Foggy Fireworks

The last week of the year is gone. It is a big holiday season with the entire week being off either officially or employees anyway take off otherwise. I went to office on the two working days in these holidays deciding against working from home, just to make sure I don’t forget the routine of getting up in the morning when the actual working days start. With only me and the driver in the big bus that I take to office and with number of people in office – atleast in my block- a finite single digit number, it just turned out to be mere exercise than anything.  Just 3 days into the holidays, with the devil playing tantrum in it’s workshop - my idle mind – I was looking forward for the holidays to end.

The situation was not helped by the weather either. It was snowing heavily for the initial part of the week and was then suddenly followed by incessant showers making the snow turn to ice. The temperature has suddenly gone from being below zero to more on the positive side making the entire city wet because of melting snow and ice. This has made walking particularly a risky action as I found it yesterday when I slipped spectacularly during my daily walk to coffee shop. The thing to notice is, it was a small downward slope, slippery because of ice and knowing this, I was walking as careful as possible to avoid the fall when I did fall. Luckily (or I must say as usual) there was no one around to notice and laugh. But I wasn’t sure and came back home to check not my bones  but YouTube as I was pretty sure, the event would have been caught in any of the security cameras that might be around.

As the days pass, the New Year Eve day arrives. Atleast this was one day, I was eagerly waiting. This was the day, where there is going to be fireworks spectacle to welcome the New Year.  I was fully padded up to keep me safe from the cold and stepped out into the evening, caught a literally jam packed bus and reached the place well in advance.  I went along with friends of mine and we were peering into the darkness – a perfect time for fireworks - waiting for the spectacle to begin.

And so it began at the stroke of midnight with a single streak of light soaring up into the sky and exploding. It was a red one. Expected to see a perfectly formed circle of red sparks lighting up the night sky, but all I could see was a semi-circle! Norway, though being in Europe has a separate set of rules for everything. Like alcohol – read beer - is available even in smallest of stores like in other parts of Europe, but they are not allowed to sell it on Sundays and on weekdays after 8 PM! So, is there any rule that controls the intensity of fireworks on display? It could be, after all, fireworks are supposed to discomfort dogs and having seen the care given to people and animal here it is possible. But applying more of common sense that seems to dwindle everyday and by seeing the fireworks continue to disappear after going up the sky, we could see a thick fog that has built up at precisely the same location the fireworks are meant to show their full glory. We did not realize the presence of fog peering into the darkness before the fireworks. It soon turned out that, the semi-circle was the best shot we could ever get as the rest of the fireworks manage to get high in the air, more into the fog and completely disappear from the view.

The fireworks ended close to 10 minutes after the start. I was more inclined to think, they ended it early so they don’t waste the fireworks when nobody could see it. Having watched the fireworks around Eifel tower few months back and bit of the spectacle here, today’s effort by the organizers indeed would have been spectacular, if only we were able to see it. Disappointed, we walked back the entire way home as it was too late in the night for public transport.

The working day starts tomorrow and will start with the customary question of how the holiday was. May be I should say, hazy, foggy, fuzzy... Or on a scarier note, was this an indication of the Year that is in front of me?