I think for most people I know, so maybe for you, too, the answer to this question is quite straightforward: either they have none, or they wear it on their tongue and love mentioning it every so often. What I have noticed when I was in America is that people are much more religious there, even militantly so: the Church seems to be an important focal point of social life, not just a place of worship like here, and religion a central aspect of identification, not just a private affair.

I was born a Catholic - like almost all people here - and I still am. I think that the church is an important charitable organisation and there are many wonderful, really good people who are part of it. On some special days I even go to church, as for example last Christmas with Phillip, and I think there is almost no institution throughout the time that has done some much for music and the visible arts than the Catholic church.

I believe in a God who created life, because it is so hard to believe that it all just began. What we see and what we do is forever a consequence of his magnificent creative act. And our duty is to preserve what he (or she) gave us, to celebrate life, to enjoy its beauties, to be good and charitable to others so that they can enjoy life, too.

But I do not believe in a God who is not a iota more intelligent than his followers: who favours certain people more than others, who has reserved balcony seats in heaven for any members of any denomination who think they are special. I despise fundamentalists, particularly those of the Christian variety, because being part of the first world they should know better. I do not believe in a God who tells people to kill, to lie, to cheat and rule over others. And I do not believe in a God who watches over select individuals and influences their lives, neither to the good nor to the bad, and who gives petty rules and rewards or punishes people according to their behaviour. I also do not believe that life has a sense beyond the fact the its sense is living.

Now I do not know what this all makes me in your eyes: I hope a good, caring, tolerant person who celebrates life by living it to the fullest and does as much as possible to preserve it.

There is no Jacuzzi night today - we have put it off to Saturday. Elsie and Joerg will first come to a meal, and later we will move over to them for sweets of all kinds, that's at least what Joerg said.

Concerning yesterday's dream: you may remember that I was picking apples in a wonderful orchard. To quote my Dictionary of Dreams: "To dream that you are picking apples denotes harmony, pleasure, and fertility. In a biblical sense, it symbolizes your sexual appetite, lustful desires, and sexual awareness as associated with the apple in the Garden of Eden." Oh là là !

As far as Annette is concerned, my dream certainly represents my anxiety that something might be wrong with her, or that she is in danger. Or does it tell me something I ought to know? Is it even of a prophetic character? It's well-known that feet in dreams can represent genitals. Shoes protect them; with a young girl they may also represent virginity. So the loss of her shoe in my dream and her bloody, mangled foot could point to the worst. But if really anything happened to her or not I cannot say - I will talk to her and try to win her confidence, so that she will tell me if I can do anything for her.

My holidays are over, and work begins again. It's a slow start, though, because lessons only begin on Monday. This afternoon there will be some staff meetings, and tomorrow all kinds of planning and organizing jobs.

It was such a rainy day yesterday, so I stayed in most of the time. My cleaning woman came, and later I went to town, to the hairdresser's to make your Alpina look presentable again and to collect a new portable telephone. And who did I see while peacefully walking through the shopping area? It was Aldo.

I think only those will remember Aldo who have been my readers for a very long time indeed, when my nick was still different, and before someone recognized me here and I had too keep my head low for some time. Aldo is the guy I used to go to a Swinger Club with a few times - way before I met Phillip. We used to drive over to Switzerland in his flashy car, where there was a very good club at the time - I don't know if they still do business. Only couples were allowed in on certain days, and that's when we went and it's the reason why I teamed up with Aldo.

Aldo is a good-looking guy who is particularly well-endowed, so he did not go unnoticed. We had hardly ever sex together, it was more of a deal we had: with me, he was allowed to enter the club, but he always had an eye on me when he thought things where getting a little out of hand. His ambition was to fuck all the ladies whose partners showed some interest in me. Often they were quite jealous when my presence made their hubbies hot, and so they virtually threw themselves into Also's arms. Aldo used to carefully count the number of women into who he had inserted his male pride, and the higher the number was, the bigger was his smile on the drive home.

We drank some coffee in a little bar, he ordered Grappa for old times' sake, and we informed each other about our lives. How long would it take until he asked the inevitable question: "Alpina, when will we go there next?"

It took less than 10 minutes. I didn't answer his question, but his number is now on my new phone.

I virtually fell out of a dream this morning: While I was picking beautiful apples in a rich, sunflooded orchard, I saw Ambitious Annette, my student, approach - she was limping and when she was close to me she said: "I have lost my shoe. See, Miss Alpina, I have lost my shoe." And when I looked, her foot was all bloody and gory, green and black in places, like mangled. But she was already limping on, qietly complaining: "I have lost my shoe". I wanted to follow her and help, but the apples were so heavy that I could not walk, so I helplessly followed the pathetically suffering creature with my eyes until she disappeared - and then I woke up.

