SEVEN DAYS IN NORWAY: DAY 3/1 Migraine and shopping in Arendal

It was the day of the party and I didn’t feel too good. I’d hardly slept and now I had the beginnings of a migraine. The only thing I felt like doing was plunging my head into a bucket of cold water. So instead we decided to hop in the car again and head up the coast to Arendal, the nearest town. Frog was determined to find his flag.

Arendal was hot – and busy. At last we’d found some people (not that I wanted to). They thronged the quays of a sprawling inleted blue and white harbour filled with bobbing boats small and medium. While Frog wrestled with a parking machine, with most of town’s population, it seemed, clustered round offering help and advice, I sat on a concrete step in the shade. Then we headed for the town-centre.

At least, we thought it was the centre. It was so low key, it was hard to tell. The shops were discreet, like the headquarters of posh banks. They didn’t scream their wares in garish colours, not to say music, like those in the UK. We found what we thought was a mall (I can’t remember what gave it away) and there we found a map shop. Hooray. For 229 krone (£23) I could now discard my 40-year-old Bil- og Turistkart, my sketchy Google printouts and our confused sat-nav lady. Or so I thought . . .

Maps old and new

In the mall we also found a Vinmonopolet and for £33 bought my aunt – with whom we were going to stay after the party – two bottles of wine.

    Because they have such a problem with alcohol misuse in Norway it’s only available – at vast expense - in state-run shops with restricted opening hours. I do remember from my childhood the sight of drunken men staggering about at all hours - which was slightly unnerving. But I hadn’t seen anything like that this time. And anyway we can hardly talk any more in the UK about the excess consumption of alcohol and its mis-timing. Nor do I blame the Norwegians, with their long cold dark winter to endure.

    It had been however a little shocking as we entered Kristiansand airport on our arrival to be shepherded straight into a duty-free alcohol shop, where the Norwegians loaded up trolleys with glee as if on Supermarket sweep. Frog and I didn’t quite have the gall.

In the centre of what we thought was the centre was a granite statue that looked rather rude from the side. Wow, these Scandinavians, I thought. But when we went round to the front of it, it turned out to be a fine male torso.* There was also a market selling different types of foreign food, which was a pity as we were on the lookout for brown Norwegian goat’s cheese (gjetost) which Frog loves and which is difficult to find in the UK.

No flags either, so Frog headed off at speed up side roads and along the front looking for something like a chandlery, and I stumbled after him.

Eventually however we had to admit defeat and, back at the hotel, I careered into the sea and put my head underwater. The relief. I almost felt human again. Which was lucky as in the sea I encountered my two sisters who’d just arrived after touring some of Norway with their children. The party was starting . . .

* Perhaps now is the time to apologise for the lack of pictures. I was so busy taking everything in that I didn’t have time to take photographs, and it’s only now that I realise what was important. In any case, because there were no other tourists around, it seemed rather crass to go around snapping. Things do improve.

Click here for the next instalment