Link to my website - gallery - spank me

Thursday, February 5, 2009

The land of the, er, well, midnight!

As usual it started with a phone call from my model agency booker. "Ever been to Lapland?" Not a place I had been to so it was the usual images of midnight sun, reindeer, father Christmas, etc. Trying to be positive, I said " When is it, June?" "No" said the booker "January". Well Sir Ranulph Fiennes might be tempted by temperatures of -20 C, but me I'm a warm blooded bird. "You don't need to worry about the cold, the shoot is for a late season ski wear promotion. You'll be in high fashion, multi layer, high tech, skiing kit".

So I went for it, and a week later was on a plane heading for somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. Now Finland is not a crowded country, 70% of the population live within 30 miles of Helsinki, which is way down south. By the time you get to Lapland, there are very few people indeed, and not a Pizza Express to be found. The place we stayed at was a massive lodge made of wood, a bit basic, but quite cosy. Two things immediately struck me, it was horrendously cold, and dark, like 24 hours a day. At mid day there was a dull glow on the southern horizon, otherwise permanent night. I noticed that in the middle of the day, while still dark, there was an eerie glow to the snow covered landscape. Quite striking really, and the photographer just raved about it.

Needless to say I had come prepared. An aunt had lent me her Damart thermals, as most of my underwear is designed for anything but warmth. The first day of shooting we all piled into a tracked vehicle and headed to the location selected for our shoot. When we got there it all looked terribly romantic, what with the scenery, some of the locals, actually called Lapps, and, of course, some tame reindeer.

Then came the bombshell! The client wanted the campaign to stress the thermal credentials of his ski kit, so as well as choosing a location 500 miles north of any respectable ski resort, he wanted the contrast of his clothing being shown against bare skin! That's it! We were going to be starkers except where covered by the high tech clothing!

We all started fully clothed if naked inside, but soon the photographer was getting us undoing zips, and ripping velcro, for some shots that were certainly going to give the Sunday supplements a bit of a lift. There were certainly more pert nipples on show than around Sainsbury's cold counter! To be fair the shoot was over quite quickly, spurred on by our demands to keep the kit on until we got back to the lodge!

When we got back to the lodge, there was a very pleasant surprise. Paivi the woman who ran the lodge offered us the use of her sauna. Now being a liberal minded girl, I have always regarded saunas as, well, a bit, you know. But this was the real thing. It was huge, like the lodge all wood, with shelves at different levels, and absolutely blistering hot. Welcome was not the word for it, we all loved it.

After being in the sauna for quite a while, Paivi told us that the locals would follow a sauna by a roll in the snow. Well, being a game chick, and risking cardiac arrest, I was the first out of the door and plunged naked into the snow. I cannot describe the feeling, not at all what I expected. The heat in our bodies just seemed to protect us. Of course, someone had to throw the first snowball and soon there was snow flying everywhere, with us girls charging about in our birthday suits.

Then we saw them, about 200 yards away, these figures clad in white, on skis, and carrying guns! They were standing still, watching us. That soon stopped the hijinks, and we all dashed back inside, in a blind panic. Paiva just laughed. The white clad figures were soldiers. Either NATO, or Russian. Neither are supposed to be in Finland, the NATO guys being stationed in Norway, and the Russians based to the east. But in that part of the world borders don't have much meaning so they both have patrols criss crossing northern Finland. Well, all I hope is that the sight of our heavenly bodies did something positive for east-west relations!

Then it was back to good old UK. But as we all know only a couple of weeks later we got some snow of our own. On February 3rd, the second day of the snow fall in the south, I was meeting up with a photographer to discuss adding a gallery to my web site. We were just moaning about how such little snow had brought things to a standstill. Then I got the devil in me, off came my skirt and panties, and I ran out into the garden, my lower body absolutely bare. Now, the garden is overlooked by surrounding properties, but I didn't care, it was time to defy the gloom of winter, the economy, tax demands, etc. The photographer followed me out and got a few great shots. We immediately put one on my webpage, at www.naughtycatherine.org

That's enough of my ramblings for this post. There will be more about my life, times, and misadventures in future postings. I can be emailed at naughtycatherine@googlemail.com or if you feel his girl needs to have her recently chilled bottom, given a thorough warming up, then call me on 07515 007 720