Norwegians go nuts for sun shocker. Exclusive!

As it's my first time between the blogging sheets I'm as eager as a fifteen year old and ready for action again right away. Although I'm well aware I may be popping all of my creative pips in one go, I'm going to shoot away regardless. So here goes.

I wrote this (for a Norwegian audience I suppose) a few weeks back when I first experienced some sort of semblance of summer here. It'll just go to waste if I don't use it and I think it does raise some interesting questions about the Norskies. See what you think anyhoo....


I’m used to being confused in Oslo. The language, the cost of living, the attractiveness of the people, the fact that your government runs the only shop selling anything stronger than beer (revolutions have started for less!); it all confuses the hell out of me.
But this weekend something happened that pushed my fragile mind over the brink and into the realm of utter bewilderment. The sun hit town.
Not only did it hit, it blazed down in all it’s big, life affirming glory and totally transformed the Oslo that I thought I knew. I’d heard the legend ‘Oslo er bedre om sommeren’, but I thought that was just something you told pathetic English people in mid-January when they complained that it was ‘so cold I think I’m going to die, right here on this bloody pavement’.
But it’s true – a little bit of sun makes a whole lot of difference; to the city, but especially to its people.
All of a sudden it was like somebody had literally put the lights on, bing. Moods were happier, music was louder, a Mexican wave of windows opening swept across the city blocks, but it was the parks – my God, the parks! – that made me think I’d woken up in the wrong European capital. They were madness.
Suddenly every bit of green was pink. The grass that had lain empty ever since I’d been here, except when it was entertaining it’s old friend snow, was awash with a sea of bodies that had spilled, as if by magic, out of every doorway in town.
There were balls flying through the air, barbecues burning, skin sizzling (both human and animal), confusing little games going on with wooden blocks and sticks (what’s all that about?), wheels turning, kids laughing, adults drinking and everybody, everybody, smiling like they’d just seen a long lost friend. In short, it was amazing.
Coming from Manchester, and Glasgow originally, I can relate to the fact that seeing the sun isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence for you people, but I’ve never seen this sort of reaction to 20 degrees C before. At home it’s either a reason to drink more, or complain slightly less, but hardly an excuse to throw the biggest street party since the Queen’s coronation.
With my limited knowledge of the workings of the Norwegian mind, I’m going to hazard a guess and suggest that it’s because you’re a nation that appears to love being outside. That probably also explains why you lust after balconies (I’m sure my girlfriend Renate, the reason I’m here, would swap living with me for a nice terrace), think nothing of sitting in traffic for eight hours a weekend to get to your mountain/seaside huts and are so sickeningly bloody fit.
(Sickening for me that is, certainly not for you. I’ve had to start jogging since I’ve got here just to fit in. I feel like such a loser if I just go for a walk while everyone’s racing past me in those slim black bukkser that show absolutely everything that God gave you.)
Anyway, it was a nice change and showed me a side to the residents of Oslo that I’ve never seen before – in fact it showed me quite a few sides. You do like sunbathing, don’t you?
If summer’s going to be anything like last weekend then I think I could get used to it here. It might even be a whole lot bedre than being back in Manchester.