There is no cure for laziness but a large family helps. ~Herbert Prochnov

I looked everywhere for a quote about a big brother - seems that none exist.. Strange that, lots about younger brothers, sisters the lot, but not big bro. Anyway my big brother is a great guy - he is here at the moment putting new frontage on mum's place. He had already changed the windows a few years back and now for the finale. So here are a few photos from this weekends work effort (he also had help from my nephew - his son - Maggi - the best TA ever)
but before we get picture from the house here are some from our walk to Glerhallavík (Glass cave bay)

the walk out there is quite difficult in that it is very rocky - basically the shore line along a coast that has high muddy cliffs full of rocks ready to fall down on you

At the end there is this wonderful little water fall

and this great little bay. The reason why it is called Glass cave bay is because of the quartz rocks that are in the shore, apparently they are covered in basalt but because they are rolled around in the shore the bassalt comes of and what you have are lovely little white rocks

if you increase the size you can see three big examples...

The bay is just near Reykir, which is near the island of Drangey.

Now for some shots from the house:

Day one, side bit done

half the front finished


Tonight, almost all done, they have done a brilliant job.

PS I mowed the lawn for the third time this summer! also cleared out one room in the cellar. - Depending on the ambient temp - it will be where I start my attempt at home made wines.... hey its a depression.

I always thought a yard was three feet, then I started mowing the lawn. ~C.E. Cowman

Last weekend was the first mowing weekend of summer, this weekend will be the second mow.... My grass grows far too quickly.
We also used the grill for the first time this year - twice in fact. I love summer in Iceland, the problem is that summer (or rather spring) doesn´t love me - now it is itchy eyes and clogged up nasal passages ah the joy of hay fever. Once I laughed at people with hay fever - now i commiserate.
As you are probably all aware - if not I will tell you - Iceland came in second place at the Eurovision thingy. Yep - so the song from the last post was no 2, whilst in no 1 was the Norwegian entry, "Fairytale" which was written and sung by a lovely young lad with Belarusian origins. He really did deserve to win and he won big time - I think that the points score for Norway was double if not trebble our second place score. It was neck and neck for a while between the 2 to 4 place getters - Azerbajan, Turkey and the UK. twas a good Euro year this year I think.
Mum planted some lillies for me last year and they survived the winter and are blooming

Just so pretty.
Now I know that you are dieing to see the finished product down at the harbour - its great you can walk a fair way to the end of the quay - a bit wobbly - not probably the best place for me to walk at night after a few reds, but so far no falling has occurred.

Isn´t it great... now for some night shots - taken at around eleven pm

So pretty... need I say how much I love this place... well time to put the dog out of her misery and take her for a walk.

“99 percent of the people you ask about it will profess to hate it, but they all love it really.”

Photo courtesy of the official website... www.eurovision.tv (and it is the Iceland entry... so cool, so blue.. so yeh...)

Ah yes, it´s Eurovision first semi final night or whatever they call it - hence the blogging... am watching this, cringing and feeling that my mind needs to be occupied in some way while my ears listen to the various entries... Ah, like the 99% that profess to hate it - I love it... Our entry this year is Jóhanna or Yohanna as she is spelling it (to ensure that it is pronounced correctly), she´s already done her bit and did pretty well. (well I think so).





"I'm probably going to be calm when I walk to the stage, I always am. I'm not using any particular routines before the performance. Usually, my body becomes very tired, I don't know if it's a way to relax. It was great to get spontaneous applauses from the audience during the rehearsal, I felt it on stage." A quote from the official website from Yohanna



http://www.citebase.org/abstract?id=oai:arXiv.org:physics/0505071
just shows that some people take this extremely seriously - they even do research...
ah what fun... especially listening to our Russian hosts ... but who to vote for...

A dog, I have always said, is prose; a cat is a poem. ~Jean Burden

Don´t you just love how the cat is trying to be stealthfull... (spelling??)

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. ~Proverb

Yes well.... some of these photos will say something else... beginning of May and it snows!

Then the sun came out again and one could resume gardening chores. Freyja and I received a visit in the garden from a neighbourhood cat... Neither was very impressed with the other. I will put a separate post with the cat chase.

