Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work. ~John G. Pollard

Seems quite facile to be writing these blogs when things are happening with Mother Nature...  but I set out to do this and finish it I will.


We left Iceland between Christmas and New Year.  I was to start school in February...  My cousins Herdís and Gýgja came with me on this adventure.... and it was fun!


This time my brother Jon and his wife Lóa filled in the breech and let us stay with them, and loaned us a car so we could get out and about in Perth - I loved that renault!  To them I owe more eternal thanks.


We went to Sydney - by bus - to visit with my brother Hilmar and his wife Sandra... they too were super amazing hosts... had a ball.


They (the cousins) left shortly before I started school, I had found a place to live - in Maylands with friends that I worked with at DVA.  This was the house from hell, it should have been condemned but we paid extreme rent to share a house with rats in the roof, dead cats under floorboards and a high rise block of flats in the back garden.  Tragic.


The school was a fair distance from where we lived - so I got to know the Perth public transport system quite well.... I also worked at the Tenants advice service and for the Alumni at UWA.  As a result I stopped receiving benefits from the government and had to pay back the money that I had received.... how you were meant to live off this I will never know... Still the school bit was fine and life was generally good - apart from the house,  so I did a very bad thing, when the tenants left my sister's house I moved in.... there were still a few months before Unnur and Thor's return - but was I thinking of their loss of rent - nah..... I just needed to get out and be on my own for a bit.  I slept on a mattress on the floor - had no fridge and had to travel for 2 hours to get to uni..... did that matter - nah...  as you can tell I was totally self obsessed.


I managed to finish this course with a fairly good result - but finding work was a lot harder - I had my two part time jobs and applied and applied and applied for anything and everything, I had a degree as a super executive assistant... something I wasn´t sure that I wanted to be - all I wanted was a job and to stop being a leech on the family.


After Unnur and Thor came home I stayed on at their place - not asking - just expecting that they would put up with me.  On their return from Iceland they had 3 kids... Anna being born in Iceland in the August - with them came cousin Guðný's daughter Magga - so there we were 6 of us living in my childhood home in Maddington, Thor must be one of the most patient men in the world.... it could not have been easy having me and Magga there.  


I ended up getting a job, buying a car and moving out - I think all with a couple of months. Mum and Dad helped with the deposit on the house, and where was the house??? four doors down from my sisters..... I bought a house in the street that I was brought up in.  A great house - only two bedrooms - enough for a single girl, a huge garden and a swimming pool.... I loved that house and I loved being so close to my sister.


A year later mum and dad came and stayed with me in the house for a year - the best - time to be with dad, who by now was quite ill and we were not sure how long he would be with us.  My brother Hilmar moved from the East coast and bought a house in the next suburb.  We had some wonderful times that year - I loved having all the family over for dinner on a Sunday.  So nice.  Such good times.