffee and, of course, made a stop to admire the waterfalls.

 We really must do it more often.

Lecte ;)