Saturday, April 09, 2011

More than a year in Scotland

Somehow a year has passed since the massive Samskip container was parked outside our flat and 4 men, 2 grandparents, one baby and I emptied it in the space of about 10 minutes. Throughout, the traffic warden, a great bear-like man, prowled about and gave warnings of hefty fines.





Since then we've missed two eruptions, got married, Hazel learnt to crawl, sleep through the night (phew), turned one, then started walking two weeks later when staying with her Scottish grandparents. She learnt to climb, to dance, and now is perfecting talking  (salsa, salsa, more, more, tango, tango..). Óli has started writing mobile phone apps and I am addicted to spinning his (and H's) game hedgehog around his phone screen. I am writing papers and doing some teaching and enjoying being back around some of my old friends, the old building where I studied before and the new library which is all fancy and shiny and a wonderfully quiet place to hide and work. We have been lucky enough to meet some lovely new friends and to get back in touch with old ones. We miss Icelandic friends, friends and family in Iceland and the wonderful folk sessions. We are growing plants - but outside, not on our windowsill and are already munching on the fruits of our seed sewing. As much as possible on sunny days like today we live in the little garden and Hazel is trying her best to cuddle all the local cats (and today a spider). All the cats and the spider have so far resisted her charms. I think perhaps chanting "meeow, meeow, meeow (mjá, mjá, mjá) " and running at high speed with arms outstretched towards them doesn't help.