Planning a trip down memory lane this Saturday. I need to go to Husfliden in Hamar (which is where we used to live – Hamar, that is, not Husfliden – from I was 4 until we moved to Trondheim when I was 16) in an attempt to obtain the correct sort of material to alter my grandmother’s bunad (national costume) to fit me. She gave it to me before Christmas and she’s (reasonably) been asking about progress ever since. In any case the alterations really need to be done by 17 May, and so I need to get my hands on the material. So here’s to hoping they actually have it.
Anyhow, I thought I’d spend the rest of the day wandering randomly through Hamar, going for a walk on the beach (Mjøsa is not the ocean, but it’s pretty big), maybe I’ll even make it as far as Domkirkeodden. I’ve hardly been to Hamar at all since my grandmother (the other one) died in 1994. I was there once for Stine Pernille’s wedding, of course, but even that is 6 years ago by now. So walking about there again is going to be weird. I’m certainly going to step off the train and feel slightly disappointed at the lack of ceremony. I always do when I return somewhere after a long time away. Subconsciously, I always expect cheering crowds and brass bands and confetti and streamers filling the air, and when everyone else turns out to be sublimely indifferent and go about their business as if nothing extraordinary is happening I always feel a little cheated and slightly deflated. Irrational? Yes.
Anyone want to come with me? Yeah, fun day out. Maybe not. Unless you’d be amused by my going “Ooh, we used to…” and “Oh, I just remembered…” all day, in which case please come along.
Ah, childhood memories. It’ll be fun to indulge for one whole day. I’ll have to stop by the library, it used to be my favourite place in the whole world, after all. I wonder if our old hose is still red, or whether it’s been repainted. It was a mucky yellowy-green when we bought it, and my father dropped a bucket of red paint on my mother’s head while we were painting it. Served her right for standing under the ladder, really. There were pebbles with red splashes in the driveway ever after. They are probably still there, but I suppose the people who live there now might be a bit disconcerted at finding a strange woman in their driveway musing over the pebbles. I could of course repeat my performance from when I was 8 or so, when I went and rang the bell of our first house in Hamar and said “Hi, I’m Ragnhild, I used to live here. Could I come in and see what it looks like now, please?” At least I was polite enough to say my name, and they let me come in and fed me cookies. I somehow doubt the 20 years older version of Ragnhild would get the same reception.
I wonder if the old, empty house across the street is still there? We always used to aim our New Year’s fireworks at it, in the hope that it would catch fire and burn down, it was such an eyesore. It’s probably still there, though. The newsagent where we used to buy chewing gum with Sad Sam stickers before choir practice was shut down years ago, I think. What did we do with all that gum, I wonder? I remember not actually wanting the gum, just the stickers, but I can’t remember ever throwing any away, so we must have chewed our way through it somehow. I should walk through Ankerskogen and find out whether the hollow where I always used to find the year’s first blue anemone (and get my picture in the local paper) is still there. There could even be blue anemone there, but I suppose it might be a bit early.
