I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment. ~Ludwig W

Thought it time for you guys to see something else when you look to see if I have updated the blog, so I thought I might put one of the old Christmas family photos up. Maybe this will be the theme for the countdown to Christmas - who knows. This is taken in the early 80's - I have my princess Di look happening.

I am currently watching wicker man and am not really getting it - like most Nicholas Cage movies it is subject to his amazing over or is it under acting.

The Silly season is about to start and so soon every weekend will be packed with feasting and the like. Tomorrow I was supposed to be going to a buffet of wild food. However, there weren´t sufficient numbers so instead I am going to my cousin Herdís´s - which means even better food.

My lovely uncle Andres came tonight bearing great gifts - one sheep - cut down into edible bits. Mother and I are extremely happy - her freezer is full so we think that we are going to be pretty well right for the winter- I wonder which one of these is is the freezer????

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There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. ~Jane Austen

Thought I would do a little reminiscing about how far this house has come along.... I think as the dog is whining that it will be a very short post of before and....

after....

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man. ~Winston Churchills

Well, there is also something good about the body of a horse that is good for the inside of a man....

This time last year I posted about the horse feast... well take 2 was last weekend. I again did not take my camera and I also had no Maggi with a mobile phone camera thingy... so no shots this year

http://freyjadog.blogspot.com/2008/10/lovely-horse-is-always-experience-it-is.html

Needless to say the food was fantastic, the entertainment also very good - very typically Icelandic with my uncle Siggi and Joi frá Stapa reciting Icelandic verse in the old fashion. Jón and Stefán Gísla with their squeeze boxes and Bjarni Marons was the mc. None of this will mean anything to most of you - but it will help me to remember...

I feel I need to post photos of something... so I am "borrowing some from the website of sögusetur íslenska hestsins

http://www.skagafjordur.is/displayer.asp?cat_id=1635&module_id=220&element_id=60862

One of the two entrés - this is Abel the horse re-incarnated as a finely sliced bit of salted/smoked horse meat done according to a North Italian recipe.... twas very tasty..

This is the main - which we received at around 11pm... it was a long night... again. . wonderful, served with a wild mushroom sauce.

This is one of the two desserts.... mares milk gelato and mares milk icecream... with wild berries and pears. again.. very tasty.

Next weekend there will be another thingy happening in Varmahlíð - this time the red cross is the organiser, some sort of world festival of music thing with food from many nations served in the interval. Mum and I have been roped in to provide food from Aus... Now tell me what is typically Australian, well, I have no idea, so I made ANZAC buscuits, yes I baked... I also made sausage rolls - not typically Australian - but near enough is good enough, and then I thought maybe some lamingtons would be ideal. Problem is my sponge fell apart... I am getting mum to do a sponge for me instead - then I will do the cocoa and coconut thing. If you guys have any ideas then I would be most grateful. I think it´s sort of lame as now I have been here for 5 years and away from Aus for 9 so feeling less and less Australian.

Unfortunately there is no roo meat in the KS at the mo.. and I have never seen emu in the freezer area so they are both off the list of potential Australian foods.

So as you can see life is good, very good. Oh, I made fish and chips for dinner - first time ever and it worked. Beer batter is the best batter.

Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things. ~Author Unknown

My very very very dear friend Iris came to visit me on the rock last week, she arrived on Friday to gale force winds which forced her to spend a night in Reykjavik. The flight north on the Friday night was cancelled due to wind gusts of 50 metres per second. Her flight was rescheduled for Saturday at 10am... so I picked her up from the airport in semi gale force winds... What a great start to her stay with me.

I had a blast - I am hoping that she did too. We caught up on life - what´s been happening in hers for the last fifteen years and what has been happening in mine. She is the mother of three beautiful children - now adults. The wife of a really great guy David, and the best friend of Al, who is on the left in the photo above and moi. We met on our first day at Uni in 1981, she was the one that changed my english name from Siggy to Sigga - much to my relief. You see Siggi is a male derivation whereas sigga is female.... finally in english I became a female..

It is just so great when you meet up with an old friend and realise - yet again- that true friendship lasts throughout the years and the distance. We found just what it was that made us friends all those years ago. We also realised, yet again, that we could tell each other stuff that we weren´t willing to tell others. The mutual admiration society was reconvened.

She also cleaned my house - for that I love her even more dearly... I am a slob. She knows this, and she also knows that I don´t like living like a slob....

I was not the hostess with the mostest this time round, am feeling a little swine fluish, so although I did take her for a drive around the fjörd that was about it in terms of site seeing. Well I took her on her word that she came here to see me and not necessarily Iceland. I am hoping that she and David will come to visit me one day so that I can be a better host and show her this beautiful and amazing country. Hopefully this visit has wetted the appetite and they will both come for a week or two.

Her birthday is the day after mine, she is one year and one day younger than me, perhaps that is a part of the magic about our connection - I don´t know. I just know that I am very blessed with all the friends that I have.

Thank you Iris for being you!

Snow and cold

-3° on our 5th walk for the day. I have been a very slack person wanting to stay at home, whilst the dog was looking at the sunshine outside the window and thinking I want to be out there!!!! So, 5 times I braved the bitter cold.... and still now she sits on her daybed going, "I am sooo depressed - tried to load a photo of this look of hers but something seems to be wrong in the blog world.

later folks - have a great week!