The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit, and fire. ~Sharon Ralls Lemon

I worked a 10 hour day today - the first in the new job. This is only cos its VAT time, deadline on Monday and I am totally not sure I am doing things right.... need tomorrow just to make sure that I haven´t stuffed up completely. After that I start doing tax returns... I hate tax returns - I don´t even do my own.. Oh well, now is the time.

So as all of Freyjas other walks today were fairly short I decided to treat her with a walk up the hill and around the paddocks. As it was still light - sunset isn´t until sometime between 6 and 7 now and the sun is actually on its way up when I walk to work at 8am. Won´t be long before we have no night at all... I can´t wait.
I am always a little concerned taking Freyja up there as I know that there is nothing more in the world than she would like to do than run and chase animals - especially horses. So I was mean and kept her on a lead the whole time.
Ofcourse we met some horses in a paddock and Freyja took delight in barking like a mad dog... the horses didn´t seem too concerned - they took off - then came back - took off again etc. I tried to video this but the quality is crap - they should be in my flickr in case you are interested.

I took the opportunity to take some photos of the town and the developments at the wharf. It´s starting to look quite good and hopefully, the town council will take on board the information from the town meeting about setting up an outdoor rec area around the new quay - one idea is for the little sail boats to have a facility there - should be nice.

And as we came back down the hill the sun had all but gone behind the mountains.

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.

I was going to post some photos and then realised that they were of the same old thing as usual... snow, darkness and food.

These last two weeks have been rather busy, especially this last weekend. Yesterday the family was over for dinner (dads brother his wife, children, grandchildren, along with me Maggi, his sister Kristin and her boyfriend Reynir). The menu was pie themed, fish pie, beef and mushroom bake, egg and bacon quiche, and for those not pastry oriented I had a fillet of horse goulash. All served with mashed potatoes, peas, corn, salads and the like... I call it a success as all the food was eaten. Mum supplied two great cheesecakes with berries from last autumn, one blueberry the other strawberry... just yum.

Saturday night was the last night of Þorri (The feast of Thor - ie that food again), twas yummy. A great night with great people (I have somehow been allowed to join the group of people that work at the museum, for the national heritage trust and for the Institute of Natural History... so the conversation was lively and fascinating. I really love these people..

Tonight was dinner at my cousins, lovely lamb.. just can´t beat it - she is a natural entrepreneur... runs the cafe at the outdoor museum and the handicrafts store here in town... Anyway, her latest idea is to try and get the old post office building and turn it into a net cafe and information centre. It's going to be great... So sister dear - there is a vacancy for you here - in case you are interested!!! Brothers and brother in law - I am sure that your handymanny skills would be appreciated any time you are here.

Mum is in Hveragerði "spari dagar" with the oldies - its when the old folks go off to a Hotel in the south of Iceland, spend time eating, drinking, dancing and generally just having a good time. I can´t wait to get old. They have a better social life than us middle aged folk.

Boring post - but informative to the relations...

More later

Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you! ~Tommy Smothers

Yep some more Þorrablót (ie libations to Thor)... some sheepsheads. Maggi actually cooked these and brought them to our private Þorrablót (the Þorrablót for those not invited to Þorrablót).. You see these things are a country thing.. so you need to be invited by a farmer... Usually we get to go with my aunts family from Akrar.. this year they decided not to go.. hence we were þorrablótslaus.. ie without ... so we did our own..


It was yummy. Although it must be said that when we were at the supermarket deciding which choice cuts of sharp and pickled whale to buy the guy behind the counter thought us well below par... What I liked Guðny didn't what she liked I vetoed... however we decided that a little bit of this and a little bit of that would probably do us well.. and such was the case.. a lovely meal was had followed by a game of Islandsspil - Icelands answer to TP ...

Just to give an idea of the temps here in the last couple of weeks.. This is from inside my house - the pantry - 1° C Just as well the rest of the house has geothermal heating.

To totally change the subject this week has been a tough one for all in Aus. I can not imagine what it is like to be in Melbourne right now. I think that I would be a blubbering mess if I was there. It is bad enough logging on to theage.com to read about what has happened. My thoughts are definitely with my antipodean friends.

To finish it off.. Freyja at the dinner table wanting to create her own blog..

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. ~William Blake

We have had the most beautiful - rather chilly - winter weather during the last couple of days. Most days the wind has been rather mellow and not howling from the north and the temps have been around -10°C. These pics are from my walk with Freyja on Sunday. Don´t you just love the blue...

As usual on a Sunday - not much happening...

A view to the south.

another southern view - here you can see the new quay that they are making.

Boring post - but the pictures say it all. I love winter...

Oh and knudsen - the brits I think are rather pleased with their Icelandic winter woollies - we can´t send them our geothermal central heating so we sent them what used to tide us through the cold winters, great looking fluffy itchy sweaters.

The cure for capitalism's failing would require that a government would have to rise above the interests of one class alone. ~Robert L. Heilbroner

I will be posting a few of these walking in the snow vids...

So it has happened - we have a new government and I must admit that I am optimistic about what they can do in the short time that they have in power - elections are planned for 25th April.

The Independence Party - hereinafter referred to as the dicks (that got us in this mess) are all crying shame on their previous coalition partners - saying that it was all their fault that everything was delayed and nothing was done... The Central Bank Chief - David Oddsson (public enemy no1 has left the county - on holiday - or something) anyway he got his walking papers the other day and has told the current pm what she can do with them... ie he refuses to budge... Such a dick...(head of dick party once upon a time). Our PM (yes the first openly gay pm in the world - have you noticed how we Icelanders love being the first or the best or the mostest - so glad that there are not more of us... Hitler would have been scared).

Anywho. check Aldas blog - icelandweatherreport.com for proper information on the above.