Sabbatical over, perhaps

I thought I´d drop by and say hi and comment on the weather and the lengthening days in Iceland.

Snow showers and sun are alternating, toying with my optimism by offering the carrot of spring and then slapping me in the face with another unnecessary helping of sleet, snow or a howling gale to blow me off my not-wintery-enough shoe-clad feet. This second there is sunshine, blue skies and a dusting of snow on Esja.

Jóhann Ísberg´s photo of Esja looks similar to the view today.
Perhaps it will all change tomorrow.

I´ve been busy thinking about ceilidhs but just now we are searching for a drummer to allow us to continue getting up on stage and making a lot of noise for folk to dance to. If you play the drums and live in or near Reykjavík please get in touch.

On top of that I´ve been dreaming.. of books and book stores and sitting in continental cafés for hours alternately burrowing my head in a good novel, sipping a hot chocolate and watching the world go by. One day I will open a good book store where I would want to spend time. I will serve homemade fruit loaf and let people pick their own mint from a pot in the window to make their tea. I dream of folk gathering to knit of an evening in the cosy atmosphere or to talk about their latest books chosen from the theme of warm sunny countries in winter and long starry nights in the summer and exchanging reading rights to students for book reviews in Icelandic.

Recently, I read an interesting blog about a woman in Scotland setting up her own book shop, not far from Edinburgh (Inkspot and Silverleaf Booksellers). One of her recommended book stores is Shakespeare and Company, set on the left bank of the Seine, looking over to Notre Dame de Paris. This is a key indicator of her wonderful taste and hopefully bodes well for the future and atmosphere of her new shop. Shakespeare and Company is perhaps the best book shop in the world.

Shakespeare and Company, Paris

Meanwhile I am actually actively and busily employed on a variety of projects in geology: learning how to tame the technology of ArcGIS to make beautiful, useful and accurate hazard maps, which can be clever enough to lend a hand at analysis to give the pocket calculator and map pens a rest; collecting information for a database on all people and projects to do with marine geology around Iceland which is proving a fun way to meet new people here and is turning up a few gems of knowledge that apply to my other work and interests; modeling volcanic ash fall from the majestic volcano Hekla. Day in day out I sit at the beautiful wooden, carved desk that Sigurður Þórarinsson once sat at, studying the ash of Hekla and the great eruption of 1947 among many other things including penning a few lively folk songs and I hope some of his wisdom, breadth of knowledge and great motivation to publish will seep into my veins. I take heart from his song-writing times that mixing folk music, ceilidh dancing and geology can be good for the soul and general productivity.

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.

Dream Angus

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.

10,000 more clinical psychologists in UK?

I sit listening BBC radio over the internet, particularly Woman's Hour, when I am doing some repetitive task at work, washing the dishes or when the flat is too quiet without fiddle rehearsals of frantic reels and jigs. Usually it is a wonderful mix of ladies making jam and cakes for the village fair, intensely earnest discussions of women´s rights and blushing discussions of gynaecology and sexual technique! It blends up-beat recipes for sticky toffee pudding with perhaps a little too much negative news about the state of the world and male dominance in business.

Sad?

Today, I heard on trusty Radio 4 that there is a suggestion that clinical psychology centres for "talking therapies" may be opened across the UK, up to 125 centres, and 10,000 more clinical psychologists will be trained over the next 7 years. The decision will be made in October. This is interesting to me.. that cognitive behavioural therapy might become a mainstream approach to depression and many other psychological problems. Where on earth will the 10,000 psychologists come from?

Fallacies of thought

I wonder how this "talking therapy" could help people in Britain, and how it could change the UK. There is something more personal about life in Iceland where you can really focus on getting the best from life. A friend of mine recently who is also a foreigner here said that Iceland acts life a magnifying glass on his life and feelings .. when things are good they are really really good and when things are bad they are horrid! I think this is true .. but I´d add that it is possible to swing more quickly between these two states, that is more possible to get help out of those dark times and that particularly in the winter there is widespread, nationwide recognition that life is a little harder, more subdued and sometimes more sad in the darkness and it is easier to talk about it, easier to reach out a hand and help and to accept the hand of help.

