Trick is a Treat!

My Horrible Halloween Monsters!

Happy Halloween, everyone



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 ;)

Not as hard as it seems

It is an interesting phase I seem to be going through.

Have you ever noticed, that when hardly pressed, you are capable of much, much more than you could have ever expected of yourself?

The amount of work which  Ihave to do (work in a very broad sense), the number of responsibilities has definitely become smaller, and yet - it seems to demand all of my time and strength.

 - The kids at school are, actually, angels, The worst things I've encountered so far is loud talk, which can not even begin to be compared to the belching contest or bringing knives and Cannabis to the class, which used to be part of everyday curriculum back at the good old trade school.

So every time I get so very much upset and nervous about somebody misbehaving, I pause, sigh and ask myself: "However did I survive back then?"

- There are now much less responsibilities, or, rather, they are concentrated around myself only, so that it's only me and my cats I must take care of, and that has lifted a gread burden from my shoulders. Yeat, there always seems SO MUCH MORE to do! And there never seem to be enough hours in the day.

So every time I get this feeling that I'm not a woman but a Shire horse pulling a well-loaded cart, I pause, stretch my muscles, and ask myself: "However did I se to lift that load back then?"

- The money is there, but never too much, and not all whims can be satisfied at once. I'm still saving for that easel.

So every time I feel an excessive lightness in my wallet, I pause, and smile, and ask myself: "However did I manage to support a family back then?"

And all these questions give me confidence, because if I had been able to do something that hard once, I shouldn't feel troubled with the smaller mishaps and all these tiny inconveniences today.

But, my God, how did I ever manage?

Lecte ;)

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 ;)

New Home

This summer's culmination was my moving into a new flat, thus ending a certain period in my life, which has lasted for almost four years.
The place seems like a dream come true: perched high above the street, the windows facing West, two balconies and no other windows immediately opposite my own, so that I haven't even got curtains yet, and feel absolutely comfortable nonetheless.
Isn't it funny how the wishes are fulfilled? This is a home I had first imagined for myself more than seven years ago, and my world was then very different. Now, all of a sudden, I get it all - quite unexpected but correct in every detail. The same principle works with other things too, I've noticed, so recently I've been trying to be as precise as possible when making wishes, meticulously discussing every detail, as if signing a contract with the World. I wonder how this works out - the other side seems to have better lawyers, all the same :)

The first two things I did after arriving at the new place, was hang the wind chimes on the balcony and light the ginger-scented candle. It seemed the right thing to do, somehow. The three cats came when everything was ready for them, terrified and meowing desperately, so that I wasn't able to get any sleep at all that first night. They are all right now, though, the fastest-adapting creatures I have ever seen.

I expected to feel sad and empty somehow, after all, this is the first time in my life when
I'm living completely alone. Instead, I feel surprisingly complacent, as if my mind has simply
turned off the emotions, which used to run excessively, like too much water. I wonder where
this will lead me.


Also, I have eventually developed an abnormal hunger for Austen's novels. Doctor, is this curable? )))

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 ;)

Through Bog and Forest

We've been going out a lot recently. Out of the city, I mean, out into the forests and bogs. I'm always restless in August, eager for a change, for fresh air smelling both of summer and autumn, in between the two seasons. 

So we've rented a car and go for a drive and a walk every day, even if only for a couple of hours.

We've discovered a tiny bog right on the verge of the city. That was the day we walked 15 km on foot, of which I'm still immencely proud :)

We've seen lots of flying things, beautiful and hard to capture. 

The dragonflies were particularly challenging :)

The green spy whom I would have never spotted if it wasn't for Maestro's keen eye.

 We've also gone to a larger bog in one of the national parks.

I felt like I was accompanying two mushroom-loving hobbits, when mom and Maetro both rushed into the thicket after declaring they had only come to admire nature's gifts, not - God forbid, - to gather any of them.

Of all the twelve, I find August the most inspiring, though a little sad: no matter how wide you open your eyes, how deeply you breath the green scented air, there's alway so much more left unseen, untouched, undiscovered.

Lecte ;)

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

35 Celsius

It's been a little bit like inside of an oven here, recently. Although I enjoy warm weather, this is about 10 degrees too much, so i was glad to be able to escabe to the seaside.

It's the territory of one of the national parks - "Laulasmaa", which means "the singing land". 

This is my dress hung on the pine :)

Lecte