How close pleasure and misery can be! I was enjoying myself in France while Friedrich, Ruth's husband, quietly started to suffer. He will be operated on his stomach already tomorrow - the doctors seem to be in a hurry. This is not a good sign. Ruth is calm and composed - I don't know if she prays for his life, but she is full of hope that it is not too late.

She wanted to hear about my holidays all the same, and in spite of her situation, she laughed a lot. She said that she envied me the opportunity to just go and enjoy myself - when she was young, the Second World War had just ended and travelling was almost impossible. She'd gone hiking with friends, and that was when she met Friedrich. She never had the chance of being an independent young woman who was living on the wild side. And now it was too late.

But I was surprised to how many places she has been: Aigues Mortes, Nîmes, Montpelliers, Sête and many others. And I could see that what I told her made many memories come alive, and so in spite of all, she was happily smiling when I left her shortly before six.

Thank you Gio, for commenting so faithfully - I must get organized better and start reading other people's blogs again - I know: if I wish comments, I'll have to start commenting myself more often. I have decided to stay with the blogs - my premium memebership lasts for some more months anyway. But I think that I won't use other facilities of the site like the forum or the photo area any longer.

I had a phonecall yesterday evening: it was Ruth and she said her husband was in hospital. Some of you might remember - the retired professor who has such a fantastic knowledge of literature and is a very good cook. Last time I attended one of his courses, I spent the night with him, which his wife Ruth, who has taken quite a fancy to me, does not know. She said that lately he had complained of a lack of appetite, and some pain in his stomach. He'd taken some pills who should have helped him digest, but his condition had not become better. Now he was in constant pain, and that's why he had to go to hospial a few days ago.

Ruth said she was afraid it was something serious. Her husband was not one to complain easily, but he'd be in agony now without morphines. I promised to see her this afternoon. Such a nice and wise man - I hope he can get well again in hospital and there is a cure against his pains. He was so funny and so cheerful last time I saw him before my holidays. Let's hope for the best.

Light, drizzling, constant rain this morning - the world is under a veil of mist and clouds. I rose from my bed hot - like always, with my skin glowing. I stepped outside naked, felt the rain cold on my skin, my feet on the wet lawn. I walked from open flower to flower, had a long look at my apple tree. The apricots look particularly good this year, but they are not ripe yet. I dived into the cool, blue water of my pool - a feeling like being fondled by a thousand fingers. I glide under the surface as long as I have air, and then I swim for some minutes until I feel that my every part of the body has become alive. Now it's time for breakfast.

What my holidays were like, I keep getting asked through messages, did I have sex, and in what places, and with whom? With Tanja, for example? If I wanted to relate everything, my blogs would become much too long for anyone's attention span.I can only say that much: these holidays were much wilder than any I used to have in France before. And it was quite often Tanja who brought me into unexpected and even awkward situations - this woman is just insatiable in every respect: places, events, people - when I felt like a rest and leaning back and enjoying, she was already bored with a situation and thought it was time to move on. She had not even taken a book along and I didn't read more than a few pages in mine.

On the way home I was surprised how little money I had spent in these three weeks, much less than usual. I mentioned this to Tanja and she laughed: this is the privilege of being a woman, she said, that for little favours already men are willing to spend money on us. They enjoy our company, and we enjoy what they offer us in exchange. That's a fair deal, which nature meant this way when it created the sexes. I had to laugh about her logic, and although I doubt it, I must say it certainly works.

I was passive all day and didn't do anything useful, besides some washing and cleaning the pool. After all the hustle and bustle, the silence of my home paralysed me. The weather was hot first, then sticky, and then the rain came with dark clouds, and now it is much cooler. You could virtually feel how the plants in my garden enjoyed the heavenly drink this afternoon, and it saved me from watering.

What is before me? On Thursday I'll meet Joerg and Elsie - there is a lot to tell about our holidays. On Friday I'll travel to Zürich to meet Beatrix and her family. On Saturday is the 5th, and that would be the date of the Rolling Stones Concert they have invited me to - I don't know if it really takes place, I'll have to ask them first. Next week, on Tuesday, I will go to Maria, and on Wednesday, if the weather permits, we will fly together. I mentioned before that she is an enthusiastic paraglider, and we will do a tandem flight together: we both with be strapped to one parachute and then jump over a mountain side, I don't know, but I'm almost dying with fear when I just think of it now. But I will do it - and I won't tell of my fear, I will trust myself to her strong arms and leave the rest to fate ...

And in between, I should begin to prepare the next school year. I will have a new English class, and a drama course, I'll be teaching how to do projects and write papers and also do an advanced course in German literature. So it's going to be a busy year for sure.

And now what I love best about my garden: I'll have a swim in my lighted pool ...

Among all the junk mail anonymous machines are instructed to send to me, I found the message I had hoped for: It was from Phillip - my Phillip, who I cannot really have and yet cannot leave. My three weeks of holidays were not only some distance from work, or from home, but also from him. I had to think of him ever so often: he is still an open wound which hurts when touched by thoughts and memories.

His mail read: Phone me, please. And that is what I did last night - and all was good. Although we only talked of everyday things, and carefully avoided the word love. He told me of his work, the heatwave in London, how his flat had warmed up to 30°C as it has no air conditioning, how it was 50°C in the Underground and people almost fainted. And I told him about my Mediterranean life and the places we went to. And we decided to talk on the phone once a fortnight.