The helping hand even drops by in unsuspected ways. In my first summer here I was living in a small flat about my landlord and landlady. I was homesick and sad being away from friends and was thinking of going back to Scotland. My landlord at that time started being woken around 3am by someone knocking at the door to his flat. Nobody apart from me and his wife could be knocking and his wife was asleep in bed. I knew nothing of it until later in the week. Each night he got up and went to the door but opened it to find nobody was there. He wasn´t scared, just puzzled, particularly since it occurred for a few nights in a row. Eventually he asked a friend who was in touch with spiritual issues about it and she told him it was me .. although I was sound asleep .. something, someone or some thought was alerting him to my distress. He promptly invited me to dinner and discussed meditation with me and I decided to stay!

There can be a fear of psychological problems, depression and sadness. The UK seems to thrive on shame of this.. on shame in general .. to distribute it widely.. single mothers, mental health problems .. I am so glad that shame is less popular here! Why is that?

I also wonder if the lifestyle in western Europe, particularly the UK is the problem? Is life so stressful and depression so prevalent all over the world? I love the idea of slow living, developed particularly in Italy along with the slow food phenomenon.. taking time to enjoy things, access good quality produce and skills from local sources rather than from the other side of the world, supporting small, local and creative businesses. But can we live in a slow way in the modern western world and still be able to earn enough to survive? To pay those high mortgage and rental prices? Wow, the property prices in Reykjavík are mad! Maybe the idea of slow living sounds lazy but isn´t it worth taking time to enjoy life?

Well, for those interested, the radio program I heard was called "All in the Mind". A good book that is not too glib and shallow is David Burns´"Feeling Good". If you look at the website, try to ignore the polished smiling face .. read the book instead. More on the slow movement is to be found in an article by the BBC, the slow food movement site and also Carl Honoré´s excellent, though sometimes repetitive book "The Art of Slow" and his website and blog.

Sun and books

The sun is shining today in Reykjavík. It shone through much of the night last night too. It always takes me a little while to get into the long daylight hours, though I look forward to it greatly. To start with it just makes me tired, but happy. From my office I can see two children bouncing high into the air on a trampoline in their garden. The world around is getting greener, spring has sprung. Perhaps winter will jump back in for a finale in the next month.. probably tying in with my planned first fieldwork trip of the summer.

Well, it´s not really the weather for sitting inside reading and it is probably a little too cool for sitting outside reading, but it is a good time to venture out of the house and perhaps meet some new people and thinking about books for rainy days. I thought some weeks ago that it would be good to swap books in person in Iceland as a way of recycling books and perhaps meeting new people. I still think it´s a good idea but any complex signing-up book swapping community based on the internet just might not work. So, I am proposing a once a month gathering in Kaffi Mokka of anyone who wants to swap books in whatever language. If like some you have rooms and rooms of books grab a random few, stuff them in your bag and set off downtown. If you´re in or around Reykjavík even just for a visit bring a book you have read or are tired off, have a coffee, yummy hot chocolate or even better Belgian waffle and leave with some new reading material for a rainy day or a long bus trip. Hope to see you there.

Book Swapping in Iceland

A new local community is beginning for book swapping in Iceland. It is open to residents and visitors alike and is easy to use. You can meet people to exchange books or you can post them to another book swapper in Iceland. Books can be of any language.

I like this idea. It is environmentally friendly as well as economical and potentially sociable. Have a look and contact Iceland Bookswap if you want to register. It costs nothing and all you need to start is an email account and one spare book.

Book swap

There is something about books that oozes comfort, particularly old, slightly bent at the edges books. I like the smell of a dusty old bookshop. It reminds me, I think, of the study in my parent's house, full of books and musical instruments, bits of computers and stacks of paper dating back to the year dot. There was always the aim to organise everything and behind the piles there are organised bookshelves which are now almost impossible to reach. There is usually a small zone somewhere not too far from the door and about a metre in diameter in which you can stand to survey the scene. Mum and Dad please don't take offence ... I love the room!

