In between yesterday and tomorrow

So for the first time in a few years, it's time for a post from the phone :-). Mainly because it's the end of the year and we're not actually going to be home till the new year! So here I am, sitting by a stunningly crackling log fire and a prettily lit Christmas tree, typing into my phone :-D.

We're back in the UK for the Christmas holidays. Which still feels like a bit of a special treat even a couple of years on from Covid. Although, by the sounds of it the no longer so novel coronavirus doesn't seem to be ready to head off quietly just yet. Luckily, barring the cold at the end of November, we've managed to avoid further respiratory drama.

It's been a relatively quiet holiday time this year. Which I've rather appreciated. It's true of most years, but feels particularly the case this time around, this feeling that the year has just rushed past. Spring feels at once hardly any time ago and at the same time so far away that I can hardly remember the details from our long awaited India trip.

The cross-country skiing was really good this year though! With some longer trips as the daylight hours got longer helping me feel like I was getting back to really stretching myself on the skiis rather than just trundling along :-). Which came in quite handy once we started cycling! The first downhill skiing weekend in many years also feels like a highlight worth mentioning. Maybe it'll be nice to do some more of that this time around.

I think in many ways one of the highlights of the year was the cycling! We managed to more or less consistently cycle throughout the snow-less months, all the way from April to October!! And out of the various cycling adventures, the most utterly crazy one was obviously the 400km North Sea cycle in May :-). A bit like the Hallingdal and Numedal cycle in 2020, it continues to feel a bit surreal that we actually managed to do it!

But the fact that we ended up cycling three times as much as we drove in the summer was less down to that one trip and more down to the fact that afterwards, we kept going out on the bikes almost every week, not least all the trips to and from work :-). Hopefully that's something I'll keep doing next year! It's a good feeling, the distance getting easier, finding a level of fitness I'd missed...

On the travel front it was a bit of a mixed bag, the most I've travelled for work in years, but also a fair bit to visit family and friends! India was a highlight, as were the weeks in Bath in the autumn and of course the trip to Jordan more recently.

No post these days is really complete without a little bit about the books :-). The Culture series, of course was a highlight, although most of that I read last year except for the last book. What followed, now that I look back, seems to have been a heady mix of book club books, graphic novels and Middle Earth! And genuinely, it's been really fantastic!

All the Brian K Vaughan stuff was slightly weird, but gripping, Monstress was definitely eye opening and fresh. And then Gaiman was, well, Gaiman :-). But the most fun I had immersing myself into books this year was reading Tolkien! Sometimes the old stuff is the best stuff!

On a more immediate note, I have actually started reading again. The book club book for this month, The Girl with the Louding Voice, was an interesting one. I had very little idea as to what to expect and I have to say,  found it generally engaging. The writing is quite nice, particularly the evolving English as the story progresses. It will be interesting to see how the different members of the club made of the overall story.

I then decided to start on next month's book, one None of this is True, which is rather a different kettle of fish. I don't like thriller types that are trying to be oh so clever :-|. They annoy me. And I find myself trying to get through this one as quickly as I can so that I can return it to the library before the return date. Turns out someone else actually wants it, 'cos I can't actually extend the date any more...

The biggest deal of course was the new apartment! And it's properly official, now that we've got the keys and everything :-). Hopefully the moving will be as painless as everything else has been up to this point :-). I guess that one is definitely the beginning of a hopefully long journey.

So, as I often do in such situations, I went hunting for my post from when I got the keys for our old apartment (which is only old as a contrast to the new one at the moment, seeing how we haven't actually moved yet). I genuinely think, if someone had told me at that point that I'd live there for ten and a half years, I'd not have believed them! I mean, up until that point in my life, I'd never lived anywhere for that long at a stretch :-). Just goes to show, one really doesn't know what's around the next corner in life.

I guess that's as good a place as any to call it a day/month/year. Looking back and appreciating much of what has been, looking forward in hope for the things to come :-).

