Mount Doom

Keilir is an old volcano which is about 11 miles from my house (I checked the distance on Google earth) and can be seen easily from my balcony. I have been itching to get a good look at this Volcano for a while now and on Sunday, Henny and I went for a drive.

After a few wrong turns we eventually managed to find the road across the Lava to Keilir, its a unmade road that has to be given a little respect if your car is not a 4x4. We got to the end of the Road after about a ten minute drive and after parking up, Henny elected to stay with the Car. Henny's motives became clear as soon as I got out of the Car. The wind was biting.

I joked that if I was not back in an hour she was to call in the Chopper. She told me I had better be back in an hour as she wanted to go into town and look around the shops.

Anyway, Undaunted I started out across the lava towards Keilir. The walk was easy going at first but became increasingly difficult. Soon I saw ahead of me a steep rise of rock and I decided that if I climbed this I would get a really good view. After hauling my unfit arse up this first rise I discovered that I could not see the volcano due another rise just ahead. I decided I had come too far to turn back so I made my way up this one as well.

I felt like Frodo Baggins, picking my way through the rocks. Snow had bult up between the crags and it had a frozen crust, which made walking on these bits far easier. Then I realised I didn't know how deep these crags were. I tried not think about Touching the Void.

Eventually I made it to the top of this second rise only to find out I was flipping miles away from the Keilir.

Looking at the jagged rocks in front of me I decided that it was time to return to base camp.

I took this video clip when I was up there, as you can hear from the sound, it was a bit windy.

The Intrepid Explorer, Stu Fiennes

Liquorice addiction

The locals have a bit of a thing for Liquorice. It seems all confectionery is laced with the stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind liquorice. My favorite sweet as a kid was a Sherbet fountain, you know, the ones with that long stick of Liquorice in it which was hollow so that if you tried to suck the sherbet up through it, you ended up breathing it in and choking half to death.

So you could say I was Liquorice tolerant, and all things being as they are, that would be it. But it isn't, they have invented Liquorice with salt on. Not only that, you can get spicy 'hot' liquorice, with salt on.

It just ain't right, they taste like Fishermens Friends, its the kind of thing you should take for medicinal purposes.

The salt thing in particular is pretty weired. A guy at work bought in a big mix bag of sweets the other day and told us all to dig in. Due to the salted Liquorice in the bag, all the other sweets tasted of salt. What made this worse was after digging in to the bag I rubbed my eye, I thought I was going to go blind!

This stuff is obviously very bad and I can't work out how everyone got addicted to the stuff. Kids should 'Just Say No'.


P.S. The favorite alcoholic shot around here is called Topas, I'll let you guess the flavour.

There be Dragons

Its been in the news over here that someone found a human skull by a holiday home in the countryside last weekend, well that was what the Newspaper headline said anyway. Turns out that it was only the top of a human cranium and the bloke who lost it said he had owned the thing for ages and used it as an ash tray. I kind of lost interest at that point, so I never found out about how this guy got a part of a human skull in the first place.


Anyway I found a skull of my own on the beach the other day. I am open to suggestions as to what it is , but I think it could be from a Conga eel or something. Its about the size of a child's football. Check out the teeth on it, seriously scary stuff.
Whatever it is I am certainly not going for a swim in the sea around here, although I am sure the cold would do me in long before one of his mates turned up to try an take a chunk out of me.

On the Beach

I went for a walk along the beach today, Gorgeous weather. Wind was a bit fresh though, so I had to wear my bennie hat.


This is one of the Coast guard vessel's towing in a crippled Trawler. I found out that the trawler had got is nets entangled in its own propeller last night. The coast guard went to assist and threw them a line.
I watched them approach, then they faffed about outside the harbour for a bit until what looked like a Pilot boat turned up. Then all three vessels entered the harbour together. You couldn't really call it a dramatic rescue, but it was pretty cool to watch.


We have not had any snow for a couple of weeks now and with the temperature today being +10 degs with a warm sun I was quite surprised to find some Ice on the Beach. You don't get that in Brighton.

Sheep farms on the coast.

Those buildings in the distance to the left of picture is where the Icelandic President Lives.

