Liar, liar, pants on fire.

On Thursday evening, my five-year old said, “Mummy, you said that it always rains in Ireland and it isn’t”. She may as well have said, "Mummy, you're a big fat liar and don't know everything". She, of the extremely short memory when it suits her, had forgotten the incessant rain between Christmas and New Year – or maybe she didn’t notice as she didn’t step outside the house. Friday morning, she looks out the window and squeals, “Hey, look it’s snowing, it’s snowing”. And sure it was, big dollops of the stuff falling from the Irish sky, or, as the kids put it, it was like hoards of white bugs dropping to the ground. “But Mummy, you said that it NEVER snows in Ireland”. Er, well, it doesn’t, normally. Within an hour the snow had turned to driving rain and normal climatic conditions were restored whilst I had been exposed as a liar twice in 24 hours.
Well we’re back in Oslo now, where the white bugs are really falling fast, the tip of my nose is chilled and my feet are sighing relief at not being squeezed into high heels for the first time in a fortnight. No more 24-hour (or even 7-day opening) supermarkets, no more lovely English-language newspapers and television news, and no more idle chatter with people in the street/elevator/shops/queue. I think my weather predictions might just be better here than in Ireland though. “Yes darlings,” I said this morning, “it’s snow, and it’s going to be falling for the next three months, so get used to it”. Let’s hope I’m wrong. On this one I think I can bear being branded a liar.