October 2007

Sigh. Despite our best efforts with hazelnuts, it looks as though Polly the cockatiel is not having any of it and has decided to proceed with her egg-laying plans as usual.

She’s had a total of three hazelnuts for several weeks now and has laid on them dutifully. Her routine has gone something like this: wake up in the morning, leave the cage to take a poop [so as to not sully her precious nesting area], pick at some fresh veggies laid out on a paper towel on the floor while YT eats breakfast [birds feed in flocks, so whenever any one of us sits down at the kitchen table to eat, Polly must eat at the same time], then pace around my feet restlessly, peeping occasionally, until I relent and pick her up and spend a few minutes scratching her head. Once I’ve done that, she’s ready to return to her cage to spend the better part of the day dozing on the bottom of her cage with her brood of hazelnuts tucked beneath her.

I’ve always just assumed that she was sleeping – until the other day when I had to forcibly evict her from the cage in the midst of a hatching session. I picked her up on my index finger and was amazed at the heat coming from her – obviously she’s generating energy equivalent to a small furnace, all for the purpose of getting those wee barren nuts to hatch.

It’s very sad, I know. What’s ever sadder, though, is seeing our Polly like this – which is inevitably what happens when she tries to produce her own eggs, which I fear is imminent. A few days ago she started acting all broody again and I began to think that maybe I should smuggle in another nut baby, just to make her think she’d actually managed to get laid, you know, and had miraculously produced a baby while she wasn’t looking. But I didn’t – and this evening she was pretty much set on the bottom of the cage and making those vague rocking movements that indicate that the time is nigh.

With any luck she’ll be satisfied just adding one more to her brood – cockatiels normally lay three to five eggs per clutch, and if she produces an egg now I’ll surreptitiously slip in a fourth hazelnut sometime in the next few days, to bring the total to five. Although it’s all touch-and-go at the moment; she may very well reject her surrogates in favour of the real deal. Time will tell.

WE’VE HAD A BLAST OF WINTER THESE PAST FEW DAYS
The ground has actually been covered in snow and it’s been windy and quite nasty cold. This morning, for instance, we had temps around zero C, wind and flurries, which brought the temps down to well below freezing. I went out for a walk to the bakery and wore a wool insulator and my Icelandic sweater underneath a windproof jacket, which was just perfect – you really can’t go wrong here with Icelandic wool and windproof outer shells. Anyway, it warmed up as the day wore on but the wind remained, so we had horizontal rain. It’s dark in the mornings now and lemme tell you, it takes Herculean effort to get out of bed. Particularly for the likes of YT who has the luxury of working from home and therefore doesn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time. It’s a good thing I’m self-disciplined by nature, otherwise I’d be a bag lady by now. Temps currently 7°C [45F] but with the windchill it feels like 1°C. The sun came up at 9.03 this morning and set at 5.18 pm.

I’m taking a short course these days on translating and interpreting and am finding it remarkably fascinating, more so than I expected. In fact my mind is virtually overflowing with chaotic factoids and random information on the topic, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to take this opportunity to empty it so I can get on with the urgent business of getting a good night’s sleep. My apologies if you came here for something more coherent; regular programming shall resume very soon.

1. Icelandic society is absolutely and completely inundated with translations. Just about everything all around us is translated. All the foreign news in all of the media, almost all films we see at the cinema, almost all the television programmes. About 80 percent of the plays put on in the theatres, almost all of the books published, instructions and manuals for almost everything, from washing machines to medication. Legislation and regulations. Documentation and certificates. Just about everything. And yet translators as a group are virtually invisible in this society. Why?

2. The cost of translations is much higher in Iceland than it is in most other countries. That’s why reps from all those foreign translation agencies [that for some reason are contacting Icelandic translators with increasing frequency] just about pass out when they hear our rates. [And generally beat a hasty retreat.] Q: Could it be that all those invisible translators are invisible because they’re too busy raking in the dough? A: Pfft! I wish.

3. Before Iceland had a national TV station [i.e. pre-mid-1960s] none of the movies that were shown here had subtitles. The cinema owners claimed it was too expensive to translate everything. Instead they printed programmes with a synopsis of the movie plot so people could at least have an idea of what they were watching.

