A child needs a grandparent, anybody's grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world. ~Charles and Ann Morse

I really didn´t know where to go from where I left off.. It all seems a tad disjointed, so I have decided - as it is my blog - to concentrate on me and how I have felt by the move to Australia and the effect that this had on my life. I felt that the best place to start was with what I missed most by our move.....

Having Grandparents. All my friends in Australia had them - well... I knew I had grandparents - but they were "over there" - in Iceland. My best friend Tracy had her Nan and Gag and Nanna and Pop... whom I met frequently - she got to hear about my ammas and afis but to an 8 year old its all pretty conceptual. Anyway - I would like to introduce my amma Kristín, my mums mum... She had a tough life, born out of wedlock she was taken "wet" as my mother says from her mothers arms and sent to her grandmothers. She ended up being a "social" case in terms of the fact that she was sent from farm to farm and started working for herself at a very early age. I did not know her and never had the chance to ask her about her childhood so all I have is the information that my mother and aunts and cousins have given me. I do know that she was a person who enjoyed having fun and seeing the fun side of life. She wrote poetry (of the traditional Icelandic variety), she tried to be a good mum to her eight children and probably tried to be a good wife. She left my grandfather when the youngest child was old enough to understand and take care of herself. From what I remember she never seemed bitter, but what do I know - these are my memories and she died before i had the chance to get to know her or ask her about her life and childhood. I did though get to meet her again when I was 12 and again when I was 17 - then she was in hospital having suffered a stroke, so by the time I may have been able to ask the questions, she was not capable of giving me the answers, but that really doesn´t matter because the important thing is that in my memories and in my life - I liked her. I would have loved to have known her better - but often we are not given that opportunity - I am grateful for the few moments we had.

Here she is all pert on a horse at my aunt's farm.

and here she is with my sister Unnur - see how happy she is - even though she was unable to communicate properly - you can still see the inner happiness.

Her husband - my grandfather Helgi... now this is hard to write. I had so many stories from my mother growing up about what a hard man he was... and I think that this was no exageration. He wasn´t physically abusive to her but there was always a lot of tension when she talked about him. Now we have worked out that probably as she has a hearing impairment she probably never took notice of him talking to her until he was shouting.. . As you can tell they didn't have a loving relationship - but he did respect her choice of husband - which was a good thing. I met my grandfather a couple of times - that I can remember. When I was 12 visiting the farm with my mum and brother and then later when Tracy and I came to Iceland, by then he was living at my aunts farm and he had to have an oxygen container with him By this stage he had cronic emphasema and so had to have oxygen on hand. He seemed a sad and broken old man. His story too would have been nice to know.

This photo is of him on his 70th birthday surrounded by his daughters and their children. I am ofcourse the sulky one in the front... A later post will be dedicated to the sulky whiny Sigga..

Now to my other grandparents. Unnur Magnúsdóttir and Jón Björnsson - my dads parents

Here they are outside the front door of the house that mum now lives in........

First my amma Unnur... she was one tough old bird -
again my big regret being that I never got to know her.. All I know is that she said what she wanted to say and she always meant it - she called a spade a spade... She was not exactly the warmest of individuals. Kristín amma would have been more likely to hug me than Unnur amma. Unnur amma though probably missed us more than anyone else in Iceland - you see my dad was her boy. In Iceland people often get nicknames that are descriptive of their station in life or their association with other people. My dad was Mangi Unnars... that is Magnus (Mangi being a derivative of magnus) belonging to Unnur. Most boys were usually associated with the father - both of dad´s brothers were Bjössi Jóns and Kári Jóns - ie associated with the father - not dad. So for her us going away to the end of the earth meant that she would never see any of us again ever (well a woman of her age in 1968 - what would you expect) as Unnur reminded me today - she even tried to bribe her and my brother Jon to stay - thinking that this might change my parents mind. Mum also told me that she told her to threaten divorce - she understandably tried every trick in the book to stop her son from taking himself and his family away.

Here she is with a close family friend Sína She was another person who I am sure I would have adopted as an extra grandma had I stayed - she was a close friend of both my ammas.

When I came to Iceland in 1979 with Tracy both amma and Sína were at the old peoples home at the hospital... so when I visited amma Sína would often be there.

My afi Jón was still living at home when I came at age 17 so I had the chance to spend some time with him one on one. I realised then that he was an amazing man. He had some way out there ideas. Tracy at this time wanted more than anything in the world to get married and have lots and lots of children. My afi Jón thought this very strange, why on earth would any woman want to marry when they could have children without having to have a man. ( I think that he was most impressed with the new IVF programmes available). He was so good to me and such a nice gentle sweet old man. Again, I wish that I had been just that little bit older when we met to be able to discuss things. As most of you know I now work in the same building that he did for 50 years.

Thats me with my two uncles and afi Jón
My sister Unnur is Unnur Magnúsdóttir, my grandmother - my fathers mother was also Unnur Magnúsdóttir - I love this photo!!!

We have a slide picture taken before we left for Australia of my afi Jón looking at his globe to see where Australia was in relation to Iceland. This was recaptured during Unnur and Thor's stay in Iceland:

Yes it's a long way away...