The long goodbye

For a while I told myself I was finding it difficult to blog because I'd been in Norway so long that nothing seemed strange enough to be interesting to write about anymore. Now my excuse is that as we're leaving in a matter of months, and this fact colours everything I do here. Everything is tinged with a sense of sadness. After five winters of complaining about the weather, I've come to realise that I don't mind snow after all. In fact, I'm very attached to my snow boots and wonder why I ever missed wearing proper shoes. This weather takes the decision-making process out of deciding what to wear; it doesn't matter as long as it's warm. Did I just say that?! OMG! I HAVE BEEN HERE TOO LONG! This dawned on me in all its certainty, when I looked up lovingly at the ugly grey buildings behind Raadhuset, the same horrible crimes against architecture and beauty that I used to hate. Trouble is that I say that I've been here too long but I don't mean it. I love it here. But I'm not prepared to make the financial sacrifices necessary to stay. So I know we need to go. I'm sure we will have great adventures somewhere else, most likely, somewhere tropical. I kind of hope though that we can come back to Norway after a few years away. I keep telling myself that we will. But that's all a long way in the future.

For now we still have Spring and part of Summer to look forward to here. I have a novel to finish. And this morning I'm going to Toni & Guy to get my roots done while I still can without fear of coming out of the salon with an orange head - this happened twice in Asia. Tomorrow we drive to Denmark for my mother in-law's 70th birthday. Mmm. Maybe there will be one advantage of moving to the other side of the world, if that's where we are going, after all.