Although we’ve been planning to move from here for a couple of years, it’s strange how things have come together, or rather, apart, at the same time.
Take my indoor leggings, for instance. A favourite pair with a jazzy pattern that I’ve had for most of the time we’ve lived here. They were damaged by bleach on the knees a few years ago, and then developed a couple of tiny holes last year. In the last two weeks these holes have joined up, and now there’s a big hole, and it’s getting bigger. Next time we go to the dump, so will they. A sad loss.
There’s the swimming pool. It’s been doomed ever since the mining company paid the local council to build one in the new town. A project that has nearly bankrupted the council, but that’s another story. A pool in the new town is no use to me and I had been hoping I’d have use of the old one for as long as we’re here. Now it’s closing, the week before we leave. ‘Thankyou, swimming hall!’ say the posters, and we are invited to a valedictory Aufguss (since you ask it’s a German sauna experience where you let someone wave a towel around you and waft nice smells in your direction). I didn’t attend the Aufguss, but my last swims feel like the end of an era for both of us – me and the pool.
Then round the corner from us, Kiruna church. It will move in style, on a grand platform, to its new home next month. At the moment it’s all packed up and ready to go, just like us.
Opposite the church, my dentist. A former priest’s house. Likewise packed and ready to go.
It’s as if a tiny bolt has been removed, and from that everything has been freed to move on, including us.
