Bladder acting up :/

Arrrr... the Gods are punishing me. For inappropriate dreams, but mostly, I suppose, for not wearing my jacket in the middle of winter (yesterday's hike) :D I was going to force my body to toughen up, and now stand on the verge of a UTI. Those usually move very fast in my case - within hours I can no longer sit upright and am pissing blood. So far I am battling through it, drinking gallons of lingonberry tea and eating anti inflammatory pain-killers. We'll see what happens overnight ...

I've dreamt of someone I was sure I'm done dreaming of, and feelings I was hoping I was done harboring. Old stuff, triggered by a recent joke. Cliche, too - wanting to be accepted, hungering to be desired. It was a beautiful dream - architecturally, slightly submerged in clear water, beautiful old buildings made of pale stone, somewhat Roman furniture and curtains. Lovely stuff. Overall a pleasant dream, long and calm and cheerful. The people I used to know, unchanged, their attitudes unchanged. I wanted them to want me. It felt good to find them wanting me, as if at the time it would have changed anything if they cared to comprehend me - I wonder? Those people used to think there is something wrong me for wanting to be accepted by them. It may have been a transferal, Freudian or such, from being rejected by a mother - the one person you will always yearn the acceptance of, ironically.

         I was hoping I was past stuff 15 years less emotionally mature, but ... I suppose some people stain your senses and never truly leave. Seems pointless pretending they were never there. Like an amputated limb. Like an odd, tearful, confusing birthday party decades ago, that was actually kinda fun.

         

         I can't say I really mind. I prefer it to all those wants and lusts and emotional ambitions to just wither. I rather burn sickly and in sinful dreams, than not at all.

General bought me a set of layers to wear while hiking - a sport's bra, a T-shirt and a hoodie. The sports bra is not for me - everything is packed too tight and gets too moist. The shirt, though, is amazing - feather light and thin and so cool, and the hoodie is beyond awesome. The hood is just large enough to cover my whole head when it's too warm for a cap, and the sleeves are long and cute, with a thumb-slit. I tested the lot returning to Brnica to find my carabiner. It was so sunny and warm I not only wore my windbreaker for the first time this year, but took that off as well. The only downside was the snow, which has turned to ice, which has melted in mush and was almost impossible to walk on without wanting to curse and shout. My feet still hurt unbearably. I've no fucking idea why. Is it possible it's the shoes after all? I'll test this strange theory as soon as it gets dry.

A restful day ... Well, I walked around some shops with hiking gear and that garnered me 17.000 steps and four Pokemon eggs hatched. I wore my old boots so as to give the foot a chance to rest, before realising the sole on one is flapping off. No matter. It was adorable. One of my biggest worries - more a paranoia than an actual concern - is I will lose my toenails from improper footwear and excessive pounding of the toes against a too hard and too small toe box. They hurt yesterday, so I was taking it easy. I also oddly lowered my core temperature during the hike, being out in such cold for so long, so I couldn't get properly warm for most of the day. Plus I fell asleep for my afternoon nap at four and woke up at midnight. :D

The funny moment was, when I walked into a stationary store to check out some new Moleskins and sketching journals I totally don't need but absolutely must have (though luckily can't afford and General said he'll buy them for me the minute I fill up the 40 or so empty journals and notebooks I have... He just doesn't understand.) and saw the cutest fucking backpacks ever - hipster overload, soooo posh. I hugged one and thought: I could so totally work this as a hiking bag. Nevermind it's a school bag. I wish I had a photo. It was so adorable. It was what a cool kid would wear.

I also found a really really ugly Russian-made 250 g daypack, 25 liters, waterproof, virtually ideal for what I'm looking for. But ugly. And it cost, like, 20 bucks, not even that, whereas the hipster roll-down-the-top-and-faux-leather-straps cost three times that.

It's hard. Real hard. Do you go with utterly useless but incredibly cool-looking shit, or do you buy shit you will actually be able to use out in the field? It's just so hard.

Longest micro hike yet ... (Thankful for the beautiful winter we've been having ....)

:P

I've tried to do this one before - General drove me up onto the ridge and I tried to get to a ruin called Rifnik around 30 km removed ... It was a nightmare. First the rain caught me and I wasn't prepared, so when I had to cross a high grass meadow, I got soaked completely, then got lost on the rocky hill terrain and to top all of it, in a narrow gorge two dogs cornered Bark and me and it could have ended very, very badly.

       That hike - which was gonna be the first day of a five day hike - ended in tears and G came to pick me up to one of our cottages in the region (actually a place where we first had sex! I love that cottage!.. Though we haven't been there in years, really. Hm..) 

       Yesterday someone mentioned a five hour hike that is actually a really hard thing to do... It starts at the train station, then you have to walk to the ascend point, then ascend to the Celeian (Celje) cottage, walk over the ridge to Svetina peak (or village, in my case, because I CBA climbing the peak, fuck it), and then a three hour walk to the tower of Resevna and from there down..

       There is no way I can do a hike like that in five hours. I can, however, do it in six and a half. 

       Now, Celeian cottage is an easy enough, if tedious ascend - getting to the hill is a long level walk - I hatched two 2km Poke eggs during - then you spend about half an hour getting up. (More in my case, much less if you're a ninja.) I refuelled on my warm water and took off the micro spikes. From there, it's said to be an hour walk over a neat footpath, but the road was covered in snow, so I just walked the road until I made it to Svetina - a once exceptionally quaint setting (I based Kestrel's Verisimilitude on it), now slightly abandoned (no shop or rest to speak of.) 

