I miss the weekend. I didn’t do a whole lot. I rested. And rested. Baked a swiss chard tart. And rested some more. I needed all that rest to recover from the last two weeks, which have been very full and very fun and very exhausting. I think I would be have been okay it wasn’t for the early morning shifts I’m doing at work as I cover for the “Before-and-After School Program” person who doesn’t start until tomorrow. Getting up early in the morning isn’t a particular talent of mine and neither is going to bed before midnight, so you can kind of imagine what sort of havoc my 7.30am start is wreaking. The last two Friday nights, I have fallen asleep on the couch at around 9.30pm. That’s just a little bit sad, don’t you think?

It didn’t help that I didn’t get a good night’s sleep during my long weekend in Oslo because the bed at the hotel where Husband and I stayed was way too soft and killed my back. By the time we staggered out of bed last Monday morning at 7.30am to the sound of massive freeway construction just outside our hotel room window, I could barely walk. I had to sit in a hot bathtub for an hour just to get down to breakfast. A soak in a Jacuzzi would have been nice but the hotel’s Jacuzzi was out of order. In other words, if you’re ever visiting Oslo and you don’t like soft beds or construction noise, stay away from the Clarion Hotel Bastion. I feel bad saying that because the front desk staff couldn’t have been nicer and the room was actually quite pleasant (it had a whole “boat” theme going on that worked pretty well), but, really, the beds are dangerous.

Or maybe it’s just me getting old and frail? Because in addition to my back pain, my feet are totally aching as well. I’m pretty sure that’s from spending so much time standing in the classroom and running around on the playground for my new job. My bunion is way sore. And to think I didn’t even know what a bunion was until earlier this year when I visited a good shoe store with my mom back in California. As I tried on shoes, I was chatting with the owner about how difficult it is to find decent shoes and he said, “Well, goodness, with your flat feet and that bunion, I can imagine it’s a challenge for you.” Flat feet? Bunion? I always just thought I had wide feet. What a nimrod I am!

My bunion looks like this*:



I guess part of why I didn’t realize it’s a bunion is that it’s never really caused me any pain before. So why it’s acting up now, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been a professional cleaner for 3 1-2 years; it’s not like I haven’t had an active job prior to working in a kindergarten.

My best guess is it’s because I have to dress up a little bit for work now (as opposed to my sloppy cleaning gear) and I’m not wearing my dirty great sneakers anymore, which my feet apparently love very much. So it’s time for some shoe shopping. The good shoes I bought at the shoe store in California are really summer sandals, not appropriate for the cooler temperatures that have suddenly arrived here in southeast Norway. I really want some Dansko clogs but I can’t find one shoe store in Sandefjord or Larvik that sells them, and I didn’t see them in Oslo, either. Oddly, I found some Dr. Scholl’s clogs at the local Apotek1, which is a drug store/chemist’s, not a shoe store. Do they sell them because they’re called “Doctor Scholl’s?” Or because they’re supposed to be a “healthy” shoe option?

Anyway, I’m going to check them out again today and hopefully buy a pair I can use in the classroom. And then I need a pair of waterproof boots with a big, thick sole for the playground. And cross my fingers that my bunion approves of my choices.


* That is not my foot. That is a random photo from the internet. For some reason, I feel shy about posting a snap of my feet here. I do like the blue polish, though.