4. Germany translates more books into the vernacular than any other country. There’s been a rich tradition for translations in Germany since the 18^th century [there was a really fascinating reason for it, too, and I wish I could remember it so I could tell you]. There is a huge market for translations in Germany, as opposed to in the English speaking world, where only 3 percent of all books sold are translations [in the UK at least, and therefore almost certainly in the US]. This is why Nicelandic authors scramble to get translated into German. Not only do the Germans love Niceland, they also buy translations.

5. Text that is not translated, dies. It cannot live for any length of time within its own geographical area, in its own language. That is why we translators are Very Important People.

6. If Iceland joins the European Union there will be an immediate and critical shortage of translators and interpreters. The situation is bad enough now but if we join the EU it will be catastrophic. Doomsday. The Apocolypse.

7. The Icelanders translate all new words that enter the language, meaning there’s a committee that reviews all new objects and concepts and finds new words for them. For example, when computers became ubiquitous, most countries just imported the English word ‘computer’, whereas the Icelandic word committee made up the word tölva, which is a hybrid of the words tala [number] and völva [prophetess]. However, some people now argue that Icelandic must start importing foreign words, because there are so many new concepts entering the language that Icelandic just doesn’t have enough stem words to cover them all.

8. The translations of all the EFTA legislation [European Free Trade Association, of which Iceland is a part] handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs apparently bears little resemblance to Icelandic, because it’s so standardized and bureaucratic. Many people feel that international cooperation is completely flattening out the Icelandic language.

9. Others argue that the best thing that could happen to the Icelandic language would be for Iceland to join the EU, because that way it would be guaranteed not to die out. If Iceland were part of the EU there would be people working full-time to develop the language so that people could carry out discourse on innumerable subjects in Icelandic. Whereas if this doesn’t happen, this language will slowly but slowly perish.

10. Almost all of the large companies in Iceland that have operations abroad have declared English as their official company language. Trouble is, hardly anybody has native speaker proficiency when writing text.

11. A brand new – and updated – translation of The Bible hit bookstores last week and it’s been nothing if not controversial. In fact, all hell has broken loose, with the Bible thumpers going at the liberals like rabid dogs. And now I’d better stop because I really Don’t Want To Go There.

IT SNOWED LAST NIGHT!
First snow of the season. We were at a dinner party and came out around midnight and there was ice all over the roads and people driving reeeeaaallllyyy sssllllloooowwwlllllyyy. [Thank goodness.] YT was pretty nervous, driving in icy conditions for the first time without tires that have nail studs in them, but we made it home in one piece. It’s been a frigid day but absolutely beautiful; right now temps are –2°C [28F] and the sun came up at 8.57 and set at 5.25 pm.

It’s been a busy week with a heavy workload that I still haven’t quite managed to unload, so in lieu of a post that will actually require brain exertion, here come a few tasty morsels from my current stash of googlies.

~ Apparently some people out there have odd ideas about water parks:

water parks get you naked (who knew? – USA)

pictures of naked people on water slides (sexy! – Canada)

~ Some people have odd ideas about YT:

alda kalda prison reykjavik (heheheh. Be afraid.– USA)

~ Some had the right idea about The Iceland Weather Report:

weather report monologue (you’ve come to the right place! – Australia)

a place to help people on poems about the weather (ehhm, ok, if you say so. – US)

days of sunshine in iceland sad (wery wery sad. We think so too. – Brentwood Bay, BC)

~ Some were quite exasperated:

recent weather reports that are serious (oh, as opposed to the inane drivel you find here? – New York, NY)

~ Some should have paid more attention in English class:

what are important of this place called iceland? (gee, we not know either important of this place – Virgin Islands)

unusual things that has before been in iceland (not before there has been unusual things there! – Hendersonville, North Carolina)

~ The pervs and weirdoes came knocking, as usual:

spanking the weather girl (ooh, matron! Addison, Illinois)

porno a dog to remember (! –Mussomelim, Sicily)

maturing penis pictures (in real time, or …? – US)

sex sex sex sex iceland (okay, we got it the first time – Libya, Africa)

photos of girl’s bare asses (one girl, many asses. Life’s a bitch. – Williamsport, Ohio)

naked icelandic nudity photos (they have to be naked, though. The photos. – Brooklyn, NY)

