An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. ~George Eliot

Life goes on although political uncertainty is all around. See that great Calendar on the Wall - if not make the shot bigger. It is a gift from Anja and Michael, who came to visit me this last summer along with their children Claire and Reid and Anja´s sister Hemma and her husband Stefan. It was so great having them here (am sure I blogged about it) anyway, they made this super cool calendar with photos from their trip here on the rock in the North.. Love it. Hemma also remembered that I love choral chants - so she sent me a christmas cd of choral chants.. how great hey!!

Back to reality .. Iceland is about to get a new government - probably by Saturday. It is to be a minority coalition of the centre left and the left green party. The progressive party (call them country - ie that is what they used to represent - the farmer and average joe that lives in the rural districts - although they seem to be moving away from this old base) has said that they will support (ie not infringe or try and be obstructive - mind you they still want to see what the other two are thinking of doing before agreeing to anything.) This coalition is short term - electioins are to be in April - May at the latest, but the big news seems to be that the person chosen to be the representative of the position of Prime Minister is a woman called Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. She has been in politics for just about forever. A true "socialist" in that she believes in fair play and in justice to the poor and unempowered. I like her. What seems to be making the foreign press buzz is that not only will she be the first female pm in Iceland she will probably be the first pm in all the world who is openly gay.

This week saw the coming of my incumbant - ie finally the guy who is to replace me arrived. So my time at Holar will soon be coming to an end. At the moment I am going there a couple of days a week, once the end of year accounts are finished and I have done my bit for the auditors it will all be over. The end of another era in my working life..

Freyja sniffing - it is what dogs do.

And to end it all a picture from the meat bar at the shops - it´s þorrablót time - the time when we do our libations to Thor - and give thanks to the end of winter (hmmm.. well surviving the dark) and eat all our pickled, smoked and otherwise cured food stuffs. If you make the picture bigger the stuff being sold is from the top on the left - head cheese I think it is called in english sviðasulta in icelandic. Next down - pickled rams testicles followed by lundabaggar (also pickled ) this is that choice part of the lamb that covers the rib cage (ie very fatty) next down is pickled front bit of stomach .

Now heading right from the bottom up... pickled whale. whale cheese... pickled liverwurst, and at the top pickle pig cheese thingy....

Of the above - my favourites and the only thing that I eat of this fare - is pickled rams testicles (love them) and pickled liverwurst.. yep - the rest I can leave on the plate.... Other goodies we eat are smoked lamb, unleavened bread, dried fish, sheeps head (not made into a gelatinous mass - ie the "cheese" stuff) . We had our first Þorrablót last weekend on Sunday at my cousins house - just a family do and it was so nice.

Well, time to walk the dog.

Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason. ~Author Unknown

I think the quote of the day says it all.

Maja asked that I give my take on what is happening in Iceland. Well, I guess to put it simply I am just fed up with all of them. The government has done little to nothing ever since it first was aware that the banks were in trouble. The fact that people did not realise 4 years ago that there was something not quite right with Icelandic finances tells me that the folk that were profiting were willing to turn a blind eye to all the dubious and unethical goings on within the finance sector.

Now the government is facing daily protests outside parliament (a situation totally unheard of here) and are basically ignoring it. The leader of the centre left party said that the people that were protesting weren´t representative of Icelanders as a whole.. cough cough - who are they then representative of????

Today the minister for commerce (and banking) resigned. He also called for the sacking of the head of the Financial Services Authority (the people that should have been blowing whistles and prosecuting our rich bank owners) and the board of the FSA has also resigned. - finally someone said that they would take political responsibility so hats off to him. Björgvin is his name and during the crisis he has seemed to be doing his best - but unfortunately he should have been doing something months ago (esp when he was at a meeting in the UK with Darling) anywho, if I want to be cynical then I would say that this is also a very good political move on his part and that he is getting himself ready to take over the leadership of the centre left.

On other matters, both leaders of the coalition have growths, one in the brain (aparently not cancer - but she is undergoing extensive treatment because apparently it keeps growing back and does so at a fast rate) Geir H Haarde our prime minister has been diagnosed with cancer and will be going for some sort of treatment this week. He is not resigning but has said that he will not be leader of the party for the next election. Their combined excuses for not resigning and not calling an immediate election is that it would cause too much instability... again cough cough... have they looked out the window at the hundreds if not thousands shouting for their resignation and saying that the government is useless.

The country- progressive party changed its leadership last week - got in a young bloke who, although he had worked for the party, was not a member until just before the party meeting. He has declared that the progressive party would support the centre left and the left green party should they wish to take control now and rid the parliament of the independence party (rightish and have been in power for far far too long and are also the ones protecting David Oddsson in the central bank - who in my opinion should shoulder a lot of the blame of what has happened here). I think that there is a lot of support for this within the centre left - but the leader and her followers don´t want to give up the coalition.... crazy, Anyway, there will be elections in May - but is that soon enough. Given that protests like the ones taking place at the moment have never happened in Iceland before then I would say that May is not soon enough for change and that it is just a matter of days before the current coalition government fails.

Thats my take on it. I still think that Alda on the icelandweatherreport is the best blog to read on everything that is happening - she is also much closer to the grass roots of what is happening in the capital. We here in the North neither profited from the banks, nor have we been hit as hard (as yet) by the fall of the financial sector.