Maybe you know that I have a keen interest in dreams. I will have to look up the meaning of this one, which is quite tricky, because the shoe incident and the shocking foot injury did not happen to me, but to someone else. This makes an interpretation difficult. What I feel bad about is the fact that I have not tried to meet Annette for so long (see April 4). And there has not been one of her red-enveloped letters after my London holidays - I just realize. I do hope that all's well with her ...

My interest in dreams grew after my parents' sudden death by accident. For a long time I was tormented by dreams of loss. My subconsciousness was in turmoil, which particularly affected my sexuality, so that I sometimes even lost control. The darker side of my personality grew stronger and stronger for a time, in my dreams I reveled in dirt and sexual humiliation, and I could not always distinguish between dream and reality.

There really seems to be a "Dark Side of the Power", and at times my dreams still show me its might.

I was wrong - Leon did not end up in my bed.
We had sex outside.

He arrived shortly after 11 and we immediately left in his car to find a nice little restaurant to have lunch and talk. I don't see him very often, usually once or twice a year, but as soon as we are together, it seems as if we had met only yesterday. After lunch we saw that the sky was clearing up, and now and then the sun was peeking from behind the clouds. So we dediced to go on a little walk - we always were great walkers back then - and followed a path that began behind the restaurant and led up through the forest. Soon we were walking hand in hand and enjoying the wonderful day.

After some time we arrived at the top, and at the edge of the forest there is a little platform for all who come here to admire the wonderful scenery. I was leaning on the fence that prevents visitors from falling and Leon was standing behind me. I felt him against my back. I knew it would happen now - and I liked the idea. He lifted my skirt and gently removed my panties. And then he carefully entered me, and I felt the slow rhythm which is particularly his, and I felt his warm hands on either hip. That's how were were standing there and looking out.

In the far distance we could see the whole majestic chain of alpine summits. There is still a lot of snow at the top, and it glimmered very white in the afternoon sun. The forest left and right seemed intensively green in the warm light, and so did the meadow in front of us. It was full of yellow flowers, wild daffodils, which appeared like gold coins someone immensely rich had strewn over the ground. Some cherry trees were in full bloom - they looked pure and solemn in their bridal white. Far away a river, and some villages, and the railway line - like precious miniature toys. What a wonderful country.

He came at the same time as I - as long as I can remember we came together. Neither was moaning or shouting - there was just a little sigh, some intake of air. And a wonderful, warm feeling. We didn't talk much while walking back to the car. We had coffee and some icecream at my place, and he admired my garden and the freshly painted porch. Shortly before 8 pm he left.

We might not meet for a year - but then it will be again as if we had parted just yesterday.

You're right, flcamfan, I could have done like Tom Sawyer who let other people paint Aunt Polly's fence. Instead, my muscles are acheing and I have tried in vain to get rid of some paint stains on my thighs. Maybe someone would love to come and rub them off for me?

I had a phonecall last night which made me sleep uneasy all night: it was from Leon, my old friend and onetime lover (see 27 February). He is a teacher like me somewhere over in Switzerland and last time we met at Beatrix's in Zürich he took me home and we made love in the car. He is still on easter holidays and his family seems to be away with relatives, so why not come and see me?

Yes, why not? - Because there is a big chance he will end up in my bed. I am sure I won't be able to resist if he insists. I never could - all these years. But on the other hand - should I resist? He will be here before noon, and we will drive out to find a nice place for lunch - we would have walked, but the weather is just too unsteady and there is thunder and lightning every few hours.

If I stop typing here, and am very, very quiet, I can hear my heart beat. I know this is a symptom.

Instead of sitting in the sun quietly and reading, I felt a little restless on this sunny Monday, so I decided my wooden porch needed a fresh coat of paint: the old one was peeling off from sun and rain. Having a wooden house is always a tricky thing - having finished a painting job usually means there is another one waiting. For bigger and particularly higher jobs, I usually employ a professional local painter, but smaller things like the porch I can do myself.

So I got a big can of brown paint from the cellar, a small ladder, I put on my bikini and then work started. Soon sweat started trickling down all my nooks and crannies, but I didn't give up. Now and then I gave a wave to some neighbours passing or looking out of their windows. Old Herr Schneider even put a pillow on his window sill so that he could watch comfortably. Had I know I would have so many spectators, I could have charged an entrance fee.

