Due to my early morning routine of walking the city streets, I witnessed the 6:00am raid on the hall of residence by the canal. The rumour was that the police took out a terrorist cell that was operating out of the University.

On my way home I called in on PhD student JM. A young woman (a girlfriend?!) answered the door. ‘I’ve come to see my brother’, I explained. ‘That’s fine’, she replied as she let me in.

JM’s flat was very busy. It was almost as if a party had been organised and I had been deliberately excluded from it. When I told EH about the raid on the student halls, she burst into tears.

It was soon obvious that the young woman was a long-standing girlfriend. She had put a lot of effort into catering for the guests and I felt (as her quasi sister-in-law) that it was my place to help with the clearing up. The main issue was that she had over-estimated numbers and there was an excess of vegetables to either repurpose or throw out. I offered to take them home to transform into delicious vegetarian dishes to share, and/or to add them to my compost heap.

A Danish boy stood over me while I was washing up. He was just as surprised as me when I said to him in good Norwegian that he ought to help. He obeyed my instruction before I had to chance to practise any further my Nordic language skills.