Sigur Rós at Öxnadalsheiði

What a stroke of luck. On friday the fabulous and unique Sigur Rós decided to play a free concert a mere hour's drive away at a stunning location complete with snow dusted mountains, craggy peaks jutting into the evening sky and the warm scent of fresh mown hay mingling with woodsmoke. Over a thousand people in their, strangely cool, mittens, hats and thick-rimmed glasses turned up to see them. Everyone sat down on the grass in an orderly fashion which was good as it meant that short-legged horses could see everything for a change.

They were brilliant of course. As I sat on the grass soaking up the magic I got that feeling again, you know that feeling when something's tugging at your heart. And it's not a person, or a thing, but an entire country.

The Fog

It advances slowly like a horde of wet woolly marauding sheep, a wall of woolly grey oblivion steadily creeping up the valley, stretching its long fingers up mountain slopes, curling itself around and nestling here and there in gullies and hollows, but always steadily advancing towards Hólar, to swallow us whole.

Then it changes its mind, pauses, and begins to retreat back out towards the sea.

Another busy Sunday at Hólar.

Saturday Night, Hólar (pop. very few), Northern Iceland

I am installed in my summer migratory residence at the foot of the mountains. If you've ever spent a random saturday night at Hólar without your Soulmate, without beer, and knowing that there's really something else you should be doing, you'll know how it is. You spend the afternoon guiltily procrastinating, writing postcards (is this constructive?) and watching the fog roll in. Evening comes, the fog thickens, dinnertime has finally arrived, and suddenly, well you don't know if it's the lack of weekend beer, the claustrophobic all-enveloping sea fog or your current Boy Drought, but all of a sudden, that unattractive lanky waiter is so attractive why you could just grab him. God, you can just see him astride his fiery Icelandic stallion, long legs dangling, writing short (and quite bad) Icelandic poems and searching for lost Icelandic sheep. Oh yes, perhaps I will stay here Forever.

Truculent Horse Finally Gets a Blog

It's the very first day of my very first blog. I feel shy. Shy and clumsy. Fumbling around like a teenager at a disco. Let's hope this improves otherwise my blog is going to be, frankly, crap.