Day 5 - Westbound and down

Neither of us has slept particularly well. The bed in our apartment is just way too soft and wallowy. I get wake up at 05:30, and haven’t dozed off again by 06:30, so I get up. Lying on the sofa, I can feel my eyes are still tired. Curling up, I’m quickly asleep, and manage another 90 minutes. As we’re packing up to head home, it starts to snow again, and is really coming down. I think we had about 8cm of snow last night, and similar is forecast today, with a much heavier dump (snigger) due tomorrow and into Monday. We’ve not really seen much of Tromso by day. It’s a properly pretty little city - lots of interesting architecture, some very cool street art around the place, and loads of funky eateries and drinkeries, if you’ve had the foresight to remortgage your house before heading here.
We drop our bags into our colleagues’ apartment, and head out for some lunch. We find a wonderful little bistro. There’s a momentary deja vu when the server mentions they may not have any tables available, but luck is on our side, and they seat us quickly. I have a reindeer stew, which is a massive bowl of hug, and Vicks has an outstanding burger. Having tried our utmost to spend more than £60 on dinner in South Africa, we now find it’s all but impossible to spend less on lunch in Norway.

We meet up with the gang, and head to the Troll Museum. They play a large part in Norse mythology, and the museum explains how, where and when this happens. Vicki is distraught to discover that the museum is quite critical of trolls, rather than an opportunity to big them up. I’m particularly taken by the section of the museum that describes Ibsen’s poem Peer Gynt, which was then put to music by Edvard Grieg. A couple of pieces of music from the Peer Gynt suite will be instantly familiar to you. The Hall of the Mountain King is one of my favourite classical pieces - massively evocative of my childhood, for some reason upon which I’m unable to put my finger. Jiggy and I play a traditional Norse game that’s broadly similar to Connect 4, which he instantly labels Connect Thor.

We have a little wander around the harbour, and end up in a locals’ pub. There’s some (questionable) live music - a guy doing country style covers of contemporary songs. I’d love to say the drinks are cheap, but they’re not. We have a couple of rounds, and it’s suddenly time for Vicks and me to grab our bags and head to the airport. Liz and Ant bravely offer to accompany us back to their apartment. We have a swift sharpener, wait a little longer for an Uber than is utterly necessary, and we’re at Tromso Airport in decent time for our flight.

Check-in and security are a breeze. Within minutes, we’re rooted in a sports bar in the departure lounge, tucking into a brilliant but wallet-bustlingly expensive bottle of Chardonnay. Our gate is announced, and we hold firm. It’s not a big airport, so it won’t take us long to reach our gate. Our flight is then called for boarding, and we dutifully head down to the departure gate - where we stand waiting for close to an hour. They’ve called us to the departure gate before the incoming flight has even landed - the wank-puffins.

The flight is fairly chaotic. We’ve not had much to eat today, and there’s no food on the flight, save a couple of small boxes of Pringles. Our drinks choices are also unavailable. We throw a quick couple of G+Ts down the hatch, and both manage to sleep through a decent chunk of the flight. Landing into Luton is actually pretty breezy. The airport’s fairly empty at midnight, so few queues with which to contend. We meet our driver, Andy, who tells us that due to the recent car park fire at Luton Airport, we’ve a c. 10 minute walk in the wind and rain back to the car. It’s a pretty miserable experience. Climbing into Andy’s Range Rover, we recline our seats, and manage to sleep most of the way home. Our little ginger warriors are somewhat interested to see us, and we both quickly collapse into bed.Read more