We landed in England on Tuesday and on Thursday we headed for Wales where we stayed in a beautiful log cabin by a lake full of fish. Lambs ran around the cabins, herons guarded the lake and bats swarmed the sky. Nature at it’s finest. The weather has been wet but warm.
We are back home in England now and the weather is beautiful. Brimrun is outside playing with Alfie, the family dog, who is loving all the extra attention. We are having a brilliant time 
Alfie
We sold our house last week!! Praise the Lord! We are moving to Selfoss as soon as we come back from England. It’s exciting!! And I have a job! Woohoo! I shall be starting work when we get to Selfoss. God has slotted everything into place. 
Mood: Ecstatic
Hunger: 0/10
Current craving: None
Exercise: Does lifting sofas and moving boxes count?!
Weight: 1 kg too heavy. Oh yeah 
For some reason whenever I say,”I am eating healthy! I am going to drop a couple of kilo’s” I automatically start craving chocolate and tuna. How weird is that? I am not a huge chocolate eater. Óðinn, on the other hand, has been known to have it for breakfast!! I am far more into savoury stuff like sour cream and onion crinkle cut crisps As soon as I say I am going to eat less and exercise more the need for chocolate arises. I usually cure this by drinking Swiss Miss. Swiss Miss is the most delicious hot cocoa drink in the world. I have a couple of friends in England who I have to send supplies to…it’s that good!
I can’t explain the craving for tuna. That’s just weird.
My aim is drop 2kgs (4lbs) before I get to England. This gives me “room” to enjoy Indian food, sausages and my brothers cooking without concern. If I manage to keep off the 2kgs whilst in England that would be awesome! But I somehow doubt that is possible!
Day 4 of healthy eating and excerise:
Mood: Happy
Hunger: 5/10
Current craving: Tuna and cucumber sandwich
Exercise: Swimming this evening
Weight: 2kgs too heavy
This year seems to be going crazy fast. Easter is over and Christmas is on it’s way
The weather here is beautiful. It is still a bit chilly but the sun has started shining which is a great relief when you haven’t seen it for four months! The days are longer now which only means one thing…Spring time! The flowers aren’t blooming yet and the fields aren’t quite green but it’s getting there. The birds are coming back and singing their little hearts out. The fields full of swans and geese; I shall have to take a picture next time I see it.
The Bead Box has had a few changes. I am now solely in-charge of The Bead Box. I have redesigned the website…with some help from Óðinn Check out the website and tell me what you think! The lava jewellery is a great success!
We have just 13 days until Óðinn, Brimrún and I land in England. We shall be staying in a log cabin in Wales with my parents for four days and then staying with my parents for 10 days. It will be the first time Brimrún has been to England so she is crazy excited about it. We are too I am looking forward to going to Primark. The price of clothes here in Iceland is just ridiculous; I have only ever bought two items of clothing in Iceland. Most of clothes are from Primark As well as stocking up on clothes we shall need to stock up on tea bags. Tea over here is hard to come by unless you like fruity tea or Earl Grey. They do sell Melroses English Breakfast Tea but that is just tasteless. Brimrún told me a joke the other day about the English and their tea drinking:
Brimrún: Now I understand why the English drink so much tea!
Me: How?
Brimrún: I have tasted their coffee!
Well, the plan to keep this more regularly updated has failed but that is not entirely my fault, you see, we haven’t been living at home for almost a month and haven’t had ANY internet access. I thought I could quite easily live without internet access until I didn’t have it. It turns out….I need it. Mostly to keep in touch with my family on Skype but also there is the need to feel connected to the world and let’s face it, if you don’t have internet, you are not connected. However, for the next few hours I am plugged in to cyber space which means Facebook and emails here I come!
The past three months have been a bit crazy. I have been involved with a lot of things including The Bead Box, dinners with friends, Icelandic courses, fundraising for Lindin, jewellery making, scone making and much, much more. Óðinn has been working non-stop. By day he is a computer nerd and by night he is an electrician. He is working on a big project at the moment and to save petrol and energy we have been living, almost, on site.
Lindin is a Christian radio station over here in Iceland and it just celebrated it’s 17th birthday. During it’s fundraising birthday week my friend, Ethna, and I organsied a Cream Tea to raise money. Lindin’s Cream Tea was held in two separate locations at two different times. We managed to raise approx. £850! It was a great success. Along with selling scones for approx. £2.5o per adult, The Bead Box sold jewellery and gave 50% of what was sold to Lindin. We all had a brilliant time
Lindin's Cream Tea
It is my birthday today and it is always sad to be away from my family on my birthday. Birthdays are a big deal in my family so it is very quiet without them here to celebrate with. However, I do have good friends here in Iceland who have made my day special. I am going to my Icelandic course tonight and I shall be taking chocolates with me to celebrate. Chocolate is the best way to celebrate, wouldn’t you say?
