Names that make you itch

My expensive shelter has a name: Myren. I could choose from a few uninspiring options: myren, fluen, loppen, myggen (ant, fly, flea, mosquito). I find ants somewhat sympathetic.

Natur Skole: need to leave early

At night, I wake up a few times due to downpours. It’s harsh and miserable. Since the shelters are part of a Natur Skole, I have to leave by 8:30 AM; afterward, the cabins are for the children. If you pay for a shelter, you have to leave early too!

Menu in the rain

But it works out because I want to cover quite a distance today. I avoid the worst downpour by having an early lunch at a covered picnic table by a mini-golf course. It’s windy, and the rain even comes in through the cracks. The menu: fish burgers, stir-fried vegetables, and couscous. Coffee and chocolate as dessert. Life is good.

Endless along the former railway line

After that, I follow the Himmerlandstien, a route over a former railway line between Løgstør and Viborg. There’s little elevation change, nice gravel, and walking in the sun now is delightful.

Old age, a harsh confrontation

Then I need to use the toilet. Wild urinating or more is always an option, but there’s a toilet just two kilometers away. Twenty minutes should be enough. It becomes a battle. ‘Hold on, hold on,’ I keep telling myself. Upon arrival, I see shelters, picnic tables, a fire pit…but no toilet. In panic, I wander around with my roll of toilet paper. Then I spot the little house. Fifty more meters. Forty more. Thirty more. And then it happens. I barely make it. In the doorway, no less.

Why am I telling this? Because it affects me. Not even because of the practical consequences, which were manageable thanks to a faucet and clean clothes, but because of what it symbolizes. Why couldn’t I wait just ten more seconds? I know that everything relaxes as you get older, but am I already losing control over my sphincter muscles?

I continue walking. The incontinence story hangs over me like a dark cloud. Until I realize that I have actually walked 35 kilometers that day. Isn’t that still something for a young god? (Yes, justify it however you want)

Behind the rhododendrons

I arrive at my sleeping spot in a rose garden, hidden behind the rhododendrons, before dark. A colorful end to a somewhat embarrassing day.

Overnight stay: Aalestrup