I am watching Wayward on Netflix and it is magnificent. The world needs more heavy psychological thrillers outside the same tired clichés and more explicitly trans characters written by trans writers please 👍

Oslo, your weather is *miserable* today. Grim grim and also grim.

"Can passenger [Name] please go to the gate? Security would like a word with you." Proper tiny town tiny airport stuff, that. (99.9% chance it's 'we've found something in your luggage that you're not actually allowed to take off the island. It's always that.)

🏔️

I don't know who needs to hear this but the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is not the isolated villain lair you are looking for. Not only is the total lockout broken four times a year for deliveries, but it's within walking distance of a town that receives nearly a quarter of a million tourists per year

We've been for a serious long-distance, race-pace ski today. May have broken the dog. 😂

Island living in a nutshell: my neighbour just came round with 14kg of laundry detergent because he ordered it in bulk from the mainland and ran out of storage space after storing 8 of the 10 7kg boxes. I have traded it for a canister of film and a particularly good reindeer antler.

Once again I would like to politely remind you that just because *you* hadn't heard of Svalbard until recently doesn't mean multiple heads of state and global policy makers hadn't heard of Svalbard until recently.

Today's Adventures in Unreasonable Latitudes: The clocks went forward an hour yesterday morning, but sunrise today was still at the same time it was a week ago.

8:45pm. Boy Dog and I are both mad about the way the daylight situation insists on developing.

Walrus+

Wide awake at 5:30 on a Saturday without plans because Boy Dog had a shouting dream 😂😂😭 FFS he doesn't even know how to shout when he's awake.

Now, I get that heading to the cabin for Easter is a whole Thing™, but I do want to politely point out that it's not like you're spending the rest of the year in the centre of Oslo. This is the view from the middle of town. The wilderness is already here. You don't need to go to the wilderness.

The Norwegian approach to Easter is fascinating Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday are holidays So you may as well close early next Wednesday Which leaves 2.5 days next week So you may as well take them off too So you may as well add the weekend So you may as well close for Easter at 2pm today.

Morning morning. Sunrise at 05:04 today, sunset at 19:05. 24 sunsets left to go.

😜

Beachy sort of morning

Literally the best job in the world and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Got told to fuck off by an insecure sub-adult walrus this evening. In my defence, I was there first and the walrus didn't have to be a dick about it 😆 (Obviously I left as soon as he stopped making eye contact)

Okay, but let's talk sunset

There's *another* bearded seal in the harbour today. If 2026 is going to be the year of the beardies, I will be very happy indeed.

Multi-beardie

Blurry photo of a beardie who has seen some shit

Oh he is such a delightful shape

Today's floating buddy:

I have had to put my sunglasses on! This is not a drill!

Overheard a guide tell his group "We're completely cash free on the island. So, if you're going out alone without a guide and without a rifle, you better hope the ferryman takes Vipps." I am adding that to my repertoire *immediately*

Today's bindle-packing motivation: nobody has given Boy Dog an omelette. Potentially illegal, he says, as he licks sadly at his nonexistent omelette.

Saturday morning beach vibes

My friend today: Ew, it's raining Me: what, wet rain? Random *very annoying* man: hahahaha what other kind of rain would it be? Like, yes, I get that, but how did you possibly benefit from jumping in like that? 🤷 (Wet rain vs some form of frozen precipitation. We get wet rain approx 3x a year)

Made myself a sausage sandwich for breakfast. Boy Dog is trying to inconspicuously sidle up to my sausage sandwich, but he has forgotten to turn off the sniffing. So, he's being all casual, barely glancing at the sandwich, moving slowly, but he sounds like an asthmatic badger hunting for truffles.

Made a beardie friend today

Fell over on the ice. Boy Dog came trotting over, leaned down, huffed in my face twice and then ran away to the end of his lead. Thanks for the support, mate 😂

Today, we are at the most normal point in the polar night to midnight sun transition. Today, and for the next two days, the amount of daylight 'only' increases by 15 minutes and 10 seconds per day, the smallest the change ever gets. It will speed up again from the 21st.

Please enjoy this deeply unhinged real estate listing I found while window shopping today

Up a very small hill to stretch Boy Dog's legs after a rough week.

High noon

It's -12°C today but the black guillemots have started doing the bird equivalent of putting their shorts on for the summer

Never moved so fucking fast with just my feet 😂 Boy Dog has a really nice rolling run and this harness is great for his range of motion. We went *hard*

Taking Boy Dog for his first run in his new harness, made for maximum pulling efficiency. It is intended for the skis but, because I am not stupid and do not want to ski to Pyramiden this evening, we will not be testing it out for the first time on the skis.

Blue skies at 6am. My very favourite thing about living up here is that no more than 3 days in a row ever look the same.

I am named for Practical Reasons™ There is pretty much only one way that people read Max, so everybody everywhere pronounces it the same way, all across the world. At most, it sometimes becomes Mahx, or Mex, but these are all more or less the same word.

It is looking Extremely March outside this morning

I have watched this approximately 47 times and laughed out loud 47 times

Boy Dog has got it sussed. By waiting until he was five and a half to learn how to communicate well enough to ask for belly rubs, he has guaranteed that he gets belly rubs every single time he asks for them, without fail.

I've just remembered the weirdest news story from the town I was living in a decade ago. Three separate human feet were found in a local park, over the course of a few months. Police investigated and announced 'nothing to be worried about, they're probably from somebody's private collection.' ...

Migratory bird race, place your bets : The glaucous gulls and northern fulmars are starting to reappear in the fjord and the ptarmigans and black guillemots never left, but the following will all creep up north some time in the next month. King eider Common eider Snow bunting Dovekie Who's first?

Solfest tomorrow, to mark actual sunrise, the first time the sun is visible over the mountains. The Miner is ready to go

Boy Dog is sulking because he headbutted a rock and cut his eyebrow. By sprinting off and diving headlong into a snow pile, without checking the depth and after being called back repeatedly. There is no helping some dogs.

Peppermint has a nice, cooling effect, so ice cold peppermint cordial should be the perfect, refreshing antidote to overly spicy chips, right? Gang, it is not. My mouth is confused, alarmed, distraught and not impressed.