Christmas 2011 was a great for me. We had my Mum stay with us for one month and my Dad and my brother stayed for two weeks over Christmas and New Year. It was great having my Mum here. We thoroughly chilled out. We baked pepper cookies and watched Christmas films and took the dogs for brave walks in the treacherous weather.
Once my Dad and brother, Joe, came when took a trip up north to Akureyri to visit the Christmas house. We stayed in a wooden cabin with a hot tub on the mountainside of Akureyri where we could see the town below. You can’t beat hot tubbing in the snow! The Christmas house is a house which is open all year round and is filled with every type of Christmas ornament you can think of. It is ridiculously over priced but the experience was well worth it.
Christmas Eve was spent with family. We went to the church service at 16.30 and then went home to eat the traditional Icelandic Christmas dinner which is smoked pork with sugared potatoes, red cabbage, green peas and sweetcorn followed by ice-cream. Delish! Once we had eaten Brimrún opened her Christmas presents and the English people opened their stockings to be a part of the festivities.
Christmas Day was full of food and even more presents for everyone. The snow fell all day long; it was my first proper white Christmas. Joe and I cooked the turkey Christmas dinner which was a huge success and the day finished by playing board games and watching films.
We spent most of the time at home spending time together. One evening we had a six hour power cut and spent the evening playing a dice game by candlelight. It was one of the best evenings we had together!
New Year’s Eve was great. We went to a local bonfire and then drove into Reykjavík for the fireworks. Man, was it worth it! There were more fireworks than last year and it seemed to go on for hours. We were there early and so got the best spot on top of a hill where we looked over the capital city. At the chime of midnight it began to snow which made it somewhat magical. New Year’s Eve in Reyjavík is THE best. However, don’t expect there to be anything open in the city. The pubs, petrol stations, restaurants and shops were closed; it looked like a ghost town. We had to visit a friend just to go to the loo… embarrassing! But it’s all part of the experience
One thing that intrigues me about Iceland, as a nation, is that there are rules as to when and how food should be eaten/prepared. Certain vegetables are to be eaten with certain meats and there is no room for changes or experiments. For example, to eat slátur with anything else than swede and mashed potato is out of the question. It is just not allowed. Once a year there is a special day called sprengidagur where everyone eats pea soup and salted meat. It is considered very strange to eat this soup, no matter how good it is, at any other time of year. It is just not allowed.
For me, this type of thinking is really strange. Growing up in a country where there aren’t many food traditions, it is weird to experience a nationwide thought process of what can be eaten and when. I can’t help but think why not eat hangikjöt with sprouts? and eat pancakes with maple syrup and bacon? There is more out there than just whipped cream and jam you know Icelanders However, there is a comfort and a joy that comes from everyone sharing the same food at specific times of the year. It is a great way of bringing people and families together.
I love Indian food, as do most Brits, and consider going out for a curry ‘the English thing to do’ when I go home for a visit. Since Óðinn and I started living together his knowledge of curry and spices has increased tenfold. I have turned him into such a chili lover that when I cook something without spices he says, “It could have been spicer…more chili.” I might not be good at providing the traditional English dishes, such as, Shepard’s pie or toad in the hole but jalfrezi and masala are just as good
Happy Monday morning! It’s been a while. So much has been going on over the past couple of months it’s been hard to find time to reflect and write about it.
I have started an Icelandic course which is surprisingly much more enjoyable than I thought possible. Out of the fifteen of us two are from Thailand, one is from England (me) and the rest are from Poland. The teacher tried to explain something to me in Polish which confused me! Ég er frá Englandi sko
We now own three cars, one of which is working. I think these two cars shall be the last we work on. It is good as a part time hobby and little earner on the side but we haven’t the time for it! Óðinn is busy working full-time and doing some electrical work on the evenings and weekends. I can’t work on the car by myself! We want to fix them not break them beyond repair!
The jewellery business The Bead Box is going slow and steady. We have a party planned for this week which we are looking forward to. A lot of work needs to be done on the website to update it with new products. Exciting times ahead!
The weather seems to be, dare I say it, getting better. This has been the most wintery winter I have ever experienced. We have had to climb over snow mounds to get to the car, spend 45 minutes just trying to get off of our driveway, drive the long way round to Reykjavik due to closed roads. It’s been a true Icelandic adventure. The past week, however, has been warm with rain. The majority of snow has gone apart from some mammoth mounds which will probably be there until the middle of summer. The grass is wearily appearing and the mountains have regained their colour. Spring is so close you can almost smell it!
Driving to Reykjavík