The porch does not look too bad now - and after a second coat tomorrow it will be like new. By the way: I saw Herr Schneider later when watering my daffodils - he came to the fence and said he was so happy I was alright. He had been watching me on this wobbly ladder almost all afternoon so that he could have run over and help me if I had fallen, or called an ambulance. It's so lovely to have good neighbours.

I am sure I have disappointed some of you who have expected a much more erotic, sexy and wild report about my stay in London. But I fear life is not an adventure story anymore once you have a relationship and live like a married couple - which means faithful and physically fixed on each other (provided married couples are like this ...)

When I was in London for a longer time, more than 10 years ago, during my studies, it was very different. I was experiencing the world, and myself, and I was pretty wild, always ready to love and be loved. London was such a physical place for me, and I must have radiated this all over the place, so I was approached by men constantly and was often ready to try what was new to me.

That's what I remembered when I walked past the shop behind which I had had my first black man. I didn't go in because the place looked very different. Actually, I never saw him again after this first time. I just wanted to buy a present to take along for someone, and he was behind the counter. We were alone in the shop. We exchanged a few words - he had asked where I was from and what I was doing in London - then somehow our eyes locked and I immediately felt this hole deep inside me that desperately needed to be filled, and he sensed this at once.

He came round the counter with a smile, I had not noticed that he was so tall, and he lifted me up and carried me into a back room which was some kind of a store. There he put me down on some sacks - I distictly remember the smell of spices and herbs and solemn black wooden statues which were looking down at me. He undressed me carefully, but without speaking a word, and then he swiftly took off his own clothes.

He was as big as one says. After carefully rolling a condom over himself, he took me with his big strong hands and began to fuck me. While I was shaking and moaning, he was very quiet, and he looked at me carefully, without agitation even. He looked as if he was repairing some piece of machinery, and he moved me up and down his cock while I was just shaking and moaning and sobbing.

After a time he stopped and looked down on me lying there helplessly. He was still enormous. He lifted me up again - I could not have walked for sure - and put me on a table, to that I was lying on my tummy. He then took my head and did to it what he had done to my lower regions before - he meticulously fucked my face and there was only lust appearing in his eyes shorty before he came.

He gave me a wonderful red coral necklace before I left - I sometimes still wear it. So you see, my memories of London are not only concert halls and museums - it's also this, and it's a very deep, vivid memory that always makes my body respond.

I had some tomato salad and mozarella cheese with my Italian red wine, and I was sitting on my porch overlooking the garden, listening to the blackbirds sing. What a change from the last two weeks in the bustling city - with lots of exotic meals and cultural events: classical concerts, plays, films, musicals - there was something we went to almost every evening. As we were very close to the Barbican Centre, we were more than once in the great concert hall. And I saw the film "Capote" and almost finished the novel it is about - and after the film I thought it was twice as interesting.

What I also liked very much were the days I spent alone - when Phillip was at work. Then I just walked through the town, or went to museums and bookshops, or looked at all the many people in the streets. Once I took the bus down to Greenwich and walked back to the city from there, through the Canary Wharf area with all the high and modern buildings. A guy I met in a pub at lunchtime took me to the top of one of the skyscapers - I doubt if he was supposed to, but he just smuggled me in and showed me everything. (He was ready to show me even more, but I said no, thank you, when it came to his body parts).

I also went along the Thames to the south west one day, to Kingston on Thames and Hampton Court, and one day I met the people in Oxford from last autumm; the family I stayed with and the school. It was such an emotional meeting. In the evening I met Phillip somewhere in town, usually in an ethnic restaurant close to the place we had planned to go to later, and sometimes we walked through the West End after the show and had a drink before we took a taxi home.

Although it was a wonderful stay, it was maybe my most unadventurous one ever - we were together as often as we could and during the day I had little contact with other people. It was the first time I was there with somebody - in other years I had always been alone and my time was pretty wild and sexy. I missed this - and I didn't - it was just different, but ever so deep and wonderful an experience.

It's almost too warm to sit inside at the computer. I was reading im my garden for some time, it's soon time for the final exams in our school and I will have German orals with my class - so there is quite a list of books to read, but it's something I love doing. Fortunately I have a few free days before school starts again on Thursday, so there is time for this and that. Particularly my garden needs some special attention.

I slept lovely back in my usual surroundings, though it was not easy to fall asleep. Most days in the last two weeks sleep was brought about by sheer exhaustion - I virtually passed out after repeated orgasms, very often with Phillip still inside me. It's such a good feeling to fall asleep with his cock inside - it's the closest you can be to someone. I must admit I had to use my vibro power tool to provide myself with the right sleepy feeling last night - but it worked beautifully.