All set for a long winter of depletion...

...as we wheeled home 23 kilos of foal meat last night. A local blacksmith offered me half a foal as he was about to send a couple to the slaughter. Looking economical depression and deficient food stocks in the eye I had to say yes, especially as I am a great believer in local food and self sufficiency in general. Also, foal meat is delicious!

So last night Sverrir and I found ourselves on a farm on the outskirts of habitation in pitch dark and strong winds, sorting our foal meat into goulash and various steaks. The farmer, a dab hand at deboning and sorting meat was so nice as to help us with the processing, whereafter we took the whole lot (meat from three foals) over to the next farm where they grow and sell pink trout and therefore own a vacuum packing machine! So there we stood in the kitchen packing and labelling until half ten in the evening. When we finally headed home the weather was crazy mad and we figured we probably shouldn't have been travelling on such a night.

Now Sverrir is poised over the meat kettles cooking horsemeat sausage processed and smoked by the aforementioned farmer and Lappi is chewing on a huge bone from one of the foals...cozy!















Oh, and of course I have to mention my two little nieces, one born on December 2rd in Reykjavík and the other on December 6th in Shanghai. I am thrilled to bits with both of them, although I will have to wait a good few long months to see the one in China - boohoo!

On Saturday last...

...I was among 6-7000 Icelanders protesting against our government (as well as an agreement between them and the IMF) in Parliament Square. I was also among approx. 500 people protesting outside Reykjavik Police Headquarters, an action resulting in people being pepper sprayed after they had forced their way in. Me and Sverrir stayed well away but still shouted our lungs out.

I am amazed at the situation here, how corrupt bankers (or should I say wankers!) can still keep their positions in the banks, taking their time to hide away their sins and dirty laundry so that no one will know just how rotten their tiny little brains are.

However, I am really happy that people are putting pressure on the government to get to cleaning the joint, and to start by resigning their power!

Monday evening blog

Right, now a bit in Icelandic. I have been 'klukked' so have to answer a few questions:

1. Fjögur störf sem ég hef unnið um ævina:

Símadama og vélritunarskass í verkfræðifyrirtæki
Skóflumaður hjá hafnfirskum verktaka
Starfsmaður í meinafræðirannsóknastöð laxeldisstöðvar í Skotlandi
Pössunarpía hjá útrásarvíkingum í Kaupmannahöfn

2. Fjórar íslenskar bíómyndir sem ég held upp á:

Dalalíf
Foxtrott
Bræðrabylta
Með allt á hreinu

3. Fjórir staðir sem ég hef búið á:

Hjallabraut 37
Hellubraut 6
Silkeborggade 34
Liberton House

3. Einn staður sem ég myndi aldrei búa á: Hella....wait....I already do!

4. Fjórir staðir sem ég hef heimsótt í fríum:

Edinborg
Cervinia
Ólafsdalur
Kjölur

5. Fjórir sjónvarpsþættir sem mér líkar:

Black Books
Look around you
Bráðavaktin
Fóstbræður

6. Fjórar síður sem ég skoða daglega:

mbl.is
facebook.com
worldfengur.com
baggalutur.is

7. Fernt sem ég held upp á matarkyns:

kjötsúpa
thai Green Curry núðlujukk
royal
súkkulaðibitasmákökur

8. Fjórar bækur sem ég hef oft lesið:

allar James Herriot bækurnar
The World According to Garp
Þorpið
Anna í Grænuhlíð

9. Fjórir staðir sem ég myndi helst vilja vera á núna:

Einhvers konar fagnaðarsamkomu í tilefni af afsögn Davíðs og ákvörðunar um að AGS lánið verði ekki tekið
....en á léttari nótum:
uppi í sófa með kærasta og kaffibolla á eilífðarsunnudagsmorgni
í gegningum úti í fjárhúsunum mínum á skikanum mínum við fagra fjallasýn og frelsi
annars er ég bara ágætlega stödd þar sem ég er...