        Because using the footpath from it down and directly to Resevna hill is where I once encountered the dangerous dogs, I opted for using the road until the next fork. That is how I discovered my phone has a navigational system and a nice lady tells you exactly where you need to go. Did not know that. It was really cute.

        My problem with maps, despite the fact I am exceptionally fond of them, is inconsistent use of road thickness... Sometimes the map will go great lenghts (sic) to show you a neat connecting road, but it will in fact be a useless, overgrown (in this case unwalked in 3 ft of snow) nothing of a path, all too easy to miss... Or it will show the end of a road and a marginal hint of a connection to an onwards village, yet when you finally reach it, it is a wide, bright, clear, maintained forest drive-through. What I'm saying is - it's confusing. I've missed marks before, because they were falsely advertised. Today I compared a screen cap of Google Earth to the village and counted the rooftops to find the right turn - because not all roads were ploughed and cleared and though the one I was after was supposed to be a meagre side-road, it was the only one available in the first place!

        By then I really had to pee. It was not possible to just step off the road into the forest, because the snow on the sides of the road was five feet high. Once I finally found a small path leading into a forest, I already had to poo as well, which was another bizarre, clumsy ordeal. Do not remember when was the last time I had to poo without a restroom. You'd think it would be the easiest thing and yet ... With all that snow, dog, possibility of people coming RIGHT then ... Brrrr. No fun.

         After two hours I made it over two minor peaks, over a forest road I remember as very lovely, following a ridge. I was beginning to wonder where the damn tower is when I finally see a monster of a hilltop, fucking far away, steep as all Hell. The weather was such that it was juuuuust a little to warm to be wearing snow pants - which I was - and I was really sweating in my privates on the up. It's not something I normally desire to do. In winter. Though cotton jeans takes longer to dry if wet, it does breathe loads better. The General was right when he said I need decent walking pants, but I have good pants for warm hikes as it is. I'm only hiking in waist-deep snow because I am thankful for the beautiful winter we've been having... Beside that, the velcro on my cheap parka is so exceptionally rough when frozen, it's been cutting my thumbs every time I brush pass a pocket or pass a collar and I now have loads of tiny cracks on my two first knuckles. Like I've been savaged by kittens :P

        The final ascend was a joke. If people hadn't gotten there yesterday, it would be impossible. Traces of people skiing, sure, but that mother was, I kid you not, good 75° angle incline. Not to mention I was impossibly tired by then. I am too heavy, my legs hurt too much. Not so much out of shape any longer as just ... old and fat.

         The tower was there, clean to climb - but I'm not much of a tower person and the weather was not photogenic at all, especially distances - so I just rolled down to the near-by cottage, of which I have fond memories, tied the mutt to the railing outside and rolled in. Had nice tea, wrote the hiking log, let the General, who was napping, know I am ready for the final descend.

         Of the two paths off Resevna and towards St.George, the laid back one is blacktop and the steep one is waaaay down through the woods. Blacktop is hell on the feet - the soles really really burn after a while. The steep one is hell on the knees. However, there was so much snow, every step was actually cushioned and though it would probably be too steep for me clean, right now it was perfect. It took me about an hour to get down to some semblance of a road, so I was able to direct the General, who drove up to collect us. I still don't know if Starbark totally loves our adventures or completely hates them, but she seemed chipper up until the very end and then she fell asleep on my leg :D Even though we stopped to buy kebabs :p

No road? No problem.

Please, no more! I'm done!

It's still around zero. The snow is said to thaw in the coming days, rain incoming and warmer - Marchy weather, so I wanna make the most of the snow and am planning a slightly longer hike tomorrow - knowing myself it will take me all the daylight hours ... The question is, do I take the camera with me? Argument against: I don't want to chance it getting a cold (battery can die like THAT and I can't afford a new one, they cost a fuckload.) 

Arguments for ....  Why the heck have a camera if you're not gonna be using it? It's literally it's only job.

I wanna make these cute cards, with texts informing hikers of the places - random and simply cute-like. Photos, photoshopped into watercolor mode...  (As I am too lazy to do actual watercolor :D )

LoL, we went to the movies, MyMaja and I, and I brought mini spikes in case it gets iced by nightfall.. Then we walk out of the theatre and it's 10 cm of fresh snow and still falling :D At midnight the streets were a ghost-town, only morons in cheap BMWs who can't drift other than on ice, sliding across crossroads.. It was mute, covered in snow and magnificent.

Checking if St.Martin's lake is still there ;)

G and I struck a deal that for every micro hike - 30.000 steps or 20 km or any peak above 650m (or two below) - make for a small dot and after I've gathered 20 dots, he buys me a piece of gear from my list. The first bit of gear I've marked is a PocketRocket. I'm five dots in :P

It was 21 degrees below freezing yesterday. So cold in fact, even the dog admitted it and from time to time started walking on three paws. I figured, if it got worse for her, I'd sacrifice the socks I wear as gloves to make her makeshift shoes.. It was too cold for making telephone calls and to inhale direct air. I wore G's scarf around my face to keep my breath moist and warm, causing frost to form on the hat and wrap. 

My great-uncle crossed Siberia to come home after the war. Loving it when it's so cold it hurts and you're completely alone in the world is in my blood. It hurts like hell :D Though, kudos to the shoes I have - never for a moment did I feel any ache or frostbite in my toes. My knees through the elastic jeans, on the other hand ... I didn't feel those at all :D 

Today I was asked to take a few pics of a kid hockey team, so working around a rink was almost room temperature :P 

Pickies are from a phone again - too cold for Marki - again, apologies :)