PS. This one also has a bright red door :-D.

Interlude

I should really post those photos that go with last month's post :D. I keep thinking about it, but for once, the sheer number of them seems to defeat me, and I keep putting it off... Oh well.

In the mean time, it's snowed some more! The snow from October did disappear after about a week, but since then the temperature's been below -10°C and now the snow seems to be back! Not quite enough to get into cross-country season though. 

Or, maybe it's just been a bit too hectic for that. It is that part of the year, where being active and lively takes that much more effort, everything feels dreary and somewhat miserable. Yup, not my favourite time of year in Norway. However, it's less than a month now till the days start getting longer!

It was nice to get away for a long weekend to the UK actually! Nicer weather, more autumn than the depressing part of winter :). Met family, ate amazing food. The usual :). Well, almost followed India losing the CWC finals... Can't have everything I suppose.

And then at the beginning of this week travelled to the Netherlands for a work trip and the colds and what not that seem to have been felling people all around us finally caught up with me :(. Amersfoort was nice though, what little of it I got to see in one short evening stroll. At least it wasn't raining then :|. So yeah, this week's kinda been miserable. But working from home does have it's perks, extra sleep, let stress, less talking. I guess I'm also in my not too happy to socialize phase just at this moment. Hmm.

I guess there's also the fact that I've basically not been reading at all for most of this month. And I partly blame Votan. It's one of those books I bought because Neil Gaiman wrote an amazing intro for it that I read. While it's not been 100% the case, but I'm beginning to get the feeling that while I absolutely love his own writing, and I do appreciate from time to time where he gets some of his ideas from, his actual taste and mine probably differ quite a bit :|.

So yes, Votan. Cheeky, annoying, and quite mean mostly. But also one of those characters that seems to be around at least partly to hold a mirror up to everyone and everything around them. Well written, no doubt. I guess just not a great read for the darkening miserable winter :).

Instead, I've been spending a bunch of the time I'd otherwise be reading, playing NFS No Limits! And loving it! It's been absolutely aaages since I've played anything Need for Speed :D. It also turns out I'm eight years late to the party, but who cares?!

It's really fun to get into something that does, by and large, let you get on at your own pace. Unless you get bored accumulating XPs (or whatever they're called in this one) to get to the next level in the campaign that is. But I'm just happy racing with as little drama as possible. Yes, swiping and tapping on the phone is not nearly as fun as mashing the arrow keys and slapping the spacebar, but hey, still a lot of fun :). I suppose I will get bored at some point, but not yet :D.

Right, that's enough screen time for now.

Of Petra, dreams and fading

Wow! So October's come and gone, and while it feels like it's barely been any time since we got back from Amman, it also simultaneously feels weirdly faraway. I've definitely had things I've desperately wanted to put down. Sat in front of one or the other laptop but never typed a word. Why is that? Not sure. Maybe I just needed a little bit of space to let things settle.

Either way, here we are, and I've a bunch of stuff to share! So we went to Jordan for a week, on holiday! Also to see some friends who'd moved there and we hadn't seen in years. We were flying through Istanbul, and despite the rather hair-raising aborted landing attempt, arriving in Amman was like stepping back into summer. In a good way :).

Having arrived very early in the morning and not had any sleep for most of the night, I accepted the offer of a bed extremely gratefully and woke up to find mangoes :). It wasn't magic, exactly, involved walking around the corner to the fruit and veg shop, but they were Egyptian mangoes and extremely yummy :).

In between catching up, spending time together with our friends and getting fed amazing food, we managed to explore some little bits of the city. I'd never known that Amman is spread out over a bunch of hills. The number is supposedly seven, but feels like there must be a lot more than that :). The visit to the Citadel gave us a pretty spectacular view of this! Exploring the ruins was also immensely fun, especially with three 3-7 year olds :).

