PHOTO DUMP: MONDAY HIKE

Three-four weeks ago I made plans with my sister, S, to visit her, hang out and take Leesi on a little hike. That didn’t happen since I was lucky enough to catch the flu. We did several rain checks we had to cancel, but I ended up saying “you know what, I’ll let you know when I get better”, since it just got worse and worse. I didn’t want to visit her and possibly infect her, with her being pregnant and all.

The flu hit me hard and I was sofa bound for two and a half weeks binging whatever I could find on Netflix with zero energy, while constantly coughing and blowing my nose and sounding like a man. The last part weirdly, or not so weird, gave me a lot of gender euphoria, so I didn’t exactly mind that tho. It was hard saying goodbye to my masculine voice.

On Monday me and my sister, and Leesi, finally got together so I thought I’d share some photos from our hike:

S took us to one of her favorite places and I must say, besides the ants I really enjoyed myself there too and Leesi seemed to as well. It truly was beautiful: greenery everywhere, light flickering through the leaves of the trees above us, magical woodland paths. A few weeks ago the place was filled to the brim with blankets of wood anemones, but now leaves upon leaves of lilies of the valley had taken over, soon ready to bloom.

Afterwards we indulged in some frapinos from Espresso House, well deserved in my opinion. I will definitely want to come back, but maybe in April or early May to see the wood anemones and to avoid some of the insects, (they’re not my best friends to say the least).

Happy and satisfied after our hike

Other than that, I’ve thrown out yet another four bags of trash and I’m not at the bottom yet. I hit a small bump again after that a few days ago, but today has been better so I hope I’m back at it tomorrow. I bought new carpets for my living room and dining space that came two weeks ago that I haven’t been able to unpack them yet because I want it to be nice here first so I really can enjoy them. A (kind of) fresh start in a clean space.

– E.J

ISLAND HIKE

Hello bloggy, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.

It’s been a while now, hasn’t it? March 10th was my last post. As you’re probably well aware of by now, I really struggle with heavy periods of emptiness and hopelessness, and that is also the case nowadays. Days go by with me hardly even noticing. All of a sudden, as it seems, another one-two-three weeks have passed.

I’ve been doing better this time. Even though my body seems to gravitate to the ground by what seems like 200kg on my back, I get up and I go out and I soak in the magic that Spring has to offer: hopeful wood anemones and other flora sprouting up here and there, sunlight breaking through the branches of the trees creating a fairytale-like light in the forest, calm breezes stroking my face, the crunch of dry gravel under my sneakers as I walk… I could go on.

I have truly been enjoying the forest this Spring. It’s still that time of year before all the creepy crawling creatures come out. (Ants are my biggest fear). I have been getting out on my own, but my aunt has really done a good job getting me outside as well and has taken me to a few places I haven’t been before. And yesterday I was on a hike with my sister on this really beautiful island. (I took a bunch of photos, but I couldn’t put all of them in one post, haha).

Other than that my days have been spent trying to finish The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I have struggled with that one, I couldn’t get into the story, I hope The Prisoner of Heaven is better, because I really liked The Shadow of the Wind and Carlos’ storytelling. It’s tough to read when you’re not in the right head space, but now I’m finally done and still on schedule with my reading goal.

My mom and I have also been a lot of watching Masterchef Australia. We had been saving up weeks at a time of the Back to Win season, as we’ve done with previous seasons as well, to watch a bunch of episodes at a time. The best way to watch a series is to binge many episodes at a time, in my opinion. I cried an embarrassing amount of times during this season, more than I dare count, it’s just so wholesome.

Now we have found a streaming service with every season, I have just watched from season 6 I think, so we’ve started on the first and it’s so weird and so good(!) to see how much the show and the judges (Matt, Gary and George), have grown over the years. Season 1 is so bad and commercial, haha! Still fun, though!

Back to the hikes/walks. I’ve used my camera a lot lately, and I am so grateful for the sparks the hikes have created when it comes to photography. Nature is the best inspiration! Maybe it will help me out of this rut again.

– E.J