I have often, like so many ex-booksellers and bookworms, dreamt of having my own little bookshop where you can take a seat and grab a book and a coffee and wile away a few hours, a place where it is good to spend time, where you can get engrossed in the first few pages in a book and just have to take it home. Of course the range of massive book stores are wonderful but the more like a supermarket a bookshop becomes the less I want to go there, no matter how many books it stocks. I love little pokey places or rambling mazes of places, all shelves lined with spines of books, either second hand like Till's Bookshop near the Meadows in Edinburgh (it has a real fire inside) or new like Shakespeare and Company in Paris.

I also like to swap books with friends, share the experience of a fine book knowing it is in safe hands. I have just discovered the concept of book swapping with strangers and I am deciding if I like it or not.. Of course, it is nice passing on books and swapping them when you read something good. Also, with magazines, they can be so expensive but still girls like to look at fashion pictures or read yet more of the same articles about the same things .. make-up, men, fashion, recipes. These days I avoid fashion magazines on the whole.. they can make you feel bad. But still I do like the glamorous fashion shoots and the photography, the bright colours and the shiny pages.

Here there are less people who read books in English to swap with and I have just a few books in Icelandic .. maybe I can swap with the age ranges 5 to 12. I am enjoying trying to read one the Unfortunate Series of Events books translated into Icelandic. The next on the list after that is Hobbitinn, the Hobbit. If you live in Iceland and fancy being involved in a local english-language or multi-lingual bookswapping community get in touch with me here.

There is one café that I like which champions book swapping, and it doesn´t matter about the language of the book. Grái Kötturinn has shelves of books you can swap with .. so long as you replace the one you take with another of a similar colour and size! I have managed to go there once and found it to be a cosy little café with good hot chocolate. However, every other time I´ve passed it has had a gate across with a massive padlock keeping it locked. I´ve peered in once or twice hoping that the café of fine memories is still in business.. and yes, it looks like a normal cafe just shut for the day. So, unless everything was dropped at end of business one day and nobody has returned then I have to assume that it just has odd opening hours. There are no cobwebs or dusty windows after all. Don´t try there for an evening refreshment and book swap experiment though.

So, today I came across another the idea of internet-based book swapping sites. Two seem pretty good for English language readers.. Titletrader which is for books, DVDs and CDs and Readers United which is just books but I think looks much better and has a better range of titles. You lists books (or CDs and DVDs) that you want to swap and then you can requests others from another member. When someone requests one of your books and you send it to them you get awarded points to spend on other books on the sites. Titletrader allows you to buy points so it doesn´t matter so much if you don´t send of books, but then if you live in a town or city you could go to a secondhand book store and browse for hours instead which I think is more fun. Readers United awards you points for joining and listing books so you can request one book straight away. It seems to have a better postage system too.

However, can you really do this? Send your books off into the great big world unaccompanied? I love hoarding books and its only the thought of carrying them up another long set of stairs or moving them to another country (again) that tempts me to send them away on their adventure. And the tax on books in Iceland which makes them into a major investment. Book Crossing looks interesting .. a cross between geocaching and book swapping, you can track your swapped books around the world. I like this idea, it would keep me in contact with my dear books and i wouldn´t feel like I am sending them away into the unknown.

Well, anyone I am trying Titletrader for now and so far this week have received four requests for my books so when the post office opens on Tuesday after the Easter holidays I am going to be sending parcels to Bulgaria, Portugal, Quebec and England. Farewell dear books, I enjoyed your time with me.. find good homes now.

Land of Mountain and Flood

Today I went to the post office to collect a parcel waiting for me. It is always a special day if it starts with a brown paper parcel. I can usually tell from the writing who it is from .. or in the case of my sister it usually has special tape sealing it shut. There was a phase of yellow tigger tape and then also some holographic shiny tape. This parcel I'd been looking forward to arriving since I'd heard about it being en route to me. I couldn't wait until I got to work to look inside so sat inside the car ripping open the brown paper like a child at Christmas .. and just like a child I have kept the bubble wrap in my desk drawer for a moment where popping bubbles will add light to my mood. I look forward to that delight and am keeping it until later. Inside the bubble wrap was a new, shiny, beautiful hardback book "Land of Mountain and Flood: The Geology and Landforms of Scotland" Thank you Sarah at Birlinn.

