This week, amidst the terrible things that are happening around the world, we got the news that we are expected to move back to our previous base at Torp Sandefjord Airport with less than a month’s notice. This, while all legal notice periods are at least three months. How nice to be moved around like pawns, again. I know this is a luxury compared to friends who literally lost their home due to the war in Ukraine and the floods and landslides in Australia… Yet, it feels like another stressor and cause for feeling unsettled. So, we started looking for a new home – my fifth in three years in Norway. I hope we’ll be able to find something that feels like home and that also allows pets.
I’m not too sad about leaving our current apartment. Skye has never grown used to it and she is a lot more nervous in this place than she was in the old. I get it, even I hear sounds through the foundations (Pachal doesn’t, so maybe my ears are a lot more sensitive), so I’m sure Skye hears things all the time and is on edge because of that. This week, after almost a year, she finally didn’t bark at seeing the neighbour walk right in front of our windows. Let’s see what weird stuff she needs to get used to in our next apartment – hopefully none.
We didn’t love our neighbourhood in Drammen, often got strange stares from people and we had strange direct neighbours. But in our current Kongsberg apartment, the neighbours remind me of my neighbours in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
For example, the Cambodian neighbour was the Village Chief and did what he wanted, including putting his trash in my flower pots and walk on my part of the roof terrace (it was divided into two, but often he would be on my part). The Kongsberg neighbour is the Chair of the Building Board and also does what he wants, including claiming common area land as part of his now extended terrace (he probably thinks no-one would notice?) and walk right in front of our windows (on the grass that is common area, but it’s really not a walkway and it is super disturbing to have people pass by your living room windows and look right in).
It’s no secret that I’m also ready for a completely new chapter somewhere else. But Pachal is not done quite yet. And this is where I find it increasingly difficult to be in a relationship. I used to be able to just leave and start over whenever I felt like it, before the feeling of being stuck and bored crept in. But I’ve been feeling stuck and bored for a while – also because I am literally confined to where we live and wherever I can walk in the vicinity as I don’t have my own car and public transport is horrible if you don’t live in cities and city centres. So, if we do stay in Norway, I want to get an old little 4×4 soon. Our electric vehicle will compensate for all the diesel-powered trips I’ll be doing on my own.
wwwanchi 