We also got to explore the busy heart of the city with its colourful, bustling streets, noisy shops and myriad of heady smells. At some point found ourselves in a rather excellent restaurant off Rainbow Street sampling rather excessive amounts of amazing food :). We even had the full experience of being a tourist in a taxi with an enthusiastic and opportunistic driver :|. But that was on the way to the Royal Automobile Museum, so all was well in the end :).

For someone that loves cars, and motorized vehicles in general, it is quite the experience! For one thing, the sheer number and spread of vehicles on display is frankly amazing! There's an old Rolls Royce converted to a desert military vehicle from the '50s, there's a Star Wars hover bike from one of the newer films, there's a Ferrari F40, an Aston Martin DB2... And accompanying each car, bike or odd bubble submarine there is a story of the particular royal that vehicle had held the fancy of. In the end we had to rush to get through it all!

We had to rush because we were picking up the rental car. Not from one of the usual multi-national agencies where you book stuff online, but a genuinely authentic experience with a "friend" of our friend. First time I've ever paid cash for a rental car :D. It did serve us well though, for the next three days. Our friend did have to spend a whole day afterwards trying to figure out the peculiar mechanics of how to return the car :P.

The key part of our plan for this road-trip was basically to spend a couple of days at Petra. And hopefully get a good look at the Dead Sea. We started off for Mount Nebo and spent quite a fun hour or two in the memorial church of Moses and looking out over the Jordan valley. I'd not really clocked how sharply the landscape rises up on the west side from the Dead Sea!

We decided to drive down the meandering thread of tarmac to the sea and then drove along practically the whole length of it. The Dead Sea is disappearing. Year by year the level of water drops as more evaporates while less comes in down the river. The serrated edges that make up parts of the coastline told a story of the marching progress of time...

In the midst of the spectacular but altogether rather desolate surroundings we came across some green fields and a restaurant serving lunch. The food was entirely sourced from the surrounding fields, and you got served what was available that day. It was quite liberating actually. No menus, no making tricky choices. Just show up, sit down, and lunch will be served. With some black tea with mint, of course :).

The plan for that first day had originally been to drive all the way down to Aqaba, have a look at the dagger's tip :). But we had to get to our hotel just south of Wadi Musa before it got too late, so we ditched the plan and looked for other interesting, but shorter, routes to At-Tabyeh. The one we picked was the King's Highway, a rather narrow thread of a road, winding its way through the mountains that march down between the valley to the west and the desert to the east.

And what a spectacular trip it was! It's not like I've travelled a crazy amount, but I have clocked a fair number of Earth miles across a few different continents, and honestly the landscape was nothing like I've ever seen! The folds of land morphing from valley to gorge to mountain and then unfolding into plains, then up again into sheer cliffs. No wonder whenever people want to film scenes on Mars, or alien planets, they come to Jordan!

A particular highlight on the way was Kerak and its castle! Thought to be the site of the ancient capital of the Biblical kingdom of Moab, this town is also spread across a few different hill tops. The crown of the central hill is adorned with a castle draped down one side. As far as places to explore go, this was amazing!

As a site built, rebuilt and expanded by successive powers over a thousand years, it's a sprawling complex. And most excitingly, a lot of it has been excavated and made accessible to your average tourist. It's helpful if you've acquired the Jordan Pass in advance of course, because that means entry is free :). I think we spent the best part of the afternoon exploring a variety of levels and eventually decided there was just not enough time to see everything  after a few hours :).

It was pretty much dark by the time we got to our hotel, perched on the edge of a hill overlooking what looked like a moonscape in the moonlight :). We were pretty knackered after a long day so took the offer of dinner gratefully. Turned out the place was family run and the guy at reception called his mother to ask how long before dinner would be ready :). It wasn't long before we were demolishing a massive plate of mansaf. Or trying to at least :).

