Sunrise/sunset: 06:04/19:19 Daylength: 13hr14min

There has been a chilly reminder that winter is coming in the past couple of days. When I drove up through Sweden, I noticed they already had their snow poles up and I thought it was early, given it was the start of September. But when I got back here, I noticed there were poles lining the roads here as well. And the past couple of days, there has been fresh snow on the mountain peaks.

It wasn’t this picture I sent to my friend, Donna, in Dumfries, but a different one of the same mountain. Her reaction “Looks gorgeous!” would have been mine too, a couple of years ago. Right now I have mixed feelings about it. The chief one is probably, “it’s too soon!” along with some speculation over whether we’ll have to start clearing the driveway before the removal van has to manouevre its way in here!

I am looking forward to being back in a place where my chief reaction, when I look out of the window and see snow flakes in the breeze, is to hope it will lay! The one winter I spent in Castle Douglas (half an hour from Dumfries), thirty years ago, saw temperatures plummet to minus ten and there was such a huge snowfall that a state of emergency was declared! I was so excited, being snowed in for the first time in my life!

Donna also pointed out a Facebook post to me. Dumfries has a celebration each year, celebrating the connections between Dumfries and Norway that were established during the second world war when Dumfries hosted the exiled Norwegian army. I had been speaking to John, only the day before, about how sad I felt that I was probably going to lose some of my fluency and that there probably weren’t enough Norwegians in Dumfries to have any kind of meetings or clubs with Norwegian speakers, but Donna has already offered to introduce me to someone Norwegian. I feel amazingly emotional over the offer. Leaving Norway feels a little bit like losing a part of myself, and that’s something I hadn’t really expected.

It’s very much autumn here now. I went to visit my British friend, Shirley last weekend and took some photos along the way. The sullen sky, ruffled lake and the sunny trees in the foreground made for a breathtaking combination.

Further on, the fjord looked equally dramatic.

Visiting Shirley is like clinging onto my British self, I guess. We chat about anything and everything, but we have lots of shared experiences about how alien it can feel when you have left your home country. Shirley came here so long ago and is so immersed in the life she has built, that she sometimes slips into Norwegian when we’re chatting and she writes down stories about her life in Norwegian as well. She read some of my Hope Meadows books and said it was a long time since she’d read that kind of descriptive language about the British countryside. She had enjoyed it, she said.

I can’t remember if I have talked about Shirley before, but she came to Norway for a year, as a young, unmarried nurse, met and married a Norwegian and had a family, who have long flown the nest. I had often thought, especially when the children were younger, that it would have been much easier, had I been married to a Norwegian. It’s difficult to pick up on the subtleties of social norms and customs, as an incomer. But she is now so connected that leaving is not an option. If it was, would she take it? I don’t know, but she is unable to visit the UK at the moment because of responsibilities here. It often crosses my mind now, that life is so much longer than I envisaged as a young woman and decisions, lightly taken in optimism for the life ahead, can throw very long shadows, much further down the line.

This weekend’s tasks include emptying Andrew’s bedroom, then sorting through my clothes and throwing away those I don’t use. That’s a job that’s long overdue, but my chest of drawers is falling apart. I’m not taking it to the UK, so I have to take it to the rubbish dump. The dump is only open late on Thursday evenings, so I will try to fill my car before then. Six more weeks to go before the house has to be empty. I have to use that time efficiently, given work is ramping up. That said, with the house sold, all other tasks can now take precedence, and that’s great.

I will finish with a couple of autumn photos, also taken last weekend. The autumn colours here are spectacular. Long may they last!