I feel like a Penguin. Not
the chocolate sort, although I do like them and haven’t had one in a very long
time. I feel like I imagine a penguin would feel if they found themselves in
the Arctic Circle . Looks the same as the Antarctic, but there are
no penguins there. They’d be very much isolated and alone. I feel like a lost
penguin!
I didn’t know until I moved
to Sweden that there are no
penguins in the north and there are no polar bears in the south. All those
nature programmes I watched wondering why polar bears went hungry with massive
colonies of penguins to snack on, and now I know. They are opposite ends of the
world. Polar bears and Penguins are literally poles apart. I find this utterly
fascinating. Why, in whatever ice ages that have occurred, did polar bears not
journey south? They can after all, travel 100’s of miles. Why didn’t penguins
waddle north? What would happen if they ever met? A polar bear and a penguin?
Maybe they would be the very best of friends. Maybe it would be a tragic end
for the poor penguin. Maybe the Polar bear would yearn for more penguins having
had the luxury of one.
When I arrived in
The house we live in, in Sweden was initially
fully furnished, until our container ship arrived from America . Bizarrely,
hanging on the wall in the house was a large print of a colour pencil drawing
of two penguins surrounded by snow. I wasn’t sure if it was symbolic. Should it
make me feel at home or remind me that I’m not? When our furniture finally
arrived after nine weeks, the house was cleared to make way for our things. I
kept the penguin print.
Recently we went to Orsa Bjornpark (ranked No. 1 of 1 attraction in Orsa , Sweden , on Tripadvisor!). We had to journey north, a
good 3 or so hour drive away. The bear park boasts the world’s biggest Polar
bear facility! I would have thought that was Canada ! Strangely, given
how bloody cold it gets in the winter and that northern Sweden is in the Arctic Circle , there are no
native Polar bears in Sweden . The nearest they
get is a 1000 miles from Stockholm , in Norway . I wonder why
they don’t stroll across to Swedish Lapland. There were two Polar bears at the
bear park. Like me, they were a long way from home. They might have been in the
right hemisphere but may as well have been on a different planet.
In the last two weeks my life
has been put in a blender and whizzed up. It’s left a gooey grim
mess. I am faced with my 5th
major move in four years. It no longer feels like an intrepid adventure. Even
though I will going home, I feel like a penguin in the wrong hemisphere. Lost! There
is a delightful story about a job picking up penguins when they fall over. The
story goes that during the Falkland ’s war the Penguins would
watch planes and helicopters fly overhead and topple over. Someone picked them
up. This story is probably untrue but I like the idea of a penguin
picker-upper.
I feel like a toppled over penguin and I don’t have a penguin picker-upper.
I feel like a toppled over penguin and I don’t have a penguin picker-upper.
I want to give a lost penguin a great big hug
ReplyDeleteJane.... that is a very emotional blog entry.... You have written some good uns but that is probably the most revealing of all. You are only human and what you describe is totally understandable. x
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ReplyDeleteI would make a cup of that tea you mentioned, get a big pack of chocolate penguins that you also mentioned, then sit back and relax and scoff the lot while you remember the good parts of your adventure x
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