The next morning we woke up early to see the sunrise slowly play across the spectacular landscape outside our window! Breakfast was another fun experience, but the excitement was building for our visit to Petra! To be honest, I hadn't known all that much about the history of the site, so a little bit of brushing up on my Nabatean history was useful. By the time we'd made our way past the horses and to the entrance of the Siq however, I didn't really have that much headspace for anything beyond the spectacular views!

Walking through the Siq itself is one of my favourite memories now. We did it four times over two days (ignoring many who insisted that we made our way to Little Petra and then onwards on the back way to the Monastery to save ourselves some time), at various different times of day. Each time, the colours were different, glowing pinks, blazing golds, swirling yellows, reds, dark browns... As we walked along the ever changing surfaces alongside and above, it was as if the very curves of the rock faces were dancing around us. Now closing in to embrace one another, now moving apart.

I did know what to expect at the Treasury to some extent, and still it was almost overwhelming! The squeeze of the canyon just before the walls open out to reveal the fantastic, gigantic, surreal and altogether mesmerizing facade, accompanied by a wave of noise! You could argue that the crowd of tourists detracts from the splendour of the site, but honestly, the bustling, lively, almost festive experience transported us to an imagined past in the midst of a funeral feast perhaps, or an annual communal gathering.

One of the things that fascinates me is how little people actually know about Petra. Yes, it was a central site for the Nabateans for hundreds of years. Yes, most of the structures and facades one finds are tombs or otherwise of a funereal persuasion. But did people actually live there? How? Where? Why? No one can say for certain. For me, the questions just add to the beauty of it all.

We decided the best thing to do at the start would be to walk through all they way to the Monastery somewhat briskly. In doing so, we soon left the crowds behind and had more space to enjoy our surroundings. I have to say, so far as the facades were concerned, my favourite is the Monastery! 

It may be that the suddenness with which one comes upon it (You climb a long way up with barely any indication of what it is you are heading towards, and then you turn a corner and there it is! In all its majestic glory, silhouetted against a brilliantly blue sky!) just added a thrill that's hard to beat. Or it could be the fact that being high up near the top of the hill, the more open surroundings give it a grander feel.

Either way, I was totally on a high as we made our way more slowly back down to the basin. Lunch was excellent, and we proceeded to spend a much more leisurely afternoon exploring the ruins of temples, churches and some smaller tombs all the way back to the Street of Facades :). By this time the area in front of the Treasury had transformed into a more relaxed, almost sleepy state. We took our time walking back to the visitor center.

We were pretty beat by the time we got back to our hotel, in time to watch the sun go down. A different but equally beautiful experience as the sunrise which felt like an eon ago.

The second day we'd decided, would be a day of tombs! We managed to explore most of the larger tombs rather thoroughly, particularly the four Royal Tombs. But the previous days' exertions were catching up with us and by the time we'd returned from the Sextius Florentinus tomb, it was more or less a case of ambling down to the basin for some lunch and then slowly making our way back. I think after a day and a half of such an intense assault on my senses, my mind could genuinely take no more :).

We did make a detour to drive the back way on our way out, with spectacular views over the basin. It felt appropriate to drive back to Amman via the desert highway as we marveled at a rather different sort of landscape as the wide open vistas gradually turned to city lights and traffic...

The remainder of the trip was somewhat affected by digestive anomalies, but it was good to relax with our friends for a couple of days before heading back to the real world of nine-to-fives.

Since then of course that part of the world has descended into something approaching hell. I wonder how many of the friendly faces we met have been personally affected, one way or another. There is a very large Palestinian population in Jordan. As they say, in war everyone loses.

--

It feels remiss to not mention the books. I did take my massive copy of The Lord of the Rings to Jordan, even read some of it, but it was after we came back that I finished it. And was left with a distinct feeling of awe. It felt different from the end of The Silmarillion, or Unfinished Tales. It felt a lot more present and immediate. Yet it had a sense of detached grandeur, unlike shall we say the familiarity of The Hobbit.