To keep folks updated this is the house that will be housing the majority of guests for the wedding...

It´s the red house - we will have the middle and the top floors - have still got to go and check it out - it´s probably not the Hilton, but I figure it will be ok for a short stay... and hey - it´s not that far to the church, so no excuse for stragglers. My place for folks that don´t know is about 2 minutes walk to the left from where this photo is taken....

It´s gonna be sooo good.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~Henry Brooks Adams

I was inspired by Jomamma to talk about my teachers... also a recent post from Olga reminded me of how much a teacher can affect your view of certain subjects.
So here goes the teachers that I remember
Grade 1 Gosnells primary school - Ms Stibby (mum and I called her Mrs Skippy for the first 6 months - forgive us - we didn’t speak English and Skip was on the TV every day.) She was great
Grade 2 Gosnells... have no idea... just remember that 3 eights are 24... we all had to get up in front of the class and recite tables and we each had a multiple to recite... not sure I learnt what came after me - was more worried that the kids before me remembered their lines...
Grade 3 Maddington Primary School... Mrs Clews for half the year then Mrs Telfor (I think that was her name)
Grade 4 Maddington Mrs Clews - she was brilliant - such a nice understanding and caring person
Grade 5 Mr Biggs... from Sri Lanka - or was it Malay - can’t remember - just know that he told us the best stories after afternoon recess. All about jungle adventures and ghost stories... Half the time we were shitting ourselves, once literally one boy pissed his pants... he was too excited by the story to put his hand up to ask to go to the loo.
Grade 6 Mr Bailey - he read the hobbit to us and taught us to sing some Carpenters song - snowbird?... anyway he was brilliant, I loved reading and he encouraged me so much. He was also working part time for the ABC and used us as a test group for things that they were thinking of doing for primary students. In his class I had to sit next to the "special" needs boys - i.e. in special need for a kick in the balls... anyway...(I think these thoughts on why I was seated next to certain people in primary school needs a different post).
Grade 7 First Mrs Ellis, she went on maternity leave... she was sooooo lovely - a carer, totally nice... then came Mrs Damen... the name says it all. She was kicked out of the Catholic school down the road as she had become born again... (I think it was for another reason). With her came my arch nemesis Tony Pisano. Under her we took tests every week to see our class standing. At the end of every week we then had to move desks according to where we were in the "smarts" hierarchy. Needless to say I never reached the top row... was always at the end of the second one - just but not quite there - no tell a lie was there for one week. Any who, in her class I learnt to cheat - i.e. get the cards for this weeks math and the answer card at the same time - whoopee got them right but did I learn - nah.. God I hated her so much. In her class Leon Blurton was sat next to me on one side (the only exception to the smarts rule) Leon was a really nice kid - an Aboriginal whom I had known since grade 3 - we got on ok and so it didn’t worry me too much... Tony on the other hand was on the other side of me most weeks, only because he always cheated off me in tests!!!! (sidebar - he got put in the big house a few years back for fraud - cheated his clients when he was pretending to financially advise them - he also married the only person who I have ever been deliberately mean to - think mean girls times a few).
As you can see I was traumatised by this half year in year 7.

Years 8 - 12 Thornlie Senior High School. Now we get teachers for math, English, social sciences, science, sport, home ec, art - or in my case French.... (Why???? I still don’t understand).I will just highlight the ones that stood out in each year
Year 8maths - Mr Rissman... short American with great blackboard writing skills... pity he actually couldn’t reach the top of the board. From memory a fair maths teacherSocial Studies - Mr Reid - redhead. Nice guy - I love geography, history and all that crap so this was a favourite subject and I was a teachers pet
English....
Science...
Year 9Maths
Mr Maths White, moustache... smoked and was a good teacher...
Science - Mr White - came to us from somewhere in Africa, told us about the elephant foot coffee table he had (totally not right these days)... smoked a pipe - was fairly short and a brilliant teacher
Social Sciences... either Mr Reid again or Mr Ponambolum... (This is written in phonetic spelling - I honestly can not remember how to spell it - he was from Sri Lanka) again - I loved the subject they could do no wrong.English...... (Obviously not my favourite subject)
Year 10
Maths... Mrs Hatch - with the highest pitched voice I have ever had to endure
English... Mrs Edwards... no comment
Science...
Social Studies... Mr P????
I coasted in year 10...
Year 11 and 12
Mrs Maynard - maths teacher extraordinaire - she was so nice... followed by Mr ... can’t remember - but had a dodgy leg and was most amusing.
Chemistry Mr Graham... loved year 11 hated year 12 organic chemistry
Physics, Mr B... Biggins, Bean... oh he was so weak looking and so totally uninspiring (I also did not understand....)
I think a Mr Decker may also have been involved in these two years... I was just soo out of my depth... Calculate the time taken for a block of ice at -3°c to melt in a bowl of water 10°c .... volume blah blah blah...
Geography - Mr Hanrahan - looked like a freaky musketeer (of the French variety - all the hair and the mo) a very very good teacher

