Full-Monty Monday :)

A number of my correspondents here on Blogger are involved in something called “Half-Naked Thursdays”, on which they post provocative photos of themselves. Well, I guess you can call this my “Full-Monty Monday”. :)

Saturday P-Doug and I went back out to the Humber Valley trails. We discovered a closed concession road that leads up into a conservation area, very well kept, where we encountered perhaps a dozen bikers and an ambitious jogger. At the base of the trail, we found a little pond that was just beautiful. P-Doug remarked on the mirror like surface of the pond, which stirred me from my reverie and got me taking the image I tried but failed to get all last year: a good panorama of a mirrored lake in infrared. It came out beautifully. Since I had the presence of mind to shoot the view in visible light from the exact same position, I was doubly blessed in being able to contrast the two very different outcomes of the same scene.

After about an hour we headed back to a place on the Humber we've been before, this time to explore a flood plain I spotted in aerial shots that looked to me like a pleasant and reasonably secluded place to sunbathe. We had to ford the Humber to do this. It was cool, verging on cold, but we managed to wade in it downstream for five minutes or so get to where we were swimming last year. P-Doug seemed to want to drift further downstream, so we effectively parted company and I headed in from the bank where we used to strip off.

If you tune in here from time to time, you know I'm a barefoot hiking enthusiast. I like the physical challenge, and I love the sensations that are out there in the forest. Not surprisingly, I forded the river barefoot; as I emerged at the bank, I found myself looking across a wide, marshy grove, and I was faced with a decision. I hesitated, then decided to accept the challenge. So with my sandals in my pocket, I pressed on. I crossed the thicket and begin climbing up the steep rise with a walking stick I'd found on the far bank. At the top, I stood and looked down, feeling pride in the accomplishment. I headed down the other side, where I met up with P-Doug in the glade.

After a few minutes, I chose a spot and stripped off, lying on my shorts and shirt in the grass. P-Doug drifted off. I lay there for perhaps three quarters of an hour, just relaxing in the sun. It was really wonderful. At one point, I called out to P-Doug and he called back from the distance, which was fine; as long as we knew where each other was, no needless wandering around when it was time to go. Eventually I heard footsteps approaching and heard him ask if I'd had my fill of the sun. As I dressed, he told me of lying nude on the river bank, admiring the view, feeling the sun, closing his eyes and settling back... at one point hearing the splish, splish, splish of... what? That's not a deer, he thought, and he looked up to see a young couple paddling by in a canoe. Ah, nature boy. We had a good laugh. Anyway, I suited back up, less the sandals of course, and rather than take the plain back, at P-Doug's suggestion we followed another deer trail back up the rise. I warned him of the swampy nature of the foot of the rise, but he was game (he was in strap sandals himself). We picked our way back across the grove and into the river again. It was a nice two hours. Then it was a beeline back to our current pub of choice on Bloor Street for a couple of pitchers of suds. Primo. :)