Saving lives

It was lunchtime, and Tom and Anna sat in the grass by the fjord. It was warm, and the sun was shining. They had just finished their sandwiches.

"Everything feels so right with you, so natural, even eating a shrimp sandwich," Anna said. "But now I want the desert”.  

She stroked the bulge on his trousers, and then she opened the zipper to feel his bare skin.

“Be careful”, he moaned, “I don’t want to spill it on neither your clothes nor mine.”

“Don’t worry, I will take care of it”.

She embraced his erected penis with her mouth. Her lips moved slowly up and down the shaft, and her tongue caressed the head. Tom felt relaxed and excited at the same time, lying on his back in the grass. He looked up at the blue sky, through the sparse green leaves of a birch. In a wonderful moment of joy, the leaves of the tree appeared yellow and red.

Anna looked at him and smiled.

“You’re clean now. Nothing was spilled,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Tom.

He put his hand on the inside of her naked thigh and started to explore. She had no panties on. She spread her legs to let him touch her wet and smooth cleft.  She closed her eyes and moaned, and the wrinkle of pleasure appeared between her eyes.

Her body started to shiver. Two ants were climbing up along her thigh. Tom snapped the ants away, saving them from drowning in her ocean of wetness

“We have just saved two lives,” he said.

"Yes, yours and mine."

They were two happy horses grassing on a green field, and with no fence around >:)

(Picture taken a couple of days ago. I don't know who the people are. There are people everywhere, doing all kind of weird things on these nice and warm summer days ... )

Corporate values

It was one of the sunny and warm summer days that are rare in the north. Tom Snare sat in his hot office, trying to solve an equation he had been struggling with for some time.  Occasionally, he looked at the fjord outside the window, where the sun was blinking in the calm sea surface. He wished he could go out to enjoy the sun, but he had this damned equation to solve.

Around noon, Anna knocked the door to his office. He was happy to see her sweet smile, and her green emerald eyes.

“Will you join me for lunch today, Tom?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll get some sandwiches and cold drinks for us,” she said, “and then we can meet down by the fjord.”

Ten minutes later, Tom pulled his ID card at the detector, to open the gate in the main entrance. Then he was out in the warm and pleasant sun.  He walked quickly down to the fjord, to the little cape where they sometimes met.

Anna arrived with sandwiches and soft drinks a couple of minutes later.

They sat in the grass eating, and talking about the sea and the sky.

When the sandwiches were swallowed and the bottles were empties, they lay down in the grass, so close that they could smell each other’s breaths, and hear each other’s heart beats. Tom closed his eyes and he felt Anna’s sweet lips against his, and he stroke the soft skin on her arm. His hand continued to explore under her skirt, and he could feel that she was moist and longing for him.

Tom watched a plane crossing the blue sky when Anna sat down on top of him.  She was wet and soft and wonderful.  He closed his eyes and enjoyed the thrilling flight of the moment. When he opened his eyes, the plane was gone, landed on the airport nearby.

Tom had landed too.

Anna again sat next to him in the grass, fiddling with her ID card. She read aloud the four words printed on the backside of the card:

“Courageous.  Open.  Hands-on.  Caring.”

“We’ve been through all of it now”, Anna said, and smiled.

“Yes”, said Tom, “sometimes I almost believe in corporate values.”

(Picture taken a couple of days ago, by the fjord. I have no idea who the girl in the picture is. She wasn't supposed to be there.)

Mountain with a view

It was a nice and sunny Sunday in May, a great day for a hike in the mountains. We went up in the ranges on the coast.

Down in the valleys the fields and trees were dressed in the light green colors of spring. Up in the mountains, there were still patches of snow, and large areas of brown grass from last year, places were the snow melted just a few days ago.

The view from the top was great; fjords, islands and ocean. The coast is nice. Mountains are great. But there’s nothing like a mountain with an ocean view >:)

(I took the picture today. Can you see the wrecked airplane in the front of the picture? It’s a German plane from the 2^nd World War. In April 1940, the plane was hit by shell fire from a British navy ship, and crashed into the ranges by the fjord, with three men on board. The first died immediately, the second lived for a couple of days. They were buried next to the wrecked plane. The third soldier walked down fro the mountain, in hiding, and was able to re-unite with the German Nazi forces.)

Narrow fjords and narrow minds

On the way back home from our summer skiing vacation, we went via the fjords for a weekend together with family.