Have to mention my French teachers Ms Teo and Ms McPherson, such sweeties - I can not understand how they had the patience with moi...

I look back and think they were all in their own way quite wonderful... apart from Damen, Hatch... and Mrs Whitan... English teacher from hell in year 12... she was from India... had a classic Indian accent - loved the good/good looking people in the class, had little time for me - I got sweet revenge though in the TAE final exam (that meant 100% of your final grade) was written totally for me.. I had such a blast in that exam - I can even say that I had a wonderful 3 hours of exam time... and aced it... (she had never given me more than 5 out of 10 for every assignment she marked - I stopped handing them in after a while).... just as well that in those days what you actually did all year had no effect on your grade average for uni entrance...oh dear.. What a long post - but what a trip down memory lane.

Flickr had new photos from here... in case you care to see more photos of the same stuff

Oh yeh in other news.

Skagafjorður now has a sailing club - I went to their inaugural meeting last night - it is called Siglingaklúburin Drangey. Maybe one day I will learn to sail..... and perhaps spell.

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least. ~Robert Byrne

Sauðárkrókur at around 10pm

So today is the first day of summer according to the Icelandic calendar - which means a day off from work... very nice.

When I woke up this morning the sun was shining and the sky was a clear blue, as the day progressed the clouds rolled in and now there is a fairly cool breeze outside.

So, the first day of summer is a pretty big thing here. Everyone you meet you wish a happy summer and thanks for the winter... love that. Also the scouts have a bit of a parade to the church and have a special scouting service. (I was asleep... bad me).

Here in town the local women (most of whom teach or are assistants at the primary school) decided to have a bit of a market in the "black house" , selling knit wear, jewellery and giving away coffee and pikelets - the museum next door was also opened to let folk check out the exhibitions. To make it a little more interesting they asked the local motorcyclists to come and join them (as you can imagine - motorcycling is only done in the summer months here). They had a really good turnout.

Also today, the local co-op - KS celebrated it´s 120th birthday and opened the new workshop that is just down the road (and subject of a lot of my photos when I am walking the dog). It was a really good day and by the looks of how many cars were there I would say that probably 70% of the locality showed up for the entertainment, speeches, cake, kók og prins that were on offer.

Now am off to dinner at Olafshús with Maggi, Sigga, Helgi and mum (today is maggi´s parents 38th wedding aniversary... )

A perfect day - work tomorrow - but only for one day and the tax returns seem to be coming along... I love my life.

Have I told you - the dog's on heat... talk about pmt....

and that the cat is scarily crazy sometimes... just ask Maja, Olga, Kristinn and Anna.....

and the quote is because general elections are on Saturday - and I still haven´t decided who is getting my vote - this is a first!

The umpire... is like the geyser in the bathroom; we cannot do without it, yet we notice it only when it is out of order. ~Neville Cardus

Time for the weekly post sans photos...

Today was spent learning how to be a judge/umpire for an athletics event that will be here on the first weekend of August. UMFÍ is the Icelandic young peoples sporting organisation and because a town that was supposed to host had to bail (probably due to recession and not having the money to build the track etc)... so Skagafjordur offered to be host this year. One of my cousins is the head honcho in the athletics side of sports here in the fjord and has called upon me and Maggi to be the main computer entry people during meets here. Anywho, now he has decided that I really need to know the rules.... So on a beautiful spring day - I was indoors learning the legal weight and length of a javelin spear... hmmm more useless information - however, bright side - orange pieces of pie in triv may now be more accessable (so long as the question relates to track and field...)

