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unsurprisingly, the weigth snuck back. Not all of it, but more than enough for it to be too much. So this is what my lunch might look like on a fine day like today. And no crisps. And only very little chocolate. Between this and the gym I should be in top(-ish?) shape in a couple of months.
Unkept city park
Sunlight falling on weeds.
Time to see this
...so my baby took me to the zoo. In his mind, going to the zoo is one of the must-do romantic things that every couply couple absolutely must do before they rightfully can call themselves a couple. I wasn't as convinced, having grown up in a zoo-deprived environment where "the zoo" equalled the Frösön animal park in Østersund, of which I can mostly remember non-showing lions, unpleasant, iffy smells and a scary episode of mistaking some stranger for my dad. On a more abstract level there is also the animals in captivity-issue. However, I can now report that after having caved in and gone to the Dublin Zoo that I am a changed woman. I now agree completely: there can surely not be anything quite as romantic as seeing a rhinocerouses arse with the person you love.
Also, we saw this very strange bird, which apparently is something like a flying dinosaur. Cool.
I like to get a little bit lost sometimes.This is a shot from when I got a little bit lost in Riga last week. I was only going to the Statoil station for a coffee, then decided to make a little walk around the block of it. Turns out the blocks in Riga are a great deal bigger than the ones I'm used to. On my way around the block I saw this beautiful church, I saw two statoil stations and a narvesen kiosk - both of which gave me the oddly pleasing feeling of being a cultural imperialist that is in fact quite rare when you come from Norway, and I got heckled at in Latvian by a couple of twelve year olds -I'm guessing it was because of my big camera, but who knows really. I also found myself a new favourite ice cream and had a thrilling feeling that I actually might be really lost. All in the course of half an hour or so - not bad, huh?
But finally I'm well again. I wow to wear thick sweaters and socks and eat lots of vitamin C and not work 14 hour days any more for the rest of the winter.
Well, that certainly helps! Nothing like the sense of accomplishment (earned or not) one feels when one witnesses the beginning of a new field division. Ok, maybe inappropriate use of the term "one" - should be "I". I suspect this isn't a universal pleasure. Nonetheless, for me it is one of the greatest feelings to be had in my professional life. Seeing something work. The best.
I think it must all be a winter thing. The restlessness, the reluctance, the nervousness, the exhaustion. The constant hesitation. The not wanting to live in trains, planes and hotels all the time. The not wanting to go to bed when I should, the not wanting to get up in the morning. The not wanting to eat dinner someone else has cooked, the craving for cake. The not really feeling that great after exercise, even. The melancholy of having to travel in stead of building snowmen, when the snow is obviously falling for that specific purpose.
it's all a winter thing, and winter is passing. Winter solstice is already two weeks behind us.
All temporary.
That time of year again. I never was one for the big resolutions - or rather, I always was, but not particularly on new year's eve. This year, I have two.
1.Spend more time with the ones I love
2.Get some exercise three times a week. Should be doable.
...well, actually, to be a bit more correct: taking the train home to Selbu by way of a workday in Lillehammer and one in Trondheim. But for christmas, yay! I had to bring one suitcase just for the christmas presents I'm bringing. I'll be having a ball: more than a week off from work and also from the atkins diet. I'll be vacillating between semi-sleep and sugar highs the whole time, I suppose.
Train travel in the winter is so beautiful, too, if you can manage to do it in the daytime. The only dissapointment thus far is that I'd forgotten just how mordor-like Trøndelag really is this time of the year, with barely a glimpse of light all day. How I survived growing up there is a bit of a mystery. The people are nice though. Hobbits rather than Orks.
It's true. Then again, they're all my favourite seasons. Admittedly, winter is cold, and cold isn't always pleasant. But it is beautiful - unbearably so almost. And everything is so crisp and clean. We don't really have any snow here in Oslo yet, but that will happen in good time. Until then there's frost, there are thousands and thousands of christmas lights, there's the sensation of coming inside again from the cold, there is the smell of cloves and cinnamon, there are christmas parties and christmas lunches and before long there will even be christmas. All is well with the world.
