The latter part of 2011 was a busy time for me, mainly spent hunting for and eventually buying a house of my own. It is a comfortable, well-maintained terrace house in the north of England. Not too big - just a living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and Ásatrú temple - but quite adequate for my needs.
As the transaction was not completed until the beginning of November, I postponed further travel until after Yule, but on 16 January I was finally flying back to Iceland. The journey itself went well enough in that there were no delays or mishaps, but I dislike the rush and regimentation of air travel. Had I the time and money to have taken the Smyril Line ferry, I would have done, but after all the expense associated with furnishing the new house it was a luxury that I could not afford. And since the line does not operate in the winter months, the question was academic in any case!
For most of the past two weeks I have been staying at the guest house (now renamed Finna Hotel) in Hólmavík, in my old room overlooking the harbour and Steinngrimsfjörður. It's pretty empty at this time of year and the owners, whom I now consider friends, more or less allow me the run of the place. I have seen some of my friends in Reykjavík in the course of a beery evening on the day of my arrival and now I regularly see all my fellow Hólmavikings.
The main purpose of my visit is to carry on learning Icelandic, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I could still remember. Somehow, there on the back burner, this language stew has been maturing and acquiring new strength and flavour. Some bits have to be stirred from the bottom of the pot, of course - words, phrases and expressions that I know I have learned before - but they are still all there, even if some of them of them nearly got burned to the pot. My best tutors now are Bjössi and Signý, the wonderful people who befriended me on MS Norröna over 3 years ago and brought me to Hólmavík. They speak English (especially Bjössi), but are still sufficiently uncomfortable with it as to prefer me to speak Icelandic if possible, with the occasional explanation in English where necessary. For detailed explanation I can go to their daughter Igga or her husband Sverrir, but they speak such good English that we end up chatting in my mother tongue and not theirs. For a real challenge, there remains a conversation with Saevar, who speaks no English or anything else but very rapid and very colloquial Icelandic. To his credit, he has now realised that my initial inability to understand him was not down to deafness on my part and he does his best to speak at a measured pace, using simple words and expressions. He is keen to learn English, so I may be able to give him some tuition now that we can meet halfway!
No photos can adequately describe the fury of the storm that enveloped the north of Iceland that night. It was something completely beyond my experience. Like a raging giant, the north wind clawed at every door and window, shaking buildings and mercilessly dumping thousands of tons of snow on the landscape. I was reminded of the over-exuberant Wintersmith from Pratchett's eponymous novel, seeking to still and snuff out every form of life under that freezing blanket. "Yes, but they will only die once." I heard that the ladies who had gone to rehearse their performance for the coming Thorrablót feast at the community centre had to be rescued and brought home by the mountain rescue team in a tracked vehicle, even though the journey home could not have amounted to more than 2 miles at most.
By morning, the storm had abated, and Hólmavík set to digging itself out. I had stayed awake for much of the night, fascinated, and was awoken by the sound of the front door of the guest house opening after Saevar had dug through the snow drift.