Pirkko's rose..? 17 11 25 (15) 25 1 30

Because of stuff going down in my old age I have been maybe a bit too hard on myself just these past few days, maybe because it will soon be my b-d again when the age I am today will be gone forever..? And then there is so much bad news doing the rounds like in UK yesterday it was said their economic hard times may take 2 decades to recover from, to return the country to pre-2008 crash times. Then the stories about people like Weinstein and all the people's careers, chiefly budding actresses whose careers he and his ilk blighted: truly unbelievable, the latest revelations from Uma T, but someone still too angry to give vent to all she wishes to say on the subject...

So by way of a wee bit of light relief I wish to relate a tale from my early 20s when I was still young and innocent, during the first winter I spent in this country where on the present occasion I shall have lived here continuously for the last 30 years come January 2018. I had previously been a temporary resident for the two previous summers for 6 weeks the first summer when I was aged 20 and the second summer when I was resident 3 months, but for my third visit I came the following year around mid-summer time and I stayed over the winter to depart for UK at the beginning May: when I had to re-sit a single examination in Physical Chemistry, so that in the next academic year I should be able to resume my course of studies in Organic, Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, as a part of my part-time day release course of studies... A nice interlude to be sure for a 22/23 year old.

It was my first winter on cross country skies and around Easter time I skied 70 km about 45 miles in 12 hours with a bunch of guys from work, almost breaking my back in the process: coasting down hill through the forest was fine but when it came to making plough-like movement to attain the following incline the muscles in my back took increasing exception...All in all I skied around 500 km for the season say 315 -320 miles, which tells something of the kind of life-style I had during my free time.

Well I had a girl friend in the country at the time, someone I had met during my first summer here but if I remember correctly she only came to visit me once during the whole winter when we perhaps skied 26 km say16 miles together: naturally she as a native more proficient though I  may have surprised her with my rapid progress from scratch.

But my camp companion Jerry, this Austrian guy, a fellow chemistry undergraduate had stayed until New Year when he returned to Graz to continue his studies, and when as he was leaving the house the company had provided the two of us, asked me to deliver his plants to his girlfriend, P, who was the Production Director's Secretary, which would also mean from that point on he  ceased increasingly to consider me a friend...

Jerry was one of life's misanthropists in the sense that he could never really trust anyone and to be clear about it, the reason lay in the image he saw in his shaving mirror every morning, hahaha… 

I dutifully delivered his plants and very soon thereafter we began skiing together on a Sunday sometimes going back to her place afterwards, sometimes returning to my detached house with its single occupancy, save for visitors... Well it didn’t take many weeks of these activities before P began to cast aspersions about my manhood, suggesting perhaps that my preferences lay among my own sex, and this before lawfully it became cool to exhibit whatever sexual proclivity took one’s fancy. Naturally I took exception to her suggestion and by way of reinforcing my point I took her in my arms, but fortunately not to the extent I would jeopardize my future chances of receiving an anonymous gift of a single red rose thrust into the door handle of my house, as I visited it for the last time on my day of departure. What I sweet gesture but by that time my friendship with her boyfriend Jerry was ancient history, hahaha. Have a good day everyone as I am sure you have had the odd Jerry-like figure in your ancient history too..?