Unlike the Jordan trip, which I feel has crystallized in my mind with the passage of time, my feelings and thoughts at the end of The Return of the King feel elusive and ephemeral. I do remember that the Appendices felt like a welcome soft landing. A slow careful descent from heady heights.

It was after this that I picked up a book I'd been looking forward to for months! It's not often you read a book written by someone you've personally known! At least I don't :). So it was with great excitement that I plunged into Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments. And what a treat it was!

Again, I feel like I've left it for too long before trying to put my thoughts down. What can I say, life happens, and some moments do not suffer themselves to be looked at too closely in the immediate aftermath.

I'm left with memories of sunshine filtering through curtains and a guava tree. The feeling of a deep sense of longing, sometimes for ungettable things, sometimes finding happiness, sometimes just a sense of regaining one's balance amidst uncertainty. Often finding peace. It was a happy read for me :). 

I realize that you have to probably have a certain view of the world and maybe a particular set of experiences for this story to speak to you personally. Yet, it captures such a wide slice of life. And yes, all the threads aren't tied neatly in a bow, but isn't that what life's like?

While waiting for the next book club book to arrive at the library, I decided to revisit Marvel 1602 and was comforted by the familiar genius of Gaiman :). As always, there were previously unseen depths, more layers, more food for thought.

And then when I did get my hands on Midaq Alley, I wasn't sure what to think. Discussion's next week. Am I looking forward to it? Not sure. It's been a long while since I've had such a negative impression of a supposedly amazing book.

--

Hmm. Anyway. Cycling season, methinks, has finally come to an end. Ended up cycling over three times further this summer than I drove my car :D. I find that that makes me ridiculously happy :). But yes, this last week the temperature's been flirting with zero and finally yesterday we woke up to a white world!

There's actually over a foot of snow in the garden right now, and it's supposed to snow more tomorrow. Unfortunately, this is probably too early for it to stick around. I mean, it's still October! November will supposedly bring with it rain. But who knows, the weather at the moment is anybody's guess really. Either way, given that the switch to winter tires has happened already, I'm hoping for more of the good stuff :D.

Be still and know...

There was indeed cake! And traffic-light jelly :D.

But that was ages ago now, or so it feels. Much has happened since, particularly in the last week. In fact, the happenings of the last week seems to have more or less blown everything else before clean out of my head. Almost :). But let's try to do things in order.

First of all there was the remainder of the England trip, which included a long awaited visit to Stonehenge! Which was very cool! And no, I was not at all underwhelmed! Even though we didn't get to clamber over and under the stones :).

We did get to spend a leisurely afternoon walking all around it, with some appropriately moody clouds, and then walk back to the visitor centre while passing by some of the even older barrows and such. I have to say, I hadn't actually realized that the stones are themselves relatively new compared to some of the other archaeological finds in the area!

It also rather fitted in with my headspace which was strongly influenced by LoTR :D.

The weather in Norway was surprisingly still almost summery when we got back in the beginning of September, despite the 1st of this month officially heralding the beginning of autumn :). So we kept on cycling! In doing so I finally managed to surpass my personal record of cycling done in a given year (since I've been keeping track that is, which was 2013 :D)! The previous record btw, was from 2013! So it's taken a while :).

Unfortunately in the last couple of weeks the weather's definitely turned more autumnal. The maximum temperature barely breaches 15°C and it's been raining most days. Well, the seasons must turn I suppose, and the upside is that the trees have slowly started changing colour.

Have I mentioned btw? We've moved office! I don't think I have. Well, it wasn't far, just across the train tracks from where we were before :). It's good to stay close to where you're happy isn't it? More on that later. But in the mean time, I'm rather enjoying the view :). Bigger windows with direct sunshine is a plus. As is control over when the screens come down and how far :D.

In the midst of the dismal weather and descending gloom, the powers that be seem to try and cheer people up a bit by organizing things. Like the Oslo culture night :). We decided to take advantage of it this year and had a fun tour of the tower of Oslo Cathedral, which used to be a fire watchtower!

