Sunrise/sunset: 08:50/16:11 Daylength: 7hr21min

It’s been a crazy week! It started well, with me returning to work and feeling much more like my normal self. I’ve a couple of cases I have to complete or pass on and I am working with Ingrid to go through as many of the semi-routine tasks she will be taking on as possible. She is learning so fast that I can see that she will soon outstrip me, which is wonderful as far as I am concerned. My aim was always to get the public veterinarian things running as well as possible and I had made a start, but I can see she is the ideal person to complete the process.

There were also two students in the abattoir this week. Amanda and Glenn are at university in Hungary (I think – no doubt someone will correct me if I’ve got that wrong) and are on the various rotations that usually come in the last year of a vet degree. Amanda is Norwegian but Glenn is from Ireland and they met at university. I haven’t been much involved with the students before – there are some most years – but as team coordinator, it was one of my jobs to ensure they completed the tasks they have to achieve.

It was great having them there and I was able to ramble on a bit about my favourite theme, which is creating and maintaining chains of information between separate teams within Mattilsynet and other agencies, in order to build up a kind of animal welfare map of the area. They seemed both interested and enthusiastic and told me that before they came, they thought Mattilsynet could be boring, but that they were impressed by how wide ranging and important the job we are doing is. As far as I am concerned, my job was done then, even before I ticked off the boxes and put my signature to the more routine things they had to learn about. Hopefully they will consider Mattilsynet as a career, even though they intend to start out working in practice in Ireland.

On Wednesday, my pleasant last week was severely rocked when the team from the removal firm phoned and told me they were coming that day and not on Thursday as planned. My objections that I was not ready were swept aside and I was told it had to be today as they had to be somewhere else tomorrow. Thank goodness for my wonderful colleagues. Trude immediately calculated an alternative plan for who could do what and told me I should go.

The call came in at twenty past eleven. I rushed home and quickly put the last few things in the dishwasher and switched it on. Most things were already organized, but there were a few last minute tasks. As well as the dishwasher, I had to pack clean clothes for the last few days at work and my ten day journey to the UK and I intended to go through each room to remove the last of the items which were to be left behind or thrown away.

On the phone, I had told them I finished work at three, so I thought I had a bit of time, but the lorry rolled up at one, before even the dishwasher was finished. They decided to make a start on the bedrooms while I worked in the kitchen. They were super speedy at dismantling the beds, not so good at wrapping everything up, as they were meant to. I took a picture of the half-packed van and on checking it just before I started writing this, I can see that my lovely light-colored bed bases, under and over mattresses have been put uncovered into the van. Given that the beds were the most expensive items and the ones I most wanted to take to the UK as they are made my a Norwegian company that doesn’t sell products in the UK, I am even more underwhelmed than I was on the day. They also put my electric keyboard in, unwrapped, but unfortunately I don’t have a picture of that.

They were also barely filling the boxes at the start, then when they came to the last room, they told me I had too much stuff and they were running out of boxes. I was booked in for ten cubic metres, they said, and was already taking up fifteen. I asked if it was likely I would be charged more and they said it was quite possible.

By that point, I was seriously starting to feel quite panicky. The move was already costing £6,000. If they charged me half as much again, it was quite possibly going to end up costing more than it would have done to replace everything. They were urging me to come in and decide which items were most important. This was in the last room, where I had actually already sorted everything out from the garage and other rooms, so everything in there was really non negotiable. Ignoring their urging, I walked away, found the Pickford’s e-mail, copied down the phone number and called them. To my relief, someone answered immediately. I explained the situation and he assured me he would find out what was going on and would get back to me. He also told me that he could immediately tell me that the information they had given me was wrong as I was booked in for twelve cubic metres.

I can see from my phone records that I called them shortly after three in the afternoon. Given that they weren’t meant to arrive until three and this was them packing the last of my stuff, you can probably imagine the whirlwind that had rushed through my house. The man from Pickford’s called me back half an hour later, by which time the van had departed. He asked me what they had told me when they rang to say they were coming a day early and I told him. Apparently they had told Pickford’s that they had called and asked me if it was okay to come today. I assured him that wasn’t at all how the conversation had gone. He also said I had been booked in for twelve cubic metres and the final load was fourteen, and that the extra was no problem at all. My furniture will likely be placed in storage until I can find a house, so he said he would arrange for the first month of storage to be free.

After the call ended, I sat down on one of the kitchen stools and spent a few minutes looking out at the snowy mountain and the winter trees, pulling myself together. It felt like a sad ending to my life in Fagerfjellveien. I had expected to spend one last night in the house and that had also been taken away from me, along with the unwrapped beds. I had messaged Shirley at quarter to three so ask if I could stay the night. She messaged me back to say yes, just before four. Abandoning all thoughts of any more tidying, I set out to Shirley’s house. Wonderful woman that she is, she opened a bottle of wine and fed me comfort food, then installed me in front of the TV to watch Hearbeat with a dog on my knee, before going out to a prearranged yoga class.

I spent Thursday (which I had booked as a holiday so I could supervise the removal company) sorting out all the things that had been left behind and trying to empty the house. John came after work with a friend’s trailer and we took the washing machine and some broken furniture to the refuse centre. Then after that, I made my way along the icy backroads to Konstantin’s house. He is cat sitting for Ann at the moment, but had agreed to give me a bed for the nights when I have to be up early for work the next day. I made myself a lovely curry and then went to bed.

Friday was another enjoyable day at work, carrying out the routine live animal inspections as well as tidying up a few loose ends . To my delight, Ingrid sent out next week’s rota and summarized the week at the weekly are Teams meeting. She is already integrating herself into the team, joining Trude and Konstantin in being efficient and really getting things done. Thomas also said in the meeting that he hoped I would come back, which was lovely.

Last night there was a party in Finnsnes. We had lovely tapas and Hilde summarised my time with Mattilsynet and presented me with a beautiful book with photos and descriptions of Senja. It was a lovely end to a mostly pleasant week and also a celebration of my time spent here in wonderful Troms in the north of Norway. And while this will be my last dispatches from the far north, I will carry on blogging for a while. I hope you will all come with me now on my new journey.