~ Some people were doing their Nicelandic research:

blowjob in iceland (always good to have an idea of the services on offer. – Biggar, South Lanarkshire)

is it common in iceland to have sex (no – that’s why the population is only 300,000. – UK)

iceland frozen foods casting agency (in case you need frozen food in your next feature. –Farnham, UK)

how i read my iceland visa (useful to know before you travel. – Spain)

~ Some had some very genuine concerns:

how to make panties into thongs (cut in a semi-circle along the back, up towards the waist. –Boynton Beach, Florida)

how to have a good time in bed with your boyfriend (didn’t yours come with a manual? – Des Moines, Iowa)

plumber stole panties (sigh. it’s so hard to get good help these days. – Mahopac, NY)

~ And the rest:

balcony puke (Sweden)

rational self cking (Budapest, Hungary)

OKAY THEN! THAT CONCLUDES THAT.
The sun has just appeared for the first time in days, so if you’ll excuse me I have to go stare out the window. After all, we have to grab all the daylight we can get right around now. Currently 7°C [41F] and the sun came up at 8:41 am, and is due to go down at 5.42 pm.

Big Thank You, everyone. Your comments on the last post have given me a major boost. It makes such a difference to get a glimpse of the people behind the stats, as it were, and to know their responses to what I’m putting out there. I can’t quite explain why, but it does.

So now that I know how you feel, let’s get back to business.

This past weekend saw the Iceland Airwaves festival here in Reykjavík, which is an annual event and one of the coolest music festivals on the planet if you believe the hype – at least it has the foreign press is crawling all over it and punters from elsewhere making the trip. True to form, YT and EPI missed it, like we miss everything that’s supercool and unmissable around here, even though last year we solemnly declared that next year we wouldn’t miss it. But – we did!

Airwaves, largely sponsored by Nicelandair, started as a showcase for new Nicelandic bands a few years back and within two years had mushroomed into this major event that nonetheless has this really happy hometown feel to it. All the venues are situated within a few blocks of each other, and you buy these bracelets that are good for the whole festival, so you can just walk from one venue to another and check out whatever suits your fancy. They have this ‘Airwaves Centre’ at this pub right in the middle of the area, where you can have a drink and order food and generally hang out with other punters and talk about the different acts and whathaveyou. Airwaves prides itself on catching the latest cutting edge, up-and-coming bands [as opposed to big headlining acts] and reportedly this formula works rather excellently.

The biggest [read: best-known] act at the festival this year was Bloc Party, which has proven itself to be the coolest band in the universe. Why? Well there’s this upper secondary school in Hafnarfjörður [municipality in the Greater Reykjavík Area, the one you pass through first on your way in from the airport] called Flensborg, and they were organizing a school dance. It so happened that the school dance coincided with the Airwaves festival, and when the student committee sat down to brainstorm which bands they should try to get to play at their dance, someone suggested Bloc Party, which everyone thought was an excellent idea. So they got on the blower and called Bloc Party who went, ‘Play at your school dance? Sure!’ So Flensborg, this little school in Hafnarfjörður, southwest Iceland, had Bloc Party playing at their school dance this weekend and charging them less than most local bands would have. And that’s why you gotta love Bloc Party. And also those wacky – and irreverent– Nicelanders, bless.

Meanwhile, YT has her favourite Airwaves act all picked out [despite my absence] and it is Ólöf Arnalds, whose new CD I am quite obsessed with right now because it’s just so lovely. This girl quietly tiptoed into the mainstream about a year ago and is proving herself to be one of Iceland’s major cultural treasures. We saw a video installation she did at the Culture House during Reykjavík Culture Night last year, which was very cool, and just a few weeks ago she released this CD on which she plays most instruments, writes all the songs except for two, and sings. The music is really prettily arranged and the atmosphere is intimate and sort of old-fashioned … reminds me of an old Icelandic timber house with lace curtains and the sun streaming through. Her voice takes a little bit of getting used to – it’s unusual, almost uncomfortable, so that you almost want to cringe but don’t, because she’s so sincere. And – this is a big plus – she sings in Icelandic, which is becoming very rare, what with everyone wanting to make it and singing in English. And she’s articulate and her lyrics are like gossamer – so delicate and joyful. Just gorgeous.