We also managed a tour of a fully functioning but somewhat elderly steamship, explored parts of the sprawling new National Museum and finally found our way into the Norwegian parliament! It was all quite dazzling really!

But the main event of recent times has been of course the sudden, surprising and awesome appearance of something we've been looking for for years :). In fact we'd been looking for so long that the finding felt almost shocking, surreal even! Keeping the excitement at bay has been a challenge :D.

I mean, it's not all done, formalities remain, and things wont really get real for nearly another three months. But yes, in the not too distant future, we'll be moving! All of about 150m \:D/ 

PS. Keeps the tag relevant too!!

Not all those who wander are lost

Right! So the "real" August post then :). Life has taken its usual twists and turns and I find myself in a rather happy state of mind :). A notable contributor I'd say has been the cycling! Yes, the summer keeps on giving when it comes to nice enough weather for cycling and enough opportunities to explore. And not just close to home!

For the last couple of weeks we've been in the UK and it has been amazing! Mostly seeing family and spending more than just a short weekend together. Being able to relax and just enjoy hanging out. I've definitely missed this. I feel like it's probably been as far back as February and the trip to India since I last had this feeling of being at peace.

Which is not to say the intervening months have not had their highlights, but there you have it. I just needed to get away and do not too much :).

Bath is a lovely city, I find. From the natural surroundings, with the rolling lush green hills on all sides, to the lovely Avon flowing languidly though, the old stone buildings and general ebb and flow of life. Since my very first visit here back in 2015, there's something about this city that has captivated me :).

As a first, this time we managed to get some cycling in here too! Trips to Bristol, Wells and Lacock in the last two weekends meant I'm now quite a lot more familiar with narrow roads, lovely green cycleways and some stretches of rather busy roads :). The weather has been amazing too! Meaning that it's either been beautifully sunny, or has rained just after we've managed to find appropriate shelter ;).

Another highlight has been the tour of Bath Abbey! With its rich layered history and spectacular architecture and detail both inside and outside, it was well worth the time spent. To be fair Wells Cathedral was also pretty cool, as was Lacock Abbey (the birthplace of photography, no less).

In between the trips and walks and amazing food at home and beyond, I've also spent some time submerged in the phenomenon that is The Lord of the Rings. Genuinely, in the two decades since I first read it, I've read so much other fantasy, and of such variety, that I think I'd rather forgotten the proper epic nature of Tolkien's masterpiece!

I managed to find a proper classic volume from the library with beautiful illustrations, but also the voluminous extras (forewords, appendices, index, the works). And having prepared myself appropriately by reading The Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion and The Hobbit recently, I am enjoying myself immensely!

The level of depth hinted at is probably lost otherwise! There are so many references to the larger backstory! Such a deep tapestry of myth and legend that forms a constant backdrop. I recall the feeling from my first time reading LoTR that this was a heavy read. There was almost too much detail in each page. Now I see more clearly just how much there really is :).

I'm closing in on the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and have also enjoyed the slow and almost imperceptible evolution of tone from the beginning of the story, which almost picks up where The Hobbit left off with its lightheartedness, to the altogether more somber timbre now, as the Fellowship leaves Lorien, reminiscent of The Unfinished Tales.

Occasionally I also lose myself in the Appendices and am glad that I more or less remember much of what is shared in The Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion. The many discreet (and not so discreet) clues implying that this whole story is structured as an account set down by hobbits is a source of constant delight :).

There's a long way to go with the book still. There's also still a few days to go before we head home, so I'm definitely going to enjoy this holiday for all that it's worth :).

There's also the matter of the round number :). A part of me is quite content that it's just another number. But other parts are not convinced. I'm sure some or other shall be variously let down, relieved, happy, a bit morose... Who knows? But yes, life moves ever onwards and it's best to enjoy what one can of each day. In the mean time, there's (probably) cake :D.

PS. SunGod. Most highly recommended!!