Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Midnight love notes

Ceilidh in Reykjavík!
December 6th 20:00 - Live music "The Reel Thing" - 500kr.
www.skoskurdans.org

It has been a busy few weeks recently with preparations for our ceilidh on the 6th December and with thoughts turning to Christmas! Tonight I sat up late with Óli and K sorting out just what a ceilidh band should play at a ceilidh .. when, for how long, . and what to do when all turns to chaos on the dance floor. It was a most productive evening.. fueled by tea and disappointingly soft fruit shortcake biscuits (note: do not store fruit shortcakes and fig rolls together).

A love note from a mug, actually by no mug, maker of lovely mugs and teapots, Emma Bridgewater.

This is the catch in my evening.. now it is tomorrow and I am still awake, randomly looking at news and trying to get Christmas present ideas from the internet. A troublesome business which really is fairly useless but passes the time and solves any small cravings for actually going shopping which is dangerously expensive here. However, I find presents are probably more suitably chosen when you think more about the person than randomly looking in every shop window, dragging yourself along the high street jostling with other rather panicked shoppers .. or trawling through gadget and gift websites full of neon flashing things and wind up plastic old people with fighting ways..

Someone else I read about has the same sleeping problem as me in Patreksfjörður in north-west Iceland, but has found a lovelier way of spending time. Sneaking out at the dead of night he or she (or it) creeps into people´s gardens and lurks around their cars, their garden fences and the lamp-posts outside their houses. Then.. unseen and unheard they leave a message, a neatly plastic-wrapped note of love for their chosen to find in the morning. Not just one, one dear to heart, secret lover this.. this person leaves notes all over town .. a bringer of happiness and gladness to the dark winter mornings. Sounds to me like a lovely winter story plot come true.


A few weeks ago a read a lovely, quite curiously strange book by Alexander McCall Smith called Dream Angus. It is quite unlike his Number 1 Ladies Detective series or the Philosophers Club books. More beautiful, more subtle. A semi-mythical character who leaves dreams for you and makes you fall in love, who makes the world better by solving your problems at night.

May you be visited by night-time fairies and imps to brighten the next day. Much better than what we´ve got coming .. Icelandic yule lads who raid the fridge, lick the dirty dishes and terrorise the sheep.. but more on that another time.