Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. ~Jane Howard

A small break in the reminiscing to make an update regarding current proceedings. Tonight was a family get together at Rúna Birna's so here are some photos to update the family on how everyone looked on the 19th of November 2009: oh. and as an aside.. this is like the first time in a long time that there was 100% attendance - no swine flu, no one at sea and no one down south... yay for family dinners!

Totally engrossed with what is happening at the other end of the lounge. Jóhanna and Guðný and Jóka totally absorbed whilst mum and Odný Sara are in conversation.

What were they engrossed in... Eyrún and Þórdís with the newest member of the family... name to be given on Saturday.. young boy Sorenson whilst Steina gives Atli Björn Smárason a bit of a cousin/aunt talk...

This is princess Victoria giving her cousin Kristófer an instructive lesson on the correct way to hold a glass that has a stem. She is so precious.. in a really really good way..

Stebbi, Smári and Guðný... so like themselves.. no words are needed.

The hosts of the party and Soren. Rúna with her boyfriend Helgi - so nice. and Ingvi's muscled back

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Maggi, yes his hair is thinning - hence the crew cut, Eyrún, Ma and Steina

The dignified elders.. my uncle Bjössi and Rúna

oh and there had to be a photo of me - with Maggi and Þórdís.

The next historical instalment will be all about........................

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. ~Desmond Tutu

Cousins are the most wonderful people on the planet - not only are they related to you they often make the best of friends! I was so lucky to get to know just a few of these wonderful individuals during some of my stays here in Iceland. From those early encounters true strong solid friendships evolved. I would hate to think what my life would have been like if I had never gotten to know these people and more importantly than that - have them as my friends.

Johanna, above is the most beautiful of human beings. She has had a few rough times in her life, but has bounced back so magnificently and is someone that I admire so much. I know that she is there - solid as a rock for me at any time wherever I am in the world. I love her to death!

This is a portion of the extended family on my dads side, a lot of these people I really don´t know - I know who they are and I know we are related, but like in all big groups of people there are often only certain people that you know you have a special affinity with. Johanna and her extended family are like that for me.

This is mums oldest sisters family, I am fairly good mates with Krisín (middle bottom) and Olína, they basically managed to save both my mother and my mental health when I came to Iceland as a 12 year old. We will get to whiny sig in a later post. Anyway I missed my dad dreadfully when we were in Reykjavik and made life hell for ma - who probably missed dad just as much if not more than me. Anyway the solution and a good solution it was - was to send me to the country to my aunt and uncles farm. There I learnt to ride a horse and to shovel shit in the cow shed - twas a very good education.

Now these people have been extremely influential in my life - my hero Sirrí is bottom left, she runs the local museum set up here, writes educational materials on the early habits of Icelanders as a hobby, and has basically helped her mother and father bring up the 8 other brothers and sisters. These cousins took me and Tracy in when we were here in our teens, they made our stay in Rvk just so amazing... They took me in when I came back in the 80's - helped set me up in work in the bank and also when they deserted me (they moved north), made sure that I still had a safety net of friends in Reykjavik. Solid friendships were formed and are now such an integral part in my life that I could not imagine being here without them.

So as you can see, although I lived thousands of miles away - friendships were born and grew and became stronger over the years. I have people here in Iceland who know me as Sigga frænka í Ástraliu (Sigga cousin in Australia) - they are not my relations - but to them that is who I am. This is often the cause of much consternation... but are you related? - no... but in a strange way I became related to all their relations - through proxy. I loved it and still do.

Now a new generation of cousins is growing up way down there in the southern hemisphere and wonderfully they are all really really good friends.

Olga and Maja became better friends when they spent time together in Iceland, living with my mum. I think I can safely say that their friendship grew and blossomed whilst they were here. Such gorgeous girls.

This is the group (sans Maja - she was otherwise engaged), this was taken during my last Christmas in Australia, it was a wonderful day. They are beautiful people who, through blood are family but as friends they are greater than the sum of all of us.

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...

True love stories never have endings. ~Richard Bach

The nostalgia continues.....

Before coming to Australia mum had been in touch with an Icelandic couple that had emigrated to Perth in 1967. Mum got the contact through the usual channels in Iceland - a friend of a friend of a friend. This would be extremely significant to our future in Australia. In those days all immigrants were "processed" at Villawood in New South Wales (Sydney), thankfully - as we had this contact in Perth we did not have to go there. Olga and Kristinn were so wonderful - they had organised employment for dad, a place for us to stay as soon as we got there and what was best of all they met us off the boat. Olga and Kristinn had moved to Australia with Olga's two sons Sigurþór and Tryggvi, they then had a child of their own in Australia - Jon Erik.

Olga was to become my nieces grandmother...

This classic 1970's look is taken in our front garden - mum and Olga

Alot of our early years in Australia was spent at the beach - we loved the beach - we just lived a little too far away from it. Nevertheless this did not stop our often daily excursions to the water side. This photo is from Cottesloe beach - I would later live just up the road - see those big trees - my place was just behind them. Mum being a bathing beauty attired in the appropriate attire for the day.

As I said - we spent a lot of time on the beach. Dad made this rig for our "daily" excursions - ie the weekends where we literally spent the whole day on the beach. As you can see the dog was always with us.

I think that I can safely say that these were the best of days.