This does not seem much. But it gives us a lot of time to look forward to it. And there are enough things which have happened to tell each other, so we don't have to talk about ourselves. I might visit him in October, when I have holidays again.

I came back from my holidays today - quite exhausted, fairly sun-tanned, with a lot of impressions and new experiences. The South of France is just fabulous - from the food to the beaches, the wine, the sea, the people - I love it so much.

My garden looks quite neglected; fortunately the Schneiders watered a few things regularly - there were record temperatures here in Austria, too, during my absence. My grass has withered, and so have many flowers - and the pool is filthy. Lots of work to do, but fortunately I have two more weeks of holidays.

Thanks to all my NN friends who welcomed me back with messages. I am not sure yet how regularly I will continue my blog - now that I have grown to live without it and got over my addiction. Well, I would have a few things to tell - that's for sure, and I already feel that my English has become a little rusty after so much "Je t'aime, chérie" and "Une bouteille de vin rouge, s.v.p." - on verra ...

This is my last blog before I leave. All is ready and we'll start early in the morning. For lunch my neighbours, Herr and Frau Schneider, were here today and they will look after my house again and water all the plants that need some extra water when it's warm and dry. They are close to 80, but have always very much liked to be of use, and I guess it will keep then busy again for most of their days.

So all I can do now is say good-bye to you all, have a wonderful and enjoyable time. Thanks for reading and commenting, thanks for many wonderful messages, thanks for being faithful and true Alpinsts. Kiss you all ...

For some days we will be in Aiges Mortes, and at the plage naturiste de l'éspiguette in Port Camargue. You don't know me, but if you're there, too, and happen to meet two not so young nude babes speaking Austrian, you might as well say hello ...

Tomorrow at this time, we will be on our way. Today it's waiting, and packing and unpacking things, writing a list for the Schneiders who are looking after the house. But basically all is ready.

Last night it was a good-bye from Elsie and Joerg. Although we have our share of problems now and then, I am amazed how close we have grown in the past year. So we were a little sentimental while eating snacks and drinking some Italian red. After eight p.m. Elsie and I were sitting at the pool alone and watching the stars draw up, while Joerg was in my living-room for the football worldchampionship final. It was very quiet in the garden, but when something decisive happened on the football pitch, you could hear a shout all through the village.

I had a good French and a good Italian wine ready, and when Italy won, we opened the Barolo. Meanwhile the cool night air had driven us inside, and we lay down on my bed a little, next to each other, looking up to the wooden ceiling and talking about things which happened lately. Grisi was a topic, but noone mentioned Tanja, so they were surprised when they heard that I was going on holidays with her. I hadn't told them before, because I didn't want to wake sleeping dogs.

As a treat Elsie and I excited Joerg with our hands, and we did it nice and slowly, but together, and after spurting all over himself and having been cleaned, we didn't mind him using both his hands on us, inserting his indexes simultaneously. It was only a little death I died this way, but it was a good feeling all the same, and we all three felt relaxed and content when we kissed good-bye way after midnight. They have rented a house on the Lake of Lugano in the Ticino (Southern Switzerland) for two weeks. Joerg will do some fishing there and ride his bike around the lake now and then for fitness reasons.

Oh no, SSB, you're far from being an idiot of any kind, you're a dear reader of mine who thinks while reading my texts, even if your imagintion seems to stray a little now and then. But why not: there is nothing more sexy than an imaginative man.

Like always, the food at Ruth's was wonderful. Her husband is a great cook, although he will be 80 soon. He is an imaginative guy, too, maybe one of the most imaginative I have ever met - he was the lecturer of an English literary course I attended some years ago, and after the last evening I spent the night with him. Incidentally he is also the oldest guy I ever slept with - but to be honest: I had rather sex with his fantastic mind than with his failing body.

Weeks later we met in the street while shopping, and we talked for some minutes, and his wife Ruth, who didn't know what had happened, spotaneously invited me to dinner. And since that time we have been great friends in spite of the big age difference of 38 years. What appears awkward to me is that they have not had sex for decades, both of them think that their partner does not want any. So he regularly had flings with students while she has a younger lover and enjoys him a lot.

While the professor was cooking, I heard the latest update on Rudi, her lover. They seem to be even happier together since she started to give him blowjobs and actually swallow him, while they have not had yet the threesome Rudi has suggested. A difficulty seems to be to find another woman over seventy who'd like to participate.

We laughed a lot all evening, they both know millions of stories and so I got home rather late, just reaching the last bus home in time. It's so lovely to have friends, and age does not matter at all, neither for good sex it seems nor for good company in general.

I may be a little slow, but I can't find anything Freudian in yesterday's blog. Maybe some people thought I wanted to write "stay with her" instead of "fly" - but I didn't. I admit that only hard-boiled Alpinists may remember that Maria's passion is paragliding, which means hopping off mountaintops with a parachute and gliding over the countryside. Flying over glaciers with eagles, is the image I keep in my mind when I think of her. And Maria has invited me to fly with her. You call this a tandem-flight, when she is strapped behind me and holding me in her arms and we actually fly together.

I didn't tell her how much I am afraid of flying, and I won't ever. I will trust myself into her arms, and she will hold me tight, and then we will lose the ground from under our feet, and we will fly. Fly over glaciers with eagles - well not quite on our first flight, but you may know now what I mean.