I wasn’t one of those people who went to bed one night speaking one language and woke up with 4. I had learned German years ago in a classroom and that’s now kept alive through the lovely German arm of the family. Learning Norwegian in situ was a different ballgame …
My reference points are mainly shaped by my upbringing in Ireland and living in London for over 10 years. So my past experiences shape the version of normal that I know, how I expect people to behave, or not, as the case may be. It takes a while to create a …
So you start off with filling out all of the forms that you need to tell the system in your new country that you have arrived and are planning to stay for at least forever in our case. It was a big move with 2 kids and even though we …
She would fall down just about anywhere as long as it was grassy and preferably with trees between her and the sky. The forest floor was one big soft bed to this two year old. We would go for a walk in the forest on a Sunday and my daughter …
So let’s get this out of the way, a pint of beer in Norway is about 90 to 100 NOK or Norwegian kroner which translates roughly to about €10 or GBP£7. So comparative to most places in the world, it is expensive. There is no way in hell that an …
Not so long after his 5th birthday, we got notification from the barnehage (kindergarten) that all of the 5 year olds were invited to stay overnight one Thursday in springtime. Outdoors of course, remember the gapahuken with the low roof and 3 walls? He would be sleeping in there in his woollens …
Sheep are these amazing creatures that give us wool; they get a hair cut and we can have a new jumper out of it. It’s incredible really. They don’t even complain about it because by the time they get hair cuts in late spring, they are beginning to overheat anyway …
Hats off to my husband, he found our home in Oslo in a very high demand rental market. His family was arriving in 2 weeks and his wife was allegedly screaming down the phone at him from London that we were homeless with 2 kids in 2 weeks. It was one of …
And suddenly I had 2 kids in barnehage and I had to figure out what I was going to do to earn a living. The obvious thing was that I needed to learn the language. We had come here for the long haul. You can’t belong anywhere without speaking the …
It took us 6 months to get barnehage (kindergarten) places for the kids. Those 6 months were wonderful, it was like a second shot at maternity leave but without the exhaustion and the boob feeding. My husband was working every day and the kids and I were up and out to …