Okay, that concludes my Airwaves review [not bad for someone who wasn’t even there, wouldn’t you agree?] – and now for something completely different: make sure you check out this little guy here, and keep your volume on. [Heheheheh, and get a load of the bow at the end!]

AND HERE COMES THE WEATHER REPORT YOU ALL CLAIM TO READ:
We had a storm today. It started around noon, just as YT was heading out for a bracing walk around the golf course, meaning the walk was even more bracing than bargained for. Stuff went flying through the general locale and the rain came down in sheets. Happily it’s calmed down a bit now – temps currently 9°C [48F] with sunrise at 8.38 am and sunset at 5.45.

Today, October 20, marks a full three years since I started this blog. So to commemorate the occasion, I’ve decided that today’s post shall be about … blogging.

1. Blogging is the most superexcellent hobby in the world in my opinion. Even so, I often get in a total blogfunk and wonder why the hell I bother. Like when, say, 300 people log on, but only two stroke my ego by leaving a comment. I’ve often pondered the reasons why this blog has such a low comment-to-visit ratio, and come up with a multitude of possible explanations, none of which are satisfactory. After all, we bloggers do it for love – but we’re really in it for the comments. So – yes, more comments would be nice. Even if just for today.

2. There are some wonderful people out there who almost always leave a comment, and to them I now blow a big Cyberspace kiss and say THANK YOU, if it wasn’t for you I’d probably have packed it in ages ago.

3. Most everybody has a blog that inspired them to start their own. Mine was Mimi Smartypants.

4. The first blog I added to my blogroll was Jamie’s, and – fittingly – Jamie happened to be the first blogpal I made, that I actually met in person. That was last year, in Toronto, when I was on holiday and Jamie just happened to be passing through. EPI and I eloped on that trip, and just a few days ago, Jamie did the same thing with her s.o. at a drive-through chapel in Vegas. I’d like to find some serendipidous meaning in all that, but it’s probably just a fluke.

5. Incidentally, the whole business of blogrolls still manages to confound me from time to time. I’m honoured every time someone adds my blog to theirs, and still feel a vague sense of guilt if I don’t reciprocate. However, over the years I’ve learned that it’s impossible to add everyone [just as I’ve learned that it’s impossible to please everyone] and, in fact, the links on my blogroll have pretty much stayed the same for the past two years. My the main criteria for having them there is purely self-serving: they are – or in some cases, were – the blogs I visit[ed] most often. Since then I’ve started using Kinja and tend to add new blogs there, so effectively it’s replaced my blogroll, which nonetheless still stays up there, just … because.

6. I’ve learned that making friends in Cyberspace is a lot like making friends in the schoolyard. Some people you connect with and they become firm friends; some people you like a lot yet only see from time to time; some people you admire but don’t necessarily have a connection with. And some people [e.g. those who email you with long, drawn-out treatises on the unsatisfactory relationship they have with their wife] you just want to avoid like the plague, for obvious reasons.

7. On that note, sometimes you meet really nice people in Cyberspace who have really enjoyable and worthwhile blogs and you’d really like to get to know them better – but you just don’t have time. Because, let’s face it, there are only so many blogs you can read in a day [or a week, or a month] because, well, there’s this pesky thing called LIFE that also needs your attention. And also this pesky thing called BLOG.

8. I’ve frequently wondered whether I should start another – separate – blog in which I write less about Nicelandic things and more about other things, that have more meaning, more depth, more value. Because, quite frankly, the things I go on about here are very one-dimensional and quite superficial and only showcase a small part of my experience and who I am and what I’ve learned. But then I abandon the idea, because a) I’m chicken and b) where would I find the time?