Well as people do - my siblings started to get married. First my eldest brother who had stayed in Iceland married the love of his life Sigríður (I was very little at the time and was super happy that he married a woman that had the same name as me). We found out by telegram - remember them - they were the fastest type of communication way back then - probably took a day.... Helgi and Sigga are the parents of my best friend nephew - Maggi nephew Gunni (the one that has aged me by making me a "great aunt" and niece Kristín.

Then brother number two got married - he found himself an Icelander in Australia - yes there were a few of us there. Lóas parents had moved to the north of WA to work at the Iron Ore mine Valdimar her father drove one of those huge ore carrying trucks. Jon and Lóa are the parents of Maja and Valdi

Then Unnur married her Thor - the son of Olga, they met almost on arrival - Unnur 14 and Thor 16, they became the best of friends then fell in love and are now still the best of friends - what more can you ask for? They are the parents of Kristinn, Olga and Anna. I don´t have a wedding photo - haven´t raided mum's albums yet - but found this lovely one of them and the first born

The youngest of the brothers - still my big brother - Hilmar (who is my personal hero), did what no parent probably wanted at the time - he joined the army.... I am not even sure if the Vietnam war was finished when he joined up - but he was only 16 and joined as a cadet in high school and then went on into apprenticeship school with the army. He was going to be a carpenter... well alot of water has gone under the bridge since this photo was taken, he became a machinist fitter

and then found his way into air frame fitting and helicopter - plane mechanic... but just take a look at this - how cool was he....???

He still is ofcourse. He found the love of his life in Wagga Wagga... Sandra was in the air force but was also from Perth - well that's where her family lived. She too was an immigrant like us - but from the more exotic Burma - a real beauty and they are the parents of Jon David Albert, Nicholas Mark and Dorian Magnus - all really great names I think... but then i am probably biased - they are the cutest of all my nephews... sorry guys - just got to tell things as they are.

I think though looking at this photo none of the above mentioned folk will be impressed with me - but hey - it was the height of fashion then. The other lady in the photo is I think aunty Barbara - but I am probably wrong and will change this as soon as someone tells me....

Moving to Australia meant that we left alot behind and missed out on a lot of things... Helgi's wedding just being one of them. What I think my parents missed the most though was the family... Number one being their eldest son. Not being there to help and support him during his maritime education, his wedding, his finding a home and starting a family. As I said in my last post mum and I made the trip in 1975 and mum got to see her dad for the last time on his farm. A man that I think she finally managed to reconcile with - in a way...

the photo - full of orbs (thinking of you Maria) is of Helgi Magnusson (my brother), Helgi Jóhannsson (my grandfather) and Magnús Helgason - my nephew with ma.

Later mum and dad went to Iceland together - so they had the chance to see dads mum and dad again. This photo could really have been taken in Australia - given the fence and the trees in the background. Am not sure where it was taken but this is my dad Magnús Jónsson, his father Jón Björnsson and ma.

What was there in Australia - why didn't they move back before 1987 - well one of the reasons was my dad's love of gardening - and by gardening I mean being able to grow your own fruit and veg in the back garden - all year round:

Dad loved his garden and we loved him for it - all of us - I am sure that Valdi and Maja and the other grandchildren have fond memories of going out the back and getting fresh strawberries, mandarins, oranges, apples, almonds, grapes - whatever was is season.
And for me this was home... our house in Banach Street...

You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted. ~Ruth E. Renkl

The following posts will be mostly self indulgent, a time to take stock of my life so far I guess. So I thought I would start with the following image - me and my big sister, whom I love dearly. I think that my childhood was an extremely good one, being the youngest of five I was the one that was spoiled and indulged and obviously took it all for granted. It's what you do when you know no better.

We left Iceland when I was five, so really I should not have had all that many memories of my early childhood, but somehow Iceland was always under my skin. Most of my friends from primary and high school would probably agree with this and I doubt if any of them are overly surprised that I ended up back here. The next picture is one my sister recently gave me - it´s me defending my territory... the house that I now call my home.

Growing up in Australia was a wonderful experience - I loved it. I was blessed with having the very bestests of friends Tracy - who will feature prominently in the forthcoming entries... once I get around to scanning more randomness.

Here she is with me and her younger sister Greer at the front of my home in Perth... See how washed out the colour was - what do you expect in 40° degree heat.... but check out the tan...

I spent my formative years at Maddington Primary school... what a melting pot that was

This was taken during the second half of grade 3 the class had been split and I ended up in this one with a teacher that I really didn´t get on all that well with. Hence the sour look on my face I think... I am fourth from the left in the front row. This class contained what would be the core of friendships that would last so much longer than any of us could have imagined. In the back row, third and sixth from the left are my very good friends Dom and Jeff, the most wonderful male members of the human species that I have the privilege of calling my friend. They too may feature in future instalments.

When I was twelve I went with my mother to Iceland - our first visit to the "old" country after leaving it some 7 years before. Whilst there I got to meet cousins that I knew existed - but didn't "know". This short stay of 3 months was to be the basis of friendships that would grow and be extremely important in my future life. I think this visit also helped solidify my feeling of being "Icelandic Australian" rather than an Australian of Icelandic birth. The country and the feeling of being at home was embedded in my psychy. Iceland became my home away from home, a fixed place in my life.

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????

.

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!