I’ve really enjoyed the past few months; being able to spend some quality time with my daughter, enjoying the sunshine with friends, getting back to the office for work, and cycling through the city to see the sights and sounds of Oslo.

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My iPhone tells me I have had about 5 hours each night in bed, on average, for the past month. And so, I’m pretty tired / exhausted some days and I’ve heard that’s just the life of a parent – but I think I’ve been dealing pretty well with it so far. Spirits are high in the Vestengen-Cox household. And so is the pile of washing in the laundry basket and dirty dishes by the sink.

It’s not long now until I get a really decent extended leave from work. For sure, I have 19 weeks parental leave guaranteed. Any vacation from this year (around 2 weeks remaining) and what I’ll gain for next year (around 5 weeks?), I could potentially tack on to the start and end of the parental leave. That’s almost half-a-year of paid leave to spend with my daughter. Bliss.

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Today, I got my second COVID-19 vaccine. This will hopefully mean the family will be in a better position to travel over the coming months and we can, fingers-crossed, see my friends and family back home in Manchester.

Also, a holiday to somewhere like the south of France or Italy would be nice… but that might just be a dream whilst we are busy saving, trying to find our way onto the housing market. Oslo is expensive.

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Thanks for reading this short, rambling post. Hope you, dear reader, are keeping well and looking after yourself – physically and mentally.

Don’t be a stranger.

Feel free to start a conversation on Mastodon, hit me up on Matrix at @matt:gossip.land, or on your favourite messaging app of choice.

✌️

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