On my way...

So, this morning I headed off from ‘home’ through Stockholm and our snowy, alien landscape – past the forests full of evergreens wearing their white coats, and the others wearing nothing but the ice and snow…  In a lovely minus 5 degrees, in jeans and boots, a hat and coat and was freezing…

To the airport with the runways covered in snow, where de-icing airplanes is a regular thing.  Through the check-in counter and security, the stores that litter all international airports.  Through passport control and up to the gates near where the plane will depart…

A normal morning when travelling, up and ready and out to the airport, getting through all the normal checkpoints – with nothing out of the ordinary.  Except this time SO is not with me…  We have spent all but 2 (separate) nights together in the last 16 or so months – and most days too, between travelling together for almost 6 months and then a while where we set up the house on our return from overseas, and now back to how we started - in working together.

It’s a weird and surreal experience to look up at the fairy floss clouds as we pop out of the top of them into the bright sunshine and smile, without being able to share it with him…

I’m expecting the temperature in Melbourne to be something cooling down from a 30 odd degree day when I arrive tomorrow, which I’ll lay odds on won’t be in the negative temperatures – nor have the snowy landscape that I’ve gotten so used to recently.  The coat has come off for getting in the plane – although I always find planes so cold I’m huddled under the polar fleece blanket they provide anyway…  I expect the boots and socks, as well as the singlet under my top will have to come off – if not before Melbourne, at least by the time I’m in the airport there… 

I expect that my body will be warmed in the sun, my head and heart will be warmed by catching up with the people there that I love and miss so much so regularly.  I also expect that everything will feel just a little less warm not having SO with me…  

Coming home...

Well, I'm getting to make a quick trip home...

It will be a busy one with packing and moving out of the apartment that SO and I moved into oh so briefly 11 or so months ago and putting our things into storage.  It's a real mixed bag of feelings - we were only there for about 4.5 months in the end and we've paid all this rent for nothing, but it was our first place together and it's a really lovely one...

Living away from home - as I've mentioned in previous posts brings mixed blessings, the opportunity to experience a different culture and country and people - not just from a tourists point of view - but from a living it, breathing it, working it, sleeping it 'local' kind of view...  and then there's the whole missing home and family, lifestyle, regular haunts, and as a wise friend said recently just your ease of being disappears...

I'm beside myself excited to be able to be coming home to see some people and have the opportunity to sort out some of the things that we want to have with us before I come back over.  I'm also so sad not to be bringing SO with me, sad that we'll be apart for a time (even if only for a few weeks - it's the longest we'll have been apart since we've been back together), sad for him that he doesn't get to make the run home - doesn't get to catch up with people, doesn't get to see our first apartment together one last time...

So, with my excitement right up there - I head off with a slightly heavy heart on Wednesday morning to get through some heavy, hard things - with some help, hugs and support from my peeps on the home front...  Before heading back to Stockholm for this life that has somehow chosen us for the next 12 to 15 to ? months.  Wish me luck!!

Snow...

Snow...

It's such a foreign thing to us as Melbournians - I mean, I've made the 5 or so hour trek to Falls Creek and the shorter 2-3 hours to Mount Bulla for boarding a few times (albeit a couple of years ago now)...

But, living in it - day to day, walking through it to get to the train station, to work, and home again each day - that's something altogether different...

It creates a really alien landscape, beautiful, eerie, fresh and crisp...  I love the way it makes everything lighter - and here that's a really big thing.  Without it here it's very dark and grey a lot of the time...  Thankfully the days are getting longer - so the sun's up before 8am and setting after 4pm these days, the darkness - much more than the cold is a really hard thing to get used to...

It snowed yesterday, snowed and stayed for the first time in weeks - we really thought that winter seemed to be coming to an end, but yesterday it came back again - and today it was sooo beautiful...  Looking out the window this morning, the courtyard in all full of fresh snow, and the trees and street out the front all white and pretty...  And it was deep when we stepped out the front door this morning, there'd been something like 15cms overnight - and walking across the square to work it was cool that they hadn't thrown the grit in it yet that they normally do - and the path through was not from some artificial source - but was just there because people had walked there and everyone that came through just found it easier to follow in the footsteps that had come through before them...

It made me smile today, to see it all white and pretty and fresh - you kind of forget how white it is - when it's fresh like that...  After the cars come through on the roads (not so much today as they were mostly snowed in!) and the grit gets thrown down to make it easier to walk through, it's grey and then when the days are dark and grey, it's a really grey feeling...  But today, white and light and bright...

I'm glad it came today, and glad that it was such a big fall overnight and that there wasn't yet the time for it to be grey and we got to see it that way - I go home to Melbourne in a few days, just for a quick trip to pack up our apartment and put our lives into storage before heading back over here for the next 12+ months - and while I know that I'll see more snow, if not this winter (which we're no longer kidding ourselves is coming to a close) - certainly the next one but it was nice to get this fix before heading home for a couple of weeks...

I even got to make a snow angel finally (was getting worried that I'd missed my chance!!)...