Reading suggestion

First published in 1937, "The Night Climbers of Cambridge" by pseudonym Whipplesnaith is a useful handbook of and account for roof climbing in said city. Full of good advice on what shoes to wear, different kinds of drain pipes and how to chimney-climb "The Night Climbers..." is a humorous declaration of principles. Do not leave traces, do not harm the exterior of climbed buildings. And do not, by boasting about or showing off your escapades become merely a gymnast:
"Modesty drives the roof-climber to operate by night; the proctorial frown makes him an outlaw. And outlaws keep no histories.[---] It is the few, the handful of men in each college who are caught by the fascination of buildings at night, who become the night climbers."
Read the book in its entirety at: http://www.insectnation.org/projects/nightclimbers/html

Oh, and there are pictures for a lowly coward like myself to behold.

Umeå, summer 2007

Last summer I visited a house, hidden behind trees and high grass.

Two rooms, a kitchen and an outside toilet. Abandoned for more than 20 years, but still containing scraps and memories of its previous owner. Once the house had been someone's pastoral dream, much like a real life Carl Larsson painting. No one had bothered to strip the house of its less valuable contents. An old box of cottage cheese and news papers revealed the date of abandonement to 1986; the headline refers to the protection of Ingvar Carlsson, the Prime minister succeeding Olof Palme who was shot in 1986. But what happened to the owner is, for me, unknown.