Now, I have a lot to do today.. decide if I have any good results to present at a conference in Vancouver in the summer, decide what they might be, write a draft of the abstract. But first.. just a wee quick flick through my nice new shiny book. I almost never buy hardbacks; they cost so much and are so heavy but they look stunning and I always mentally give them a little stroke when I pass them in the shops, gaze longingly at their glossy covers..

I've not read it yet so this is no book review.. but it looks good, covers geology from the very beginning to some time in the future, says why it is important and interesting to everyone and presents a pretty good case (note that for future grant applications and justifications of why I get paid to do what I enjoy to the next tax payer who asks), has lots of lovely pictures of Scotland, of Edinburgh, of great landforms, of people..

I'm going to put it out of my reach for the day and take it home tonight. I have a lot to learn about geology before the last few million years. I think this might even be the book for me to start going down that road.. minimum of one picture per page, good accessible language, accurate geological facts and explanations. Very happy.. thanks thanks..

Until then.. aerial photographs of Snæfellsjökull.. and applying myself. Ah .. it is so sunny outside, ten minutes ago it was a blizzard.. I could watch the weather all day.. a good cup of tea, my new shiny book and a big window on the world...

Christmas puddings - serve flaming

Christmas baking rule number 1 .. never bake only one of anything. Two Christmas cakes, two Christmas puddings also. At least two batches of favourite Christmas cookies or smákökur.

Christmas baking rule number 2 .. always sample ingredients prior to inclusion in recipe .. dried fruit, glacé cherries, brandy, sherry..

Óli’s general Christmas rule .. set fire to as many things as possible.

On holiday in Scotland in November I found individual Christmas puddings for sale way before advent even. Along with mulled wine and mince pies. Maybe like hot cross buns they will become year-round delights. But does that remove the delight? Thankfully we arrived just a little too early for the Christmas shopping carols, otherwise our hunt for Christmas presents in 2 days would have been even more trying that it was. Living in Iceland it is hard to go to the world outside without feeling like a child in a sweetie shop when presented with a big range of shops, culinary delicacies and prices which don’t break the bank. Mmm.. cheese, black pudding, .. shoes. I read once, when working over Christmas in a book shop, that the incessant playing of Christmas carols in the high street has a measurable detrimental effect to the mental health of shop workers. I can well believe it and I think I am still struggling to recover. Well, Christmas pudding joined the list of Scottish hits and true to style we decided to make our own. We spent the summer squashing berries and stirring pots of gooey blood so Christmas puddings really had to be homemade. Anyway, the suitcases were too stuffed with secret Christmas presents, glacé cherries, cheeses, haggi and black puddings for any shop-bought Christmas food.

Step 1, gather rather ugly but practical plastic pudding basins from Lakeland plastics. No chance I am messing with string and fancy knots a la Delia after the black pudding scenario. Step 2, gather all fruit left over from Christmas cakes and brandy stored away from Óli. Dig out trusty “Mrs. Beeton’s Favourite Recipes” book. Very small, it always hides behind the fancy, shiny, glossy photographic coffee-table type cookbooks which I hardly use. However, once tracked down it is a cookbook to be treasured, with age-old standards such as roast beef and yorkshire puddings, eccles cakes and .. Christmas puddings. Mrs. Beeton’s recipes work for me, Jamie Oliver’s don’t.

Mrs. Beeton was pretty amazing .. her book on household management became Britain’s most famous cookbook and despite the wealth of glossy modern books on cooking and food probably remains so. Originally published as a collection of articles from the "The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine", "The Book of Household Management Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady’s-Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly Wet and Sick Nurses, etc. etc. – also Sanitary, Medical, & Legal Memoranda: with a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of all Things Connected with Home Life and Comfort." was published as a complete volume in 1961. Phew, was anyone left out of that list? I suppose the etc. etc. covers them. Just imagine the acronym. Also called Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management or Mrs. Beeton’s Cookbook. It is now mostly available on-line where you can also read about the history of a Victorian household. Times for people in Britain really were different then. She died aged 28 after giving birth, like many others of her era.

