This morning on the lake

This morning I went to the lake with my friend F.. We went to another different part of the lake, and we had quite a long walk I guess around 5-7km.  Even this time we saw many beautiful landscapes and things, so we decided to take some pictures. Let's start! 

On the lake this morning we first saw a beautiful scenery. I wanted to take a picture of the lotuses but they were too far away from there to be visible by camera. Anyway the landscape with fishermen's boats was very picturesque

Later on our walk we met beautiful swans, just ashore, cleaning their white feathers next to the people relaxing on the benches near the water, walking their dogs, jogging or taking pictures like us. 

F. managed to take a pic of swans in the water too! 

And finally we found a place to get some good shots of the lotus flowers in full bloom! Other people stopped their bike and took a detour from the main trail to join us and take some photographs too! But it was actually a perfect place and timing to take beautiful pictures of the flowers! I have never seen them so beautiful myself

F., with a better camera than mine, even took a pic of a lovely, pink bud

While I spotted a small, red dragonfly on a lotus leaf! Look closely, you will find it... 

Later on, we sat on a bench ourselves for a little break and a long chat, and a tiny little sparrow hopped around studying us. It came very near and continued getting nearer and nearer, very intrigued with us and our talk. So I started calling it near and it slightly attempted approaching, like it was considering. I bet that if I stayed a little bit longer, it would have hopped on my hand too! 

After we separated I went back home and I had a nice pasta al pesto that I prepared yesterday night after trimming the basil that I grow on my balcony. But that's another story...

White Melange Brown Pigeon

Today it was rainy all the morning. 

In the afternoon the sky was covered and the climate dropped drastically. 

I also tried out a new simil-french braid hairdo, which seems to be very stylish this summer. I got to like it very much and I think I'll make it again! Too bad, with this climate change I won't be able to show off with this hairdo at the swimming pool -where I still have to go once.

Today I went walking early with my childhood friend. Again we went to the lake and this time we went to explore a little ruin near the harbor, overlooking the small cliff. We didn't get to know or understand what this ruin was originally but I guess it was the place containing a machinery to open and close a gate or a chain in the water...

Along the way to the lake we saw a white melange brown pigeon, but when we tried to take a picture, the bird got anxious and rapidly walked away, so the best picture we could take was this. ⇩⇩⇩

On the lakeside we saw as always many lovely moorhen chiks, black and soft, and ducks sleeping ashore. At a certain point we saw a flock of swans flying in the distance and landing in the water, and a little moorehen chick pecking alone on a water chestnuts island. We was worried it could have been lost from his mother, but walking on we noticed many other chicks pecking alone far from their mothers so we got relieved.  

Tomorrow night there will be a great festival and if it will not rain we are going to attend. So tonight it will be a "The Good Doctor" and beauty routine night! I'm always very excited about TV and beauty routine nights! So today, I bought a new mask to try out for the occasion! Spring-rolls and yellow cucumber dinner (and maybe paprika pringles too 😉), beauty routine and "The Good Doctor": I'm waiting forward to a wonderful night! 

Quick blog before I sleep

Quick blog before I sleep.

Today I couldn't go to the lake as I recently always do. When I got ready to go, a strong wind started blowing and howling and slamming the windows in my house and I was really tempted to just give up and stay at home for once. But staying all day closed inside, without taking a breath of fresh air doesn't work for me anymore, since I first started going to walk (which I can't remember if it was one year ago or more).

Anyway, since the weather was so uncertain I decided to opt for a shorter route: just a walk around the house block and straight back. Which is 1/4 of the lenght I usually walk when I go to the lake. But it took half on an hour anyway which as manteinment is ok. I first went west, to the nearest square, then I turned the corner and back to east. I noticed in the garden of a condominium some lovely light pink lilies (or crocuses), flanking the path from the gate to the door. I love bothanics and I immediately wondered what kind of flowers where they and wether they were poisonous or not. Later, on my right appeared the public park which is near my house and where I used to go walking in winter and spring. I decided not to enter the park, just to stay on the sidewalk since I was wearing again the beautiful clothes and not the sportswear. While on my walk I looked at the two football fields contained in the park, where the kids of the city soccer team have weekly training. I used to walk on the path surrounding the two soccer fields, which is around 800m long. I used to try making 6-7 rounds in one hour, and I was almost never able to. My average was about 10/13min per round. But there was a blonde lady who surely did, and even more then 7 rounds I think. She was always wearing a black sleeveless shirt, a three-quarter trousers and a pouch. And she was fast. I always admired her when I was walking in that park. But in summer that park has not a single drop of shadow and is under the sun from dawn to sunset, so I migrated like the swallows and went for more refreshing places until the season allows me to. 

