skillingsbolle
Routine established. Up at eight, work until ten, walk down to the bakery on Storgata for a skillingsbolle (a cinnamon bun the size of a saucer, 32 kroner) and a coffee. It's dark at ten. People don't seem to mind.
At quarter past eight the kids go past the house to school, in a line, with headlamps and little reflective tags dangling off their jackets. It looks like a search party. They're very loud for that time of day.
Bought a carpenter's pencil from the hardware shop, the flat red kind, because my normal ones keep breaking when I mark the manuscript. I'm on page 74. The grandmother has just burned the family's only photograph to keep warm, which I'm told is a key scene.
Groceries are expensive in a way that makes you laugh at the till. A red pepper, 19 kroner. Brown cheese, 79. I've stopped converting.