Cheap but nasty parking

As with most things in Oslo, off-street parking can be shockingly expensive. Back when I used to still make such computations, I worked out that the price of one hour of, not necessarily covered, parking cost around the same as employing a driver for a whole day in Manila. Luckily there is still some on-street parking available around the city for which the local council charges a more reasonable hourly rate. Whenever I venture from my snowy hill retreat into the big smoke, I like to park along Slottsparken which is the park around the royal palace. I nearly always manage to get a spot, and I enthusiastically feed coins into the ticket machine, relieved to have avoided ransoming one of my children for the privilege of a few hours escape in the city centre. However, last week I discovered a barrier, literally, to easy parking.
As you can see in the first ever picture I have managed to extract from my phone, getting a parking place is the easy part. Manoeuvring oneself, one’s baby in his car seat and a pushchair from the car to the pavement is another matter. Clambering over the slush to place the parking ticket on the windscreen is also, shall we say, challenging. Especially in 3-inch heels. I know, I know. Stupid woman for wearing heels and not snow boots but give a girl a break. Pushing a pushchair is hardly glamourous but it does allow the pusher to wear less sensible footwear than is usually possible for half the year in this part of the world so you can’t blame a girl for at least trying to dress well. Next week I head back into the city for a much, much needed hair appointment. I won’t be leaving the heels or the baby at home but I will be swapping the train for the car. The return journey will cost at least three days’ salary for a nurse in the Philippines but as I said, I’ve long stopped making such calculations.