The East Iceland Museum and an amazing new take on sheep -- the Monarchs of the Icelandic Glen!
Would a Scottish picture show such affection for sheep? The part played by sheep in the Scottish Clearances has maybe blinded us to their beauty as animals....
cmon everyone....aw!
A shocking image after all those affectionate, noble portraits. Icelanders love animals ....and eat them too.
More sheep (there are 20 breeds in Iceland)
Wooden houses are a puzzle. Why didnt Icelanders use stone -- why dont Scots use wood?
Winter in Seydisffordur
Small problem -- heavy rains made the ford crossing to Skalanes impassable. Thanks goodness for men......
An eventful bridge crossing....
....and the Hebridean Annie MacSween womanfully overcomes her fear of running water aided by Elfa.
A tern divebombs our car. Its their colony and hundreds rose to attack us on foot or in cars every time we passed. No serious damage done though....
An eider nest.
Annie, Mia, Ros and an almost completely concealed Sharon. Was it cold at Midsummer? Just a bit.
Waterfalls and rivers hardly make a dent on young igneous rock.
Wren the aptly name Skalanes Ranger shows us a birch seedling being planted to combat soil erosion (foreground) and the ubiquitous Arctic Lupin (background)
Do our bums look wet in this?
Vicki (left) from Glasgow University and a hard to recognise member of her incredible team of young Glasgow University zoology graduates.
BEFORE ; A picture of the Skalanes Farmhouse as Elfa's family found it before renovation in 2001.
AFTER ; home from home 2008
Elfa's mum the fabulous cook Sigurd. Her famous carpenter dad Petur kept a low profile...then cropped up in a special exhibit about master craftsmen in the National Museum!
I hope Glasgow Uni appreciate these students - wearing regulation gear in their time off after making the evening meal, setting the table, washing the dishes and making the coffee. Even the men. Even Dave with the hair!
Annie looks at the Skalanes map that's acting as a template for interpretation work.
The Eider duck pond
Note the yellow plastic bag serving as a waterproof sock for an impoverished Glasgow Uni student.
The flora that makes up the low-lying Icelandic sward
The delicate flowers getting edged out by the lupins
Cairn above Skalanes at 3am on Midsummer's Day.
These are reindeer! 9 male stags like big white deer. Perfect end to a rather dodgy overnight hill climb!
Now in situ and at 3am this could be a giant mushroom.... or even the sacred egg of the Great Auk, couldn't it?
The Forest BBQ -- a whole cow roasting on the spit.
Simple but clever -- and delicious, free pancakes.
.....plus free t-shirts for kids
And finally, after standing for half an hour in the most patient queue in the world , Beverley gets her hotdog!
Does this look like a sterile Scottish sitka spruce forest? There is undergrowth, herbs, other plants and people everywhere.
OK -- so the Great Auk egg was ....a float. Easy mishtake, shurely?
The refurbished hotel in the East Iceland fjord town of Seydisfjordur.
One of the Norwegian kit houses brought in around the turn of the century and renovated thanks to the intervention of a group of local women - including the fabulous Alla.
Icelandic National Day -- everything is red,white and blue and the whole village of 713 people had the day off and turned out for their local display.
Annie tells Petur Sigurdsson that he should come back to Lewis as her slave - to make up for all those Gaels hauled off by Vikings a thousand years ago. He's not keen....
......He's still not keen!
Rain starts so the ceremony takes to the local church -- with no fuss.
Bikes are big
...and imagination matters!
Its a proud, happy atmosphere....where everyone makes an effort to wear the national dress or national colours
The inner lagoon at Seydisfjordur
Lupins are a menace I know....but on a grey day the burst of blue looks almost patriotic!
Gender differences dont seem to count here. Women run big chunks of civic society - and carry gas canisters in their National Day best!
Bjork!
One of the machines to carry the earliest telegraph messages received in Iceland
....and you can actually use and try to read the exhibits!
The most fashionable ever archaeologist looking faintly disgusted at the state of her digging team!
Amazingly this is a lone coke vending machine powered by a wind turbine in the middle of nowhere!
The summer house of a famous man -- but how to manage it? Currently locked.
Our amazing taxi driver with Blue Lagoon lava. Does anyone have his name?
Just missing his Norwich Town FC pendant. This man is football mad.
The glen at Skalanes
The pass to Egilsstadir. Minus one on Midsummers Day
moi