We took a boat out in the fjord, and were set on-shore on a strip of rock by the steep cliffs. Then we climbed the trail up to one of the old farms on a narrow shelf some 800 feet above the fjord. The farm was inhabited from the 16th century till the 1950s. Now it's maintained by the descendants of the last farmer.

For centuries people along the fjords  have been living from farming and fishing; hard-working and God-fearing. I guess the hard work is what kept them alive. Still they continued with the useless prayers, and they still do.

Nothing fails like prayer. But tourism helps to make a living in the 21st century.

The fjords are scenic, with breathtaking views. Huge cruise ships arrive every morning in the summer. No wonder that tourists come in thousands to see high and snow-capped mountains and steep cliffs going straight into the green water.

I like the high mountains and the open archipelago on the coast. The narrow fjords are not my place. Roads blocked by avalanche in the winter, hazzle with ferries and narrow hairpin roads.

Beautiful, for sure. But most of all, I find the fjords claustrophobic.

It feels like your mind becomes locked in. Narrow fjords create narrow minds.

(Picture taken from the shelf-farm we visited by the fjord. The farm house and barn were behind my back. In the past, goats and sheeps were grassing on the green field, which ends on the edge of a 800 feet vertical drop into the fjord. If you look closely, you can see a similar farm on the other side of the fjord, above the gray cliff  to the right of the water falls.)

The gambler

There's a book that I read almost every summer on the beach. I've read it more than 10 times now. The twists and turns of the story are hardly surprising me anymore. Now I read the book mostly to admire the writing.

My copy is a nice hardbound and leather-back book. It was printed in 1946, and I bought it 2nd hand from an antiquarian many years ago.

The book I'm talking about is The Gambler by Dostoyevsky. It's a relatively short narrative novel, just a little bit more than 200 pages. It's an easy and entertaining read, and a very suitable beach book, I think.

The story takes place in a German gambling town with the brilliant name Roulettenburg. The protagonist and narrator is a tutor employed by a poor Russian General who has lost his past fortune. The General wants to marry a beatuiful woman, but to be able to do this, he needs money. Back in Russia is the old and very rich Grandmother who is expected to die very soon. Every day the General telegraphs to Russia, asking about her health. He is impatiently waiting for her death, and to inherit her fortune.

One day, the old Grandmother unexpectedly arrives in Roulettenburg. She goes straight to the casino, to put her fortune (and the General's heritage) at stake by the roulette table ... and this is were the real fun begins. I say no more.

Dostoyevsky was addicted to gambling himself. In this novel he gives a brilliant and in-depth exposition of gambling psychology, built on his personal experience (and if you're cusious about Dostoyevsky, I recommend the biography by Geir Kjetsaa)

(That's my footsteps in the picture above. I had been out swimming in the chill and refreshing fjord, and walked accross that rock, on the way back to my towel and my Dostoyevsky book on the beach)

Hometown tourists

Today was another nice and warm summer day. Little boy and I decided to be tourists in our hometown. We biked down to the quay, and took the public boat out to the little island in the middle of the fjord.

The island is full of interesting history, from versatile use throughout the centuries. Before year 1000, the vikings used it as an executions site. The cut-off heads of the executed were put on high poles, to be visible to visitors coming in the fjord, just as a gentle reminder.

In the 12th century, Benedictine monks built a monastery on the island. They were famous for the beer they brewed and notorious for their wild and noisy parties. The bishop complained that the monks were selling too little and drinking too much of the beer themselves. In the 1530’s, the monastery was shot to bits and pieces by war ships, when the catholics had to escape the reformation.

From 1650 to 1900, there was a fortress and state prison on the island. Among the prisoners were several noble men. The most enduring was on the island for 55 years, on a sentence for “unsatisfactory behaviour”, when he complained about his rich and powerful mother-in-law being mean.

During the 2nd world war, the Germans built an anti-aircraft cannon battery on the island, to defend the big submarine bunker on the harbor.

Today the island is a public recreation area, with a museum and a nice little beach. Little boy and I visited both the museum and the beach. We did of course agree that swimming was required to get ice cream.

And now we're gonna watch the World Cup final >:)

On the beach

Today was a nice and warm summer day, almost 25 degrees (75 Fahrenheit). We don't get too many days like this in our town. So I left work early, and then little boy and I went to the beach.

There are many small beaches along the fjord, close to town center. Little boy picked a beach that has an ice-cream shop. We agreed that swimming was required to get ice cream.

The water in the fjord was refreshing ... some would say cold. But the kids of Winterland don't care, they swim anyway. You just can't stay in the water for very long.

We both got ice cream, before we went home >:)