Karen's Home on the Blog

Gotland field school report

2011-08-23T09:50:00.000-04:00

Or, Karen and Neil go to an archaeological field school in Gotland, and eat good food along the way.

A full report can be found here: http://www.treheima.ca/Gotland_2011.html

Cirque du Soleil this past weekend was fantastic! As indeed, they usually are. No pictures 'though - I got a little distracted.

where?

2011-08-11T10:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know. I fell off the face of the earth after that last post. I just got distracted.

The short version is that I missed recounting the last two weeks of the dig/vacation, and I've been back home for two weeks already!

The good news is that the hubby and I are working on a web page detailing the whole trip, and I'll post it here as soon as it's done. Possibly even this weekend.

The bad news is that real life is still very distracting. It's easier to find me on Facebook 'though my friends circle is intentionally smaller there, just because it requires so much less thought and coherence then blogging does.

Next big plans are seeing Cirque du Soleil so maybe I'll have more pictures to share from that trip in a few weeks!

Karen

New dig site!

2011-07-13T16:31:00.000-04:00

Apparently the search for a Viking Age harbour in Slite didn't pan out. There was no evidence in any of our finds - many mixed layers, and history all over the modern period.

So..... as of Monday, Dan moved us to a new site in Hellvi to dig a Migration Era Iron Age house. It's a 400m walk from the parking lot, through both cow and sheep fields and we climb over two fences and one bridge. We do this twice a day, going both in and out for lunch back in Slite. We're really getting some exercise in!

I`ll try to remember to take pictures of the walk in, it`s actually quite a pleasant combination of field and forest.

Once again, we deturfed the old fashioned way, but this time we had 22 people working all at once - it went quite faster. Although... there are a few rocks.

Early finds include: bones (including some mandibles and teeth) from a variety of animals, iron age pottery (undecorated), slag, and a bit of glass.

Today was a good day - we found a tiny spiral of silver wire...

a blue bead...

a piece of decorated pottery......

and an iron knife, remarkably well preserved.

Gotland Field School - Beginning of Week 2, updated later in the week

2011-07-08T16:07:00.000-04:00

The first week was Tuesday to Saturday, with a planned excursion on the Sunday. The planned excursion went on a little longer then expected, covered way way more ground (literally) then expected, and quite a wide variety of history.

Week 2 started on the monday and goes until friday. So .... no real downtime between the weeks.

My inner introvert had a small panic attack during the excursion, but I hid out all evening so I'm much better now.

I should preface a description of the week's archaeology with the idea that we were digging trial trenches to see if we can find evidence of a Viking Age harbour in Slite. Dan's reasoning seems sound, but we have no proof. This is what we are trying to back up with archaeology.

So.... it was pretty hit and miss.

BUT.... it was fun anyway!

Our first trench was 2 metres by 3 metres, and we had 6 people, one in each square metre. Partway through, one of our people had to bow out as it proved that her new and improved knees couldn't take the punishment. We all pitched in to finish the 6th square.

Neil and I were a bit concerned at first that it didn't seem like there was a lot of instruction. But that did quickly improve. And we're asking a lot of questions.

Two squares proved to be really interesting of the six. My square in the north east corner of the trench and Konrad's square in the south east corner.

Konrad's square had the right side of a cow's mandible and teeth, and some big stones in the bottom of the trench that may or may not be part of a construction, although they think it unlikely for a variety of reasons.

My square seems to have a wide variety of rubbish like finds, throughout many layers in the north east corner, with some kind of limestone in the walls, and packed clay near the bottom of the trench.

All in all, I found a plastic button, what is likely a BBQ ash box, oodles of glass (window, bottles, two jars of shoe cream), iron nails and rivets, ceramic (shaped pottery, glazed pottery, and porcelian), various animal bones, a couple of very tiny clay pipes, broken clay bits (possibly both pots and bricks), and an absolute ton of flint.

Here's Snorri trying to puzzle it out while still in the ground.

And me with my prize after it finally got dug out. It was visible in Layer 2 but I had to finish evening out the layer and leave it until we could get to Layer 3. It was somewhat frustrating walking away from it! And it's clearly not Viking Age.

This is possibly the single largest piece of flint that we dug up - weighing in at 320g all by itself, and it's only one piece. Collectively, we came up with something in the order of 10kg of flint in Trench 1 alone. The other trenches also had quite a bit of flint show up.

I should put this in perspective - flint isn't native to Gotland. So it begs the questions - who brought it in, when, and why?

One piece of clay might be Viking Age. Maybe. But the square is so mixed up, it's hard to tell if that means anything.

The two jars of shoe cream are definitely Viking shoe cream. We know that because it says so on the bottom of the jar. :) Although apparently, I didn't get a picture of it.

We drew the profile of the walls on Monday, and closed up the trench on tuesday. We started two new squares in Trench 7 on tuesday afternoon and pretty finished it by the end of the day. We starting hitting pure sand, and there were very few finds in a 50cm depth.

There was a lecture on Monday night about the bronze age in Gotland. Dan Carlsson is trying to branch out the educational historical focus from the Viking Age as it has been in previous years. Bad timing for Neil and I to be here! But as a friend said to me earlier this week "it's all archaeology".

Which is why I found my rubbish heap of a square in Trench 1 to be so exciting to dig!

Wednesday, we both dug out and closed squares 2 - 4 in Trench 7. We found zilch in squares 3 and 4 but it was really easy to dig, being almost entirely sand. Squares 2 and 3 were..... annoying. Lots and lots of big (but not big enough to be interesting for more than 10 minutes) .... rocks. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks. There was some good natured muttering under the breath about the humanity of the lead archaeologist by the end of the day. :)

Wednesday night's lecture was about the excavations in Västergarn, which was really quite interesting. It's really close to, and historically related to another place called Paviken, which has some evidence for bead-making. Bead-making is one of Neil's specialities in the Viking Age.

At some point this week, we had a bit of excitement in one of the other group's trenches. Trench 6 produced what many speculated might be a possible Viking grave.

But by the end of the week, we knew it to be a well, and the lead archaeologist thinks it belongs to the 18th century at the earliest. So crushing...

Since our group had finished up our trenches on Wednesday, we all went out to Burs, in southern Gotland, for a new adventure on Thursday.

Dan called this "rescue archaeology" - given that Gotland is just loaded with archaeological remains, every time someone wants to do something different to their land, they have to call in an archaeologist. Dan was called to do a survey of a field in which the farmer wanted to add a crayfish pond. He walked the field with a metal detector and came up with 10 silver coins in a small area of the field. So he arranged a big dirt-moving machine to lift the turf and called us in for help. We were to help find more coins, and then to hunt through a rather large trench for postholes (evidence of habitation - building construction). In one day.

And oi vey, was it ever hot out.

Fortunately, the day ended up consisting mostly of following Dan around with the metal detector and picking coins out of the dirt where he pointed, carefully digging up the central "hoard" area (more on that in a bit) and quickly coming to the conclusion visually that there were no postholes. We were all wilting from very little physical activity by the end of the day because the heat was so incredible and there was no shade in the field.

But! we found a silver hoard!

We (the group of