Easter Happiness

Apparently, Easter holidays have now officially come to an end. Unofficially, however, I am still busy doing Nothing.
Anders and I spent a week on the deserted island Tindsøya in Vesterålen, where my parents have lived for a couple of months. Skipnes used to be a small and busy fishing village housing about 150 residents in the peak season, but now there is only an 80 year-old lady left - and, untill last Sunday, my parents.
However, the holidays spoiled the soothing solitude of the inhabited island when too many families with too many children decided to invade the place for Easter... so we had to climb the mountains to get some space for ourselves.
Which, after all, was not a bad solution at all.

After some relaxing days filled with lots of gourmet food, black coffee, sunshine, red wine, blue skies and beautiful hikes in the area (including a rather unsuccessful boat expedition with the intent of finding some snow that could provide me with an oppurtunity to test my brand new and super-beautiful pair of mountain skis - the partly snowcovered sump we found on a neighbouring island didn't really do the trick), we set out for Tromsø with my father's almost hundred year-old fishing vessel Signe 1.

The two-day trip was nothing but stunningly beautiful and ulitmately relaxing, the sea showing itself from its most calm and soothing side, constantly mirroring a cloudless sky, a bright sun and an endless row of wild snow-covered mountain tops.
There is no longer any doubt whatsoever: paradise
is north
and
all around.

Add a couple of beers, some fish and the smell of coffee, and voilá, happiness is complete.