I walked along the side of the park till the end of it, then I turned around the corner again and west, I went back, but once at home the weather seemed to have stopped threatening rain. 

Face mask and birch oil, roses and stars

Today... better, this evening, I indulged myself in some beauty treatments. It's incredible how relaxing can be just a simple Lidl face mask and a anti-cellulite self-massage with birch oil. Birch oil to which I addictioned some mosqueta rose essential oil, for fighting stretchmarks. Stretchmarks which have already turned white actually, so I think I have a very few chanses to make them disappear but... there's no harm in trying! Even because I have a bottle of this precious oil that a friend presented me, and it would be a shame to waste it by letting it expire. I heard from so many persons that it works wonders with stretchmarks after all. Yeah, I've got a thing or two that I'd like to improve on my body and I hope I can do it by healty and natural ways. What I can get I can get.

Today I also went for my walk to the lake as every day, I've been good.

I reached to a different part of the lake and the fresh air after yesterday's storm made the perfect conditions for a walk, but I had my head so full of thoughts that I couldn't really enjoy the panorama around me and I felt the rush to go back all the time, which I really regret. I also wanted to go on the roof tonight or at the park near my house, to lay down and look for the falling stars but in the end I sat on a chair on the south balcony, eating mango and passionfruit ice cream while looking at the sky: comfortless and too bright, in the end I couldn't see any so I went back in and I watched another episode of Chicago med. Anyway they say you can see better the falling stars in the night right after st.Lorenzo's night. Maybe I can lay on my bed and, cozy, look at the night sky through the window for a while before I sleep.

A summer storm

Today I was almost giving up my daily walk because of the excessive heat and damp, which the TV news said was the peak of summer. I had already seen my childhood best friend for a drink at the kiosks in the park near my house, so I could even shut myself back in the air conditioned room actually. I thought I could invite my friend to go together so to have a bit more motivation, but she had an unexpected last minute call by her boyfriend and she couldn't join me.

But while going back home myself, I noticed the weather changing and I decided not to give up. 

Sadly I changed my open high heels into closed sneakers and still wearing the beautiful clothes I left, headed to the lake. Along the street, a screen was showing that at 7.00PM the temperaure was still 32°C, but the damp was the real thing. There was some times when I felt like even though I opened my mouth inhaling deeply, I couldn't get any oxygen, gasping like a fish outside water. 

I was regretting the air conditioner all along the way, but when I finally reached the lake, by the willows and the other trees, a stormy sky with a wide black cloud hanging over the greyish pink waters, gave me back my breath. Outside the block of houses a strong wind was sweeping away all the humidity in the air, and again I could breathe properly. My hair, even if tied in a ponytail, scattered  on my face and in my eyes.

Other people in sportswear were running, a little moorhen was pecking around in the grass near the reeds, and the atmosphere was really lovely. In the waters of the small harbor, if you cared looking sharply, under concentric circular ripples it was possible to spot big black fishes swimming peacefully right under the surface of water. 

I walked along the lakeside for a while, then, even if the air was amazing and I wanted to stay more, I decided to go back home just in case the black cloud decided to rain. And in fact I was right in my decision. A few minutes after I got home, an extremely strong wind knocked over the vases on my balcony, howling like a wolf through the slit under the door. The sky quickly turned into a lead grey colour and the storm broke out. You could see waves in the waterdrops pushed by the wind, and being the drops so thick the air seemed like it was white. 

Pannacotta and walking

Yesterday I tried to make some healthy panna cotta light. I just used 500ml of milk with 1tablespoon of honey, 1tablespoon of raw cane sugar and 2sheets of gelatine plus 1spoon of blueberry jam for the topping. I hope this is healthy enough because the climate is torrid, I'm craving for sweets but I don't want to get fat! 

Today I also started walking after some time I've been lazying out because of the heat. I went to the lakeside and I sat for a while on a big tree's roots. There I spaced out watching the reflex of the sunlight filtering through the trees, and reverberating again from the water to the leaves in a hypnotic-like dance. There was some water bird making a funny sound half between a trumpet and a kitten mewing. I couldn't really see the thing but I guess it was a swan. Then I went back home by a different route. I forgot to wear my 50+ sunscreen again, and though I was careful to walk always in the shadow of the trees I happened to get burned anyway... maybe tonight I'll put some cucumber peels on the burned part if it will still be stinging.