19/08/2026
"My favourite hang in Norway however, is much less spooky. The small fishing town of Egersund is on the south-west corner of the country, only 300 miles across the North Sea from Aberdeen."
Some places are too good to actually live in. Often theyâre too expensive as well, so their goodness is not an option anyway. For me, two such cities come to mind: Sydney, Australia and Oslo, Norway. They are both maritime places with opera houses, at opposite ends of the Earth. Sydney is surrounded by combustible bush land; Oslo is precariously near Russia. Everywhere comes at a cost.
Despite having been largely reared by a series of kindly Norwegian au pair girls (all from the small town of Drammen, near Oslo), Iâve never married a Norwegian, or been close to marrying one - and thereâs a good reason for this. I donât think my outlook would jibe with that of a Scandinavian. Iâve tried to picture it, and I think any Norse bride and I would both have wound up shivering into the abyss, unable to console each other about the ever-dimming prospects for our world and our species. The comfort of doom has its limits.
Read more on Substack:
https://robynhitchcock.substack.com/p/i-often-dream-of-norway