This recipe makes 4 puddings, each in a 1 pint sized basin. What on earth do you do with 4 puddings? I think this dates back from the days of 16-person families. One spoonful of this Christmas pudding is enough to satisfy a craving for rich food for at least a week. So, it was Christmas, we halved the recipe and made two, following rule number 1 and ate about one sixth as a serving each, enough to make it almost impossible to move for a few hours. The rather disgusting, yet traditional, Christmas feeling.

Ingredients: 225g (8oz) plain flour, pinch (meaning a little, I have little hands so that’s very small) of salt, pinch (again) of coriander, teaspoon ground ginger, teaspoon cinnamon, teaspoon mixed spice (I think it is a UK thing ..includes ), teaspoon grated nutmeg, 50g (2oz) chopped almonds, 450g (1lb) soft brown sugar (dark makes a nicer colour), 275g (10oz) shredded suet (beef fat, from Scotland, do not use chopped Icelandic lamb fat.. yucky yuck yuck), 275g (10oz) precious sultanas, 275g (10oz) currants or chopped figs or dates if currants have suddenly become more precious than gold.. maybe everybody was making Christmas puddings, 225g (8oz) raisins, 225g (8oz) mixed peel, 200g stale white breadcrumbs, 6 eggs, 75ml stout (e.g. Guinness.. give remaining to Óli, make a friend for the day), 50ml brandy (or to taste.. I wonder what becomes too much), tablespoon of rum, juice of 1 orange, 150-300ml (1/4 to 1/2 pint) milk. Not entirely authentic .. we added the figs (Figgy Pudding), cinnamon and coriander (because it didn’t smell Christmassy enough and most Icelandic baking has some cinnamon) and the rum (to dilute the brandy!). Like with the Christmas cake do the cooking show thing of measuring out everything into cute little bowls before mixing together otherwise something is bound to get missed. I felt a little silly with my long list, ticking everything off .. just needed a clipboard and to push my glasses to the end of my nose. Find someone else to do the washing up.

Method: Mix all dry things together (flour, salt, spices – you can sieve these if you wish, I don’t think it matters – dried fruits, almonds, sugar, suet and breadcrumbs). Beat together eggs, stout, rum, brandy, orange juice and 150ml milk. This really isn’t a pretty combination. Gradually stir this into the dry ingredients until you get a soft dropping consistency, which means what I ask? .. it drops softly, note dropping not dripping, soft and will drop off the spoon I suppose, but having investigated this now to some degree that can mean almost anything.. I’d aim for something like slightly melted ice cream. Put the mixture into four (if using the whole recipe and feeding your entire neighbourhood or one Edinburgh tenement) plastic pudding basins and cover with the lids. Leave about a 1 cm space between the pudding mixture and the lid. We overfilled one and of course it popped and then became too dry inside. Put into deep boiling water in a very big pan (big enough to boil yer head; really I don’t boil heads, its just a turn of phrase .. and reminds me of student fieldtrips and accurate measurements of boulder sizes.. “It was as big as my head”, perfectly describing the boulder in question and giving a lovely impression of the degree of roundness and density also, see attached head in appendix for calibration of the scale). Boil steadily for 6 to 7 hours. Puddings not heads. You need to be at home for this to top up the water now and again and to stop your children and pets climbing into the pot. It will be a slightly darker colour when cooked and you will see some tasty sweet syrupy juices in it. Let it cool, wrap tightly in foil and place in the fridge. Keep for as long as 12 months or preferably at least 1 month before eating. We had one at Hogmanay since there was no space after the turkey at Christmas and another for our Burns supper around a month later. The Burns night one was definitely better.

Reheat before serving either in the microwave for a few minutes or by boiling again for 1 and half hours. Leave to stand for five minutes or so before serving. Serve flaming! Heat an eggcup full of brandy for a few seconds in a microwave or in a small pan. Pour over up-turned pudding and set alight. Do not place under paper lampshade over the table. Whoosh! Good with cream or ice cream. How can anyone really seriously consider sweet brandy sauce?