PLUS I’M GETTING A TAD WEARY OF THESE WEATHER REPORTS
But if I don’t write them, I really can’t call the blog The Iceland Weather Report, can I? I’d have to call it The Icelandic Report on Gratuitous Navel Gazing, which just doesn’t have the same ring to it. It’s been overcast and wet today – at first it was mild yet blustery, then at noon some horizontal rain was added to the mix for as long as it took me to walk from point A to point B, so I got soaked. By late afternoon the rain had stopped but the wind persisted and it was a nasty damp kind of cold. Right now 7°C [45F], the sun came up at 8:32 am and set at 17: 52.

So the last post generated still more questions in the comments box, which I’ll endeavour to answer, even though as most of you will have surmised by now this blog isn’t really about Iceland, nor the weather, but rather a completely self-serving exercise allowing YT to empty the contents of her brain into this endless dumpster called Cyberspace every couple of days.

Be that as it may, I don’t mind answering queries from people who are nice about it and say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and especially ‘can I get you any duty free booze’ … nor from people who are faithful readers, nor from any of my friends. In fact, I usually don’t mind answering questions at all, unless the person asking seems to assume that I have been put on this earth solely for the purpose of catering to their touristic needs, to wit: I’m coming to Iceland next week, what will the weather be like from Tuesday to Saturday? Thanks. [signed] Sowanso. Or: Hi, I’ve got a few questions for you. 1. Where should we go to see glaciers … [etc.]

[/rant]

Anyway, Karen and JT presented me with questions in the comments yesterday and as they’re nice people and faithful readers and fulfil all related YT criteria, here are their questions addressed.

Karen:

We’re planning on visiting in the later half of next May. Anything special going on in that time period?

Not that I know of, yet – check the listings closer to the time, e.g. here or here.

As for Viking stuff … hm. I’d suggest checking out the National Museum and also the Reykjavík museum plus minus 876 or whatever it’s called [the craziest name ever for a museum – how can anybody ever remember it?]. I’m not sure which Viking Village you mean, although I vaguely recall hearing something about one … I know there’s a restaurant in Hafnarfjörður that gives you the ‘real Viking experience’ – serve your food in troughs and whathaveyou. I’ve been there once, for a wrap party with some American film crew, when AAH was performing in a Showtime commercial. It was pretty cool – probably worth checking out if you’re into Viking stuff.

JT:

Northern lights - the tour companies “try different places” to see the lights. That sounds like codswallop to me - surely anywhere dark will do. Could you suggest a specific place to go, ie close to Reykjavik, and a paved road which is not too busy at night?

Actually, I don’t think it’s codswallop [what a great word! and so apt] – the Northern Lights appear as streams of light that are constantly moving and shifting, and they don’t appear everywhere. BUT – I’m not an expert so I really don’t know. There are tours that take you out and I think they offer some kind of guarantee, like another tour if you don’t have a sighting, but like I said, I honestly don’t know. The Northern Lights are completely hit and miss, unfortunately – even for us, they always take me a bit by surprise when they appear. They really are exquisitely beautiful – but alas, they can’t be counted on to appear. The conditions have to be just right – cold [below freezing] and clear.

However, if you wanted to try to see them on your own, your best bet is to drive a bit out of the city. I think taking the road to Þingvellir would be a good idea – about a 20 minute drive, up into Mosfellsdalur valley. You’d have to ask someone at your hotel how to get there.

If I rent a normal (not 4×4) car, can I do the golden circle and a few other places in mid Nov reasonably safely?

If the weather is OK and there is no ice on the roads, then yes. You should note that roads outside the capital ice up a lot faster than in Reykjavík. You can check the conditions of the roads here before you set out. Or ask someone at your hotel.

Do restaurants and cafes get sniffy about babies?

The posh ones might, but as a rule, no. Iceland is an extremely child-friendly country and you’ll find baby seats in just about every café and restaurant.

Can I get you some duty free booze?

Thanks but we stocked up pretty well on our trip last month. Very sweet of you to ask, though!

Rozanne:

What’s leaf bread?

Leaf bread is wafer-thin bread that is deep fried and eaten with smoked lamb. The traditional thing is to decorate them with designs – today families often get together to do this and make an event of it. See pic here.

OKAY THEN! THIS POST HAS GONE ON A BIT LONG
So here is a brief account of the weather – mild, calm, no precipitation. Temps 9°C [48F], sunrise was at 8:29 am and sunset due for 5:55 pm.