I pinched the pic after the post... suitable or what..

http://www.lapsura.com/drawings/archives/images/trivial-pursuit.jpg

to give correct reference to where the image came from...

Poems and songs with pipes and drums A thousand welcomes when anyone comes... Author unknown

the reason for the trip to London... power drumming from Ross and Nick

this is nicko doing his thing....

and here are Snowman doing their thing...

Another reason for going to London was to try and find the right retro wedding dress for Olga.. The perfect dress is a simple ivory dress with a rounded collar - not high with a waist and in fabric that "stands" for itself - ie no frilly crap.. anyone with any ideas.. have now checked out ebay and also dress patterns.. I kind of like this one

but I know that this is not what she wants... too much perhaps...

Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. Robert Montgomery

Ok so off we went to London. Breakfast at the airport was all important - I had already had my cheerios and súrmjólk, so I figured a corona and a pack of crisps was the right start for a holiday in London...



We had an amazing time, day one was spent at the tower and checking out the ravens - the best thing about the tower really - apart from fish and chips.. I kid ofcourse, but hey...

Nice fish....

The evenings were spent around the kitchen table enjoying the latest in crisp varieties... cajun squirrel, onion bhaji, chili chocolate, builders breakfast, fish and chips, and one more that I can not remember... must have been bad.

We went on the eye... twas well... a good view... but for someone suffering from a fear of heights it was well... I could have lived without it.. Nah, am glad we went up.

Finally managed to catch up with my most dearest childhood friend Dom and his wife Yanira, the nicest people a person could ever have the honour of calling a friend.. and the best thing is - nothing changes that.

The British museum was also on the list of things that should be done... and what is better than a case full of cat gods.

My beautiful niece Olga... a great host and a wonderful human being!!

The ancient house in Walthamstow.. a great name for a great house, which unfortunately is no longer a pub, nevertheless we managed to find a few others.

This was the Freehouse, which had a fine selection of ales and quiz nights each week where you could (if smart enough) win 250 GBP... worth a trip back me thinks.

Then we found another place that had pie... hmmm meat pie... also has karaoke and bbq... and also a good selection of ales and a great loo.

but all good things must come to an end and now I am home sweet home and happy again.. (not that I wasn´t happy before) but hey it is always good to be home.

“You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; Samuel Johnson

Yes off to London early on Sunday morning. Will hopefully have lots and lots of great photos from the time there to show you folks..

So far the plan is to arrive around midday on Sunday, go in the evening to experience Snowman play an accoustic show. Then just let life take over till Wednesday when we go and meet up with nephew Nick and the band he is currently playing with... and Friday fly back to Iceland... so basically the trip is totally unplanned and will just unfold.. and hey - London... so much to do - so much to see ... so many ales to try..

I need probably not mention that I am going to miss the dog...

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today. ~Herman Wouk

Freyja playing with her toy dog...

Tax time in Iceland and I have done 2 so far only around 30 to go.... hence the non blog... It´s also blizzarding outside at the moment...

London in 7 days time! Can´t wait

You're not 40, you're eighteen with 22 years experience. ~Author Unknown

Guðný and Maggi both had birthdays on the weekend so we decided to have a little party. Guðný turned 40 and Maggi 35.

The birthday toast... twas getting on in the evening and folk were quite happy....

Oh yeh and the skeleton theme - Guðný in case you didn´t know is a forensic archeologist - her main love in life is checking out the remains of the very very deceased.

We invited over 20 people and my house was pretty well full - but comfortably so. Guðnýs sisters Bryndís and Sigga and I did the catering... We catered for 50 people, so tonights dinner will be left overs....

This was the table of rubbish - that had not been put away from the night before- I couldn´t find my camera when the table was full of food.... maybe I will get a copy from someone else so that I can share the feast... Anywhooo as you can imagine the next day I spent resting and washing up - which is something that I actually do love to do after a big bash. Also the weather - see photos below - was not exactly condusive to doing anything much....

The glasses awaiting the washing.............

Snow day.....

I have uploaded a heap of photos to flickr for those that care to see...

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.