I took a walk to the small lake behind the mansion. I was told this lake was frozen the whole winter and I was curious how my future ice-skating place to be looked like. Also, I read in my book about the power of nature with healing the body and my throat was doing worse in spite of my well-planned nine hour sleep. It needed some healing, and badly and soon. Another reason to go for a late afternoon stroll.
The late afternoon means: mosquitos. They are numerous and annoying. A lady with white hair and slightly bended back walked towards me. She was waving a small branch of beech next to her face, shifting sides with every swing. Her husband (I assumed but might as well have been her brother) was walking a few paces behind. I knew they were together and knew each other for a long time because of the distance between them. It was too short for them to be strangers and too long for people who see each other once in a while and need to catch up. This was a walking distance of two people who already said everything to each other at least once, including what they had for lunch. And then there is nothing left to do except being silent together.
I tried to make eye contact, but the woman looked down and annoyed. Maybe it was because of the mosquitos, or because her husband and she had a disagreement over some uninteresting pettiness. Her husband (or brother) did not look down, but his face had the same expression as the woman’s. I wondered whether they realised how much beauty there was around them, or that they did not see the bright green ferns or heard the heron scream when it flew away, startled by unwanted footsteps.
I walked on, taking a left and then saw the beginning of a wooden bridge in the flooded bank. It was a decking of 20 meters, ending in a slightly bigger square with wooden benches. The thickets and willows were like the frame of a painting that I stepped into, just like Alice through the Looking Glass (but replace the mirror with a painting). The lake was covered in water lilies. In the distance were four swans, one white grown-up swan in the front and three dark grey young ones that meekly followed. They had to push their way through the lilies, their bellies went up and down. The second I entered the decking, they began swimming towards me. I never had a memorabel encounter with a swan and was thus not scared for them. However, I had never seen such fast and goal-oriented pace in a swan, let alone one that had some youngsters behind it. They gathered around the decking, one of the youngsters made a soft cackling sound and the parent answered. Then it started splashing around, eating from the green plants underneath the surface. The other two dove underneath the decking and I saw the grey feathers through my feet and the wood slide under me. It was almost as if they came to say hello. The family continued eating a few meters from the deck and I watched them for a while, waving at mosquitos around my head and wishing I also had a beech branch in my hand.
It is almost a pity to think this lake is completely frozen for most of the year. Almost, because I do love ice-skating and I can not wait until my first real winter since childhood. However, I hope I will see the swans again and that they come to say hello. And then I will bring my branch and sit there the whole evening.