Posts

My first working day passed satisfactorily. From 12.30 to 17 o’clock. Since the child needed fresh air, we went out with him on skis at 16 o’clock, dragged ourselves to the hill. I stood at the bottom and gave the command “down!” in Russian. At that time there were many Norwegian children on the hill, and the hill too was Norwegian, not small, steep, so I stood at the bottom to “catch” “my” child. After several of my traditionally Russian commands “Come on!”, I suddenly noticed that the Norwegian children had stopped skiing and were staring at me with curiosity. ...

The Norwegian primary school is very different from the one we were used to, being in the Soviet Union, and then in the CIS. The traditions of the Soviet school were preserved for a long time. I will not go into details now, but I will say about myself that I would not have been able to work with Norwegian children. The conditions in school are good, no violence against the child — that is the main rule. ...

Governesses, tutoring, babysitting — not typical phenomena for Norway. But I had the chance to be a governess about 5 years ago. I was still studying on Norwegian courses then. I went to town by bus from my village. Once a classmate told me that a Russian woman who works all day in a firm needed a Russian-speaking governess for her 6-year-old boy. He goes to the first class, was born in Norway, speaks Russian, but she worries that he may forget Russian, and in order that this should not happen he needs a Russian-speaking governess. I just happened to be the one who is “a tailor, and a reaper, and a player on the pipe.” ...

In this part I will reveal a family secret, about which I was silent all summer. Today I have in a certain sense a holiday, and for my husband Ivan it is definitely a holiday. They returned his driving licence after a 4-month punishment for speeding: he overtook in a 60 km zone, drove at a speed of 90 km and “straight” ran into a police patrol. They were just carrying out a raid! And also a fine of 1000 euros! As they say, “even an old woman can make a blunder.” The first time in his life he suffered like that. ...

All the same it is dangerous to make a long pause in writing a blog. Some kind of vacuum in the brains. Having been in the homeland, I understood that I have two lives. In the homeland one has to recall the most elementary everyday moments: again adapt to a gas stove, to the absence of hot water, to “native” money which is catastrophically losing value, to people… I lived in the centre of the city of Kyiv. Round the clock noisy, dusty, hot. And at 6 in the morning, on top of that, one can hear how the first metro train passes “under my bed.” What can one say? — The central district of the capital — Pechersk! I beheld a clear advantage over other districts: every evening a virtuoso rubbish truck squeezed through cars parked every which way and with a light movement of the lift quickly threw the rubbish into its body. As they say: “The work fears the master!” Once again one wants to repeat “virtuoso rubbish truck.” I admire their work! The poetry of Labour! Without them we are nowhere! ...

From 0.5 sec. to 3 sec. It turns out like this: we are driving at a speed of 20 km/h. We have seen a cat sitting in the middle of the road and understand that it is not going to run away, but continues to sit on the road. And you are driving at 20 km and in 1 second take the decision to brake. So in that second you have already travelled 5.5 m and pressed the brake on dry asphalt, “stretched” another 2 metres!! That’s all. Stopped. The cat is alive and of course ran away in time. ...

I paraphrased the saying. I want briefly and primitively to describe how to sit at the wheel for the first time. If I now write the phrase “don’t worry!”, it will be useless. “Worry!” But… only until the moment of sitting in the car! Dress comfortably, so that clothes and shoes do not constrain you. Try chewing gum. It calms. Recall where the right hand is and where the left. That is obligatory. You may label them with a felt-tip pen in large letters. ...

I zealously took up the study of driving theory in Norwegian. Many times we bought tests on the computer. I solve, I solve… and the result is 50% correct answers. What to do? What to do? I drag it out… I do not dare go to sit the exam. And one can sit it any day. You arrive, photograph yourself in a booth, pay 600 kroner (60 euros) and go into a computer classroom; they give you 1.5 hours for 45 questions. Of them it is permissible to make 7 mistakes. ...

That wonderful March day arrived when we went by bus to buy a Tesla. A pretty girl-manager so quickly put Ivan in the picture! I stood patiently beside them and also tried to catch at least something. Everything seemed very tangled and computerised. In general, we sat down and drove off. The acceleration immediately impressed: very swift, like in an aeroplane when it lifts off the ground. American scale! And I had puppyish delight! But when we came home, our dog met us, and I at once “sobered up” and say: “And where are we going to take the dog?” We thought and thought and decided not to sell the Citroën, but to keep it for me and for the beloved dog. ...

I will not hide it: at some moment I lost the desire to drive a car. Closer to autumn a problem with the sun begins in Norway. The sun shines low, and when you are driving a car it can appear suddenly from behind a rock or a cloud and blind you. Everything happens in one moment, unexpectedly and very unpleasantly. Norwegians are used to this. But I, an impressionable person who notices everything around, naturally got stressed one day. ...