Gleðileg jól - snow, fire and excitement

Norðfjörður

Happy Christmas everyone. Gleðileg jól.

We are in Neskaupstaður which is a town set in a deep fjörd (Norðfjörður) on the east coast of Iceland. I´ve been here once before, in February last year for a trip to the neighbouring uninhabited Viðfjörður. Then it was warm enough, rather strangely, to be outside comfortably in short sleeves. Now, returning in December for Christmas and New Year to spend time with Óli´s brother and family there is ice and snow. Ice coated the road all the way to Kirkjubærklaustur, around a third of the way from Reykjavík to the east then as we drove along the coast passed Jökulsálón we felt as if we were driving through the night, the longest night of the year. Even in the pitch black of 4pm the ice-choked lagoon sparkled beautifully with blues and greys and the odd bright shimmering fairy-light on the icebergs as the full moon reflected off the glistening surfaces.

A walk in the snow

Now we´ve been here for almost a week. Snow fell on the 23rd to give us a white Christmas and like last year we opened our parcels after dinner on Christmas Eve, still making me feeling rather naughty breaking the childhood rule of not opening any presents until Christmas Day. This year, being with Icelandic and South African family the house was swarming with supernatural beings. Jólasveinarnir dropped by at night to leave presents in shoes for good boys and bigger parcels on the 24th and then on the night of the 24th or early morning of the 25th Santa made it to Iceland, flying down into the deep valley, thankfully missing the cold sea water and not slipping too badly on the ice to leave more presents beneath the tree and fill Christmas stockings. Then, K lost his first baby tooth and the tooth fairy left something under his pillow on the night of the 25th.

Where the tooth fairy lives

Today is the 29th and things are calming down. The best toys have been selected (torches and protective eye glasses meant for fireworks), the excitement is diminishing and the house has been spirit and sprite free for a few evenings running now. However, New Year nears and Óli and I have been helping setting up the fireworks display. Of course everyone will set fireworks off and the town will be wreathed in smoke but before midnight, from the sneak preview of the size of the fireworks being laid out and placed into massive barrels, I expect there will be a pretty good show from S and co. Fingers crossed that my fuses don´t fail.

Big bomb, happy boy

It is good to be out of Reykjavík and to see the snow-clad hills all around. I will however, be quite glad to be rid of the supernatural visits for a year! You would too if they were stealing things from the fridge and sniffing around doors, worrying the sheep and licking your pots and pans!

Gleðilegt sumar - Happy Summer

One spring where I grew up

Today is the first day of summer in Iceland and I understand there is sunshine to celebrate the event. What I want to know is "was it frosty last night?" A frost on the night between winter and summer brings the good luck of a good summer and I want one of those please.

Viðfjörður, mystery trip to east Iceland

Waking up horrendously early in the pitch black of a February morning I was bundled into the car with what I would need to stay in a "summer" house for a night .. with no idea of our destination. We left late, as is our wont and rushed out of the city towards the south. We drove.. reached the turn off for Þingvellir (my first guess), headed for Vík í Myrdal (my second guess) and kept going. Further east we hit Höfn in Hornafjörður with barely enough time to refuel and grab a sandwich to feed our famished tummies. Still so far to go.. but yet little clues to our destination.. though I was beginning to guess. We were entering the east of Iceland, Óli´s world, where reindeer run free and where I was completely at his mercy!

As we drove, still late, I guessed we were heading to Neskaupstaður but still no idea where. Thats a fishing town not a summer house. We pulled up by a big building in the port, humphed out our rucksacs and put on our waterproofs, covered everything in black bags and lowered a boat into the water. Ten o´clock at night, in pitch black again we were still on our journey, now across the dark rather scary-looking fjörð and into the night. My first time on such a boat. It was cold and we dashed with apparent focus across the water towards a destination that those around me knew so well they had no need to question navigation or go haltingly, instead catching up on their news from lives in the east and in Reykjavík. They dropped us off at a pier that we couldn´t see, in a fjörð a little around the coast from the town where no lights shone bar our head torches and the only sound was running water. And then they were off, colliding with nets on the way out so as to send back peels of laughter to us left on the shore in the pitch black with just our bags and a fiddle.

We struggled up the deeply dark path and the unusually tall white house appeared ahead of us. Rather ghostly.. but perhaps that affect had as much to do with the stories I´d been hearing over the winter of teenage trips to the house and apparitions and eerie atmospheres encountered there more than the actual sight before me. We went inside and explored with our head torches .. I went around setting gas lamps and little candles in the rooms we were always going into to chase out the shadows. The house has no electricity and no water during the winter when its only very occasional occupancy (apart from the ghosts, who we assume don´t need running water) would allow the pipes to freeze and burst. We set the fire to a roaring, friendly glow and went back into the night to fetch water. Completely light adapted again we could see so little as we walked over the mirey ground to the river with our bottles.. and turning around to look back at the path we were taking so as to be sure to go the correct way, we saw all windows of the house full of that roaring flame. To anyone it would have looked like the house was on fire and we stumbled back to check and found only a cosy living room with the glass cabinet stove full of lively, but perfectly contained, flames.

We spent much of that weekend carrying water! In bottles and buckets, even in a plastic baby bath. The little house at the back has a cleverly designed steam room and shower, all lined beautifully in wood. It looks like a little Scottish croft house but is a luxurious Nordic spa! But, in winter there is no running water..

It was a wonderful weekend.. in February it was so warm that we could go outside in short sleeves amazingly and took a little walk and saw seals and stunning mountains. We explored the attic and looked in the bedrooms and I ran really quickly between candle-lit oases once it got dark. We never saw the ghost but the lack of heating and light makes for cold, drafty patches which contrast alarmingly with the toasty fire and the warm glow of flames.

On Sunday the men from the boat came back to get us and we headed back to Reykjavík and back to reality with full wintery blasting winds and icy roads. It took ten hours to drive east and three days to drive back again. In between we had unexpected spring, wild nature, romance and music and the wonderful 30th birthday present mystery adventure break from the long winter could not have been better. Thank you Óli and also thank you Skúli, Ingvar, Helgi and Óli´s family who helped in the subterfuge.