Norway

Norway - in its usual, familiar engulfing beauty stretches out from the window beside me. The snow flakes tumble in that romantic, sensuous Christmas-time delight. The wooden floors and painted wooden furniture are crammed in around a fireplace and although my whole family sits around decked out in black - there is something intimate and bitterly sweet about being back in a place so connected with my childhood, surrounded by a language so singsongy and bright that it makes me smile just to listen to it. My mother is instructing us on how we are going to have to practice carrying the coffin down the aisle at my Granny's church, pondering if the correct etiquete is right or left foot first, 'Becky - you don't mind being the only woman carrying it - do you?' and before I even reply the very idea is swept away, to be replaced by discussions of whether the ice will prevent the people from outside Oslo getting in on time. It is cosy and sad all at once -- and the black bread, the pølser, the herring, brown cheese and jarlsberg all sum up every holiday here over the years. It is hard not to believe that we are in fact leaving for cross country skiing up in the mountains tomorrow - or a visit to all the distant relatives for long drawn out coffee and cakes. It is hard to remember - even as we debate the details of it - that we are in fact here for Granny's funeral. I think she would have been happy to see us all here together. She would have approved of a woman carrying her coffin - although dissaproved of the need for an etiquete of how to carry it. She would have laughed heartily at how long it took me to get here - and my mad dash to the airport - after receiving my passport only minutes before I left for the airport - and my flatmates dashed around the house packing for me because I had two minutes to book a flight and get a taxi ready and waiting to pull me away from the trawl of St Andrews to the winter wonders of Oslo. My minutes of computer access are running low so I leave this blog - in a lighter spirirt than yesterday - although in many ways more somber.