Fjórir bloggarar sem ég klukka: Inga Lilý, Hekla, Tóta, Ólöf

Looks like I will be graduating...

...but won't be holding my breath just yet. Today I managed to get through to somebody in the University to hand in the graduation form and make a payment off my credit card. When he asked who was the issuer for my credit card I told him "you don't want to know....it's Landsbankinn!" we both laughed about it and when he asked (just to be kind, I guess) if it translated to 'The Bank of the Land', I told him it probably should have stayed that way. Good old relaxed Scotland, made me feel good about the whole thing.

Positive, think positive!

Icesave

Right, today the government have proposed (which basically equals a firm decision) that every Icelander - this includes everybody from baby to OAP - will have a huge loan to pay off in the foreseeable future. The numbers we hear range from 4,5 to 12 million Icelandic krona, which translates into roughly 2,000 to 6,000 Pounds Sterling, seeing that the krona isn't standing particularly strong at the moment! Still, this means that my two brothers' children set to be born in the beginning of December will be born heavily in debt.

And all the while we don't get any information from the government what exactly is involved in this deal of theirs. Apparently the International Monetary Fund have this as one of their conditions for their loan. It has been demonstrated before that the IMF have done spectacular jobs of bankrupting whole nations with these unfair conditions of theirs. Now we foresee that the inflation is going to be MASSIVE in the new year because of the IMF.

All of a sudden everybody is really set on applying for EU membership, because they think this is the only way out. I find this really sad. This will mean that we loose what little independence we still have and our agriculture and resources will be lost into the hands of the little bureaucrats of Brussels. Pitheeeuwy!

Apart from this I am good! I am singing in a choir now and we are giving an advent concert at the start of December. I found out at practice last night that we are each supposed to wear a shoe-length burgundy velour dress with a long cream coloured scarf hanging down on each side. Hoooorrrible! Apparently, I am borrowing of someone who used to sing in the choir, I am sure she is a whole meter shorter and a meter wider, so I will end up wearing a really, really short, really, really wide dress so will have to be at the back!

Finally, to keep up the good spirits, visit www.newiceland.net, it's what keeps us alive up here now.

Trying to keep it alive

Yup, I will really need to get my act together here...it's not that there is never any news, but I think I must have less advanced (read: confusing) thoughts now than when I was doing my PhD. All this time alone in the car does not seem to be productive in terms of finding stupid things to write about (stupid things were the building blocks of my icelandic blog). I guess it comes from listening to the radio all the time and concentrating (yeah right!) on the driving.

These days it is mostly dark thoughts regarding people who spend beyond their (i.e. other people's) means and expect others to pick up the bill. Nobody wants to know that, right?

However, the weather is beautiful, it is sunny and frosty and why would anybody want to leave this spectacular country.

Landsmót Frenzy

Hmm...I suspect that next week in Hella is going to feel like August in Edinburgh-crammed full of tourists and all sorts of people getting in my way when I'm trying to go about my business. Hella is host to the Icelandic Equestrian Games this year and just now they are working all hours to finish the following: the riding arena, the swimming pool and the petrol station. I am amazed that they decided to do up the latter two "quarter to" Landsmót, as everything is kind of stressing up around here. I guess people around here needed a bit of stress in their life, this will maybe get them moving faster than 15 km/hour in the main street, making me a bit happier!

Anyway, I am afraid that all this hoohah is going to cause me some road rage next week, seeing that trying to get to a bank via Royal Mile in August really got my blood boiling last year.

I seem to always have a night shift...the second one this week, after a weekend shift and two night shifts last week. Tonight I had a 2-day old foal to save, which apparently had been bitten by a predator of some kind-an arctic fox or a dog, I guess. Was trying to look for images on the Internet to show typical lesions caused by foxes or wolves, but didn't succeed. This is very close to being an unknown occurrence so I don't know what to think, really.

Anyway, must be getting ready for tomorrow's trip to the summer cottage after work, where we're going to get ready for my wee brother's wedding on Saturday!