Got an email from a reader in Athens, Greece, who is planning to visit our fair isle over Christmas and New Year’s and who presented our YT with a set of questions related to his upcoming trip. Seeing as how the information might be useful to the myriad other punters who are planning on doing the same [if the google searches I’m getting are anything to go by, there are many] I thought I’d post both the questions and the answers here. Doing my bit for king and country, as it were.

What would you suggest as something traditional to do over New Years Holiday?

~ Go out on New Year’s Eve and mix with the locals at the brennur – the big bonfires generally held down by the seashore. [In Reykjavík the one on Ægissíða is the best, in my opinion.] Then at midnight go up to Skólavörðuholt, in front of Hallgrímskirkja church, and observe the mayhem as Reykjavík residents shoot up fireworks worth the GDP of a small African nation within the space of half an hour. TIP: you may want to bring earplugs.

What are the possibilities of seeing the northern lights? (we are renting a vehicle so we have the opportunity to leave the city during the nights).

~ Hit and miss. If you’re lucky it will be cold and clear, the conditions needed for the northern lights to appear. Driving out of the city also increases the chances, what with light pollution and everything.

What would you consider to be the best public pool/water slides for families?

~ 1. Árbæjarlaug, 2. Laugardalslaug.

Best Traditional Icelandic food (I am a big fan of Seafood)?

~ At Christmas? Smoked lamb [hangikjöt], ptarmigan [rjúpa] if you can get it [you probably can’t], reindeer pâté, leaf bread [laufabrauð], smoked puffin. All those will be present at any Christmas buffet in the city [except maybe the ptarmigan], which are hugely popular around that time. If traditional Christmas isn’t de rigueur, then you can’t go wrong with seafood and lamb. Even the most basic restaurant will do good seafood [except, maybe, Icelandic Fish and Chips, as I found out to my dismay] and I can recommend Við Tjörnina [no I’m not getting a kickback – if only!] for great fish dishes.

Okay then! If anyone else has any questions, do send them in, we aim to please.

STILL FREEZING COLD, UNTIL TOMORROW
The last few days have been miserable, what with the freezing temps and particularly the strong wind from the north that gets in through every nook and cranny and just makes you feel so cold. BUT we’re in for southeasterly winds tomorrow and rain for the next few days, much to the chagrin of another reader – from the UK – who emailed yesterday to ask if the weather forecast he’d seen somewhere with temps of 7-12°C was really true. And I was forced to tell him that Iceland is, in fact, the most misnamed country on the planet, save for Greenland which obviously is in a league of its own. Temps crawling upwards, currently 4°C [39F] and sunrise was at 8:23 am, sunset due for 6:02 pm.

Today is blog action day for the environment and while I want to take part, I have no idea what to write about. What I’m doing for the environment? How terrible the Icelanders are at recycling? How impressed I am with our new Minister for the Environment? The hypocrisy of rejoicing at the great weather we’re having every summer while simultaneously bemoaning the fact that our glaciers are melting?

Okay.

What I’m doing for the environment
I recycle newspapers, bottles, glass, paper, milk/juice containers. I take batteries, scrap metal, old shoes, diskettes and CDs, and various other items to the recycling depot. I recently got new tires for my car that don’t have studs in them and therefore don’t contribute to fine particle pollution. I walk or ride my bike wherever I need to, unless I absolutely have to take the car. I don’t buy aeresol spray cans. Um … probably some other stuff I’m forgetting now. — Your turn!

The Icelanders are terrible at recycling
Many many Icelanders - I won’t say most, although I’m tempted - throw everything into the household trash. Take our upstairs neighbours, for instance. Bottles, newspapers, shoes, lumber, electronic gadgets, you name it, they’ll dump it. Meanwhile, when called on it they moan about how inconvenient it is to take the newspapers all the way to the recycling container located behind the supermarket that is two minutes away by car. Or the bottles all the way to the depot, which is five minutes away by car. They’re lovely people - but sometimes I just shake my head.