My New Yukka

Henny was kind enough to buy me a replacement Yukka plant the other day. My old Yukka was left behind when we moved and it broke my heart. But look at this beauty !

Sundown

Went for a walk down by the Harbour earlier and took this snap. Click to enlarge.

Don't Mention the War

I found this article about allied 'occupation' of Iceland during the war. I don't know quite how true this article is, there was a lot of propaganda flying about on all sides during the war, but some bits are quite amusing. I can sympathize with the Canadians as I too have had a similar experience in a shop.

From Time Magazine 13th Jan, 1941

Among geographers, historians, and men of letters, Iceland has not fared well. Pliny barely admitted the place was anything more than a myth. An anonymous 10th-Century English poet called it "a gallows of slush." Hakluyt said: "To speak of Iceland is little need; save of stockfish." Shakespeare thought of the Icelander as a "prick-eared cur." Socially conscious Poet Hugh Wystan Auden, visiting in 1936 and 1937, wrote: "There's handsome scenery but little agricultural machinery."
Last week came a distinctly new angle on the forbidding duck-shaped island of the north. Source: 16 unpoetical Canadian soldiers who, after a stint in Iceland, had deteriorated to Class E, unfit for active service (mostly stomach ulcers), and had been repatriated to Canada, accidentally by way of the British Isles.
Life in Iceland the soldiers reported, was not cordial. When a British expeditionary force took over Iceland at the time of the Nazi invasion of Norway, their reception by the natives was anything but warm. The Icelanders so resented the British that soldiers had to go out in parties of three, well-armed and on their guard against stabbings and shootings. When the soldiers bought eggs, they had to pay $1.20 a dozen, and then the Icelandic grocers had to be watched as they would put only ten in the bag. Icelandic diet was narrow. Mutton appeared in nearly every dish, stewed, boiled, broiled, roasted, fried. The weather was harsh, and the soldiers lived in tents which they ironically named
"Cozy Apts.," "Queen Mary Arms," etc.
But the soldiers' greatest problem was the stubborn womankind of Iceland. About the only word of Icelandic they learned was the word for girl, stulka. They would lounge in the streets, calling "Hi, stulka" to every blonde. But they got no response.
If they went to one of Reykjavik's three dance halls, the girls would consent to dance with them, but would not be escorted home by them. If a girl were in discreet enough to accept an Englishman, she would have all her hair shaved off, like Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Soldiers were not admitted into Iceland homes. Reykjavik, which was supposed to boast that law & order were natural to it, called up an unprecedented police force of 65 men. Icelandic workmen charged the invaders high wages.
All this uncordiality, said the soldiers, was the result of patiently spread German propaganda to the effect that Iceland and Germany were brother States. Three years ago Poet Auden reported seeing Herman Goring's brother in Reykjavik and hearing that Nazi Mystagogue Alfred Rosenberg was soon to come. British found large areas where the shale had been scraped away apparently for landing fields. The occupation of Iceland, uncongenial though it might be, seemed worth the price as a preventive.

Its a small world

It never ceases to amaze me. More than once, I have met someone for the first time at a party or around a friends house and then bumped into them in the street the very next day.


Just the other day I found out that the Sister of one of the Guys I work with is the Foreign Minister and the Lady on reception's daughter is the singer representing Iceland in the Eurovision song contest (oh, and Henny went to school with her).


They say that you are never more than five handshakes away from anyone in the world, but here I think the handshake count is more like 2.

Puffin Consumption

Time living in Iceland = 6 months
Number of Puffins Eaten = Nil

Going to have to impove my Puffin consumption ratio.

Sunny Reykjavik Pictures

Big City

Looking Downtown

Looking across the Harbour

Nice Trawler !

The Perlan, The thing that looks like an artillery

strike next to it is actually a Geyser.

Hallgrims Kirkja

Sunny Reykjavik

Hi Everyone,

Gorgeous day on Saturday. We took the car out and went for a walk by the Harbour. I have never seen the sea look so calm and flat.

We mooched along to a book fair at the Perlan, I did a good job getting Henny out of there without buying anything :)

Managed to take some Pics of the 'Big' city. check them out.


Stuart