As the swedish professor at Holar said - Iceland is a very exciting place for academics to study human behaviour under crisis...

In another 3-5 years there will be numerous case studies written in economic, business and sociological texts...

The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea. ~Isak Dinesen

I went for a walk with the dog on Saturday down to the sands by the mouth of the river. It was an incredibly beautiful day, cold but no wind. On the sands we found a lot of ice that had been swept on shore. The ice is formed on the river and is then sent back to shore by the ocean currents. It is amazing the beauty that nature can form.

A pity my photography is lacking...

so pretty

It didn´t hurt that the ground was covered in a little snow and again - no wind. It is amazing what a difference that makes to a day here in the north. This is Tindastóll - mountain chair - that hovers over our little town.

To the south is Mælifell, and the sun. It doesn´t get much higher than this during this time of year. The picture is taken just after midday.

And my favourite view of the island Drangey.

Life is good.

Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway. ~Author Unknown

Came home early today to go to the docs to get some penicilin to stop the sore throat from happening - I have had a bit of a cold for about a month and in the last few days it has decided to flare up and give me a blocked nose, blocked ears and aforementioned tickly throat. Not to worry - it will pass as it always does.

Now some folk asked about the Icelandic horse and whether we eat them. Short answer yes.
http://freyjadog.blogspot.com/2008/10/lovely-horse-is-always-experience-it-is.html was a previous blog that I did on this subject after having gone out to a "horse feast".

In Viking times the eating of the horse was a very important part of any feast, so when the catholics took over they banned the consumption of horse saying that it was a sign of heathenism. So for a couple of centuries Icelanders starved rather than eating their horses. Horses have played an extremely important role in icelandic history and still do today. They are unique in that they have not been mixed with any other breed, they are hardy, live to a great age (in horse terms) and were extremely important in agriculture referred to as the nations most important servant. Today they are bred for either riding or eating. It´s a fact of life - like cattle/cows are bred for meat or milk, sheep for meat or wool.

Some interesting sites for information on the horse and what is happening in relation to it's development as a separate industry (tourism, hobby, export) are http://en.eidfaxi.is/ a general site in english for Icelandic horse enthusiasts. http://www.skagafjordur.is/default.asp?cat_id=1635 unfortunately only in Icelandic and still under development - this is the site for the Historical centre for the Icelandic horse.

Enough on horses - as my niece Maja said - they are great for riding, cuddling and eating....

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week. ~H. Jackson Browne

On Christmas night itself -
so a wise man writes -
the lads were all restraint
and just stared at the lights.

Then one by one they trotted off
into the frost and snow.
On Twelfth Night the last of the lads used to go.

Their footprints in the highlands
are effaced now for long,
the memories have all turned to image and song

Ah yes tomorrow is twelfth night, what an amazing two weeks we have had, a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year. I have Olga and Ross to thank for much of this - it was so nice having them here and I will admit that the new years was probably the best that I have had in my 46 years on this earth. Such a great night, food, drink (whatever was available as I could not make the grog shop in time - damn work) playing games, firing off Hallgerði langbrók (Hallgerður of the long pants), dancing, playing more games, making a snow man head and finally hitting the sack at 7am or thereabouts - I walked the dog before going to sleep...

I have also started my new job, at the farmers advice centre, general bookkeeping... it´s just gonna be fun. This ofcourse means that life will be changing in many ways for me - I am downsizing - not because of a recession - but because life should be fun - work should be fun - the people that you care about should not have to hear about your crap job and the crap that happens there every day. So my resolution for 2009 is to smile more, enjoy life and not let the job affect me and those around me.

Also, 2009 is going to be brilliant - there is going to be a wedding here!!!! Hope I don´t let the side down and can organise this... I figure that the KISS system is the way to go, if not - bugger.

Take care folks... and remember - life really is what you make it - if you don´t like how it is - change it.

Guest blogger - cos I am too Slack - Welcome Mr Ross Di Blasio

Ha-lamb or la-ham, this is what we ate for New Years Eve dinner twas very delicious especially the onion wrapped in smoked bacon with rosemary. This ha-lamb was quite a weird cut of meat, I think it comes off the sheeps back, You definitely can't buy it at Coles (Australian Super-Market) it was salty and had a nice crispy skin and boy was it tender.



The meal was so good Amma didn't even realise a photo was being taken. Amma is awesome.



Ok jumping back a few days but probably just one day on Olga's birthday she was Christened, this was so we can get married in the local church next July, anyways this is Olga and her Godparents. They didn't think it was a good idea for her future husband to be her Godfather, it is a bit weird...it is also a little bit Icelandic.


Back to New Years Eve night, the snow just kept on falling and falling, it is a very funny site watching Olga try to catch snow flakes in her mouth.... she is special? Has anyone tried to make a lifesize snowman, well it is very hard and it kept falling apart. So it was much easier to build a head, Sigga supplied the carrot and BROCCOLI ? and we made the most of it. We also made snow-angels and threw snowballs and I wrote my name in the snow, which was extremely difficult after several drinks, it was not very legible.



The beautiful snow covered Saudarkrokur.


OK and this is our very own fireworks i think it was called Mrs long knickers. Just watch the Video

Thankyou and goodnight
Ross
xx