Apropos that, I have to say that Nicelanders in general are relatively oblivious to the concept of ecology. I suppose having such an abundance of land - and clean land, at that - they don’t really get it. They drive mammoth cars and trucks, the concept of eco-driving is absolutely foreign to them [e.g. they will sit in their cars for ages - hours - while keeping the engine running when they could so easily turn it off], they never think about limiting the use of water [EPI for instance routinely leaves the kitchen tap running for long periods while he goes about tidying up in the kitchen], they’re completely challenged when it comes to recycling, etc. etc.

Meanwhile, our new Minister for the Environment is ace
I was delighted when she took office last spring because I’d met her a couple of times through mutual friends, and knew she had the potential to do good. And now that she’s been in office for a few months I have to say I’m completely impressed. She’s been quite outspoken against further destruction of our environment in order to provide evil multinationals with power to feed their heavy industry [read: aluminium plants] and just last week was quoted in one of the papers as saying we should absolutely not be asking for special provisions to the Kyoto protocol, for which many of our politicians have been lobbying - i.e. provisions that would allow us to release greenhouse gases over and above our allocated quota. [So that evil multinationals could build more aluminium smelters.] No - instead we should be pouring our resources into developing our know-how in the field of green energy as well as exporting that know-how, and looking for ways to curb the vast amount of pollution released by our fishing fleet. Finally a politician concerned with more than just short-term interests. Yowsa!

And yes - I love the fact that we have gorgeous weather in summer
… yet all the while our amazing glaciers are melting. It’s sad and tragic and I don’t know what to do about it.

MEANWHILE OUR CURRENT WEATHER IS UTTERLY MISERABLE
I hate to sound negative, but there it is. It’s been a cold and miserable day, with gales from the north, making for killer windchill. The sort of day when you can’t even open windows comfortably because the wind is so strong and you don’t go outside unless you absolutely have to. Right now we have 1°C [34F] but it feels like -6°C [21F]. The sun came up at 8:16 am and set at 6:09 pm. In other words, the day is becoming uncomfortably short, and it feels even more uncomfortable when the weather is so awful. Here comes SAD!

Spent the weekend painting my little home office, with the intention of giving it a minor overhaul at the same time. Nothing drastic: just a couple of shelves, a set of glass doors for the bookshelf, a magnetic whiteboard for notes and things.

So EPI and I head out to IKEA this afternoon. In addition to the above, I wanted to get a sundry of things for the house - basic stuff like a breadbox, new hanging rack for dish towels, rubbish bin for the bathroom, ceramic knobs for our dresser. And you know what? They were out of practically everything. Glass doors for the bookshelf? Out. Magnetic whiteboard? Out. Hanging rack for towels? Out. Ceramic knobs? Out. Breadbox? Out.

We saw a shoe cabinet and mirror we thought we’d get for our vestibule. Shoe cabinet - got lucky and scored the last one. Mirror? Out. Candles? They only had yellow and red. Candles!The basic fundamental reason for IKEA to exist - and they only have yellow and red. And only a few packs of each, at that. Sheesh!

I have to say, I am much put out. Because sadly, this was not an isolated incident but has become the norm when we go shopping at IKEA. They’ve got this new mammoth store on the outskirts of town, meaning we have to drive twice as long to get there, and when we do there’s hardly anything in it. Lots of things on display, but nothing on the shelves. In fact - yes - they’ve just beat out stupid old Krónan for the Icelandic East Bloc Shopping Award. What a feat!

HAPPILY THE WEATHER HAS BEEN CRAP
… Because I was cooped up all weekend, obviously. Had it been excellent I would have been jonesing to be outside, but since there was rain and wind and a general damp chill I was happy to be puttering around inside, slapping paint on walls and getting rid of rubbish that had accumulated on my shelves. The things you keep, for no good reason … the mind just boggles! I read an interview with some woman in the paper this weekend, who was talking about redecorating her house, and how she and her husband had gone through their bookshelves and taken each book, and if neither of them had any sort of emotional connection to it, into a box it went and then directly to the Red Cross. I lived by those woman’s words this weekend, and oh, how good it felt! Getting rid of all that dusty old energy. Time to make space for the new, oh yes. Currently 5°C, [41F], cloudy, sun came up at 8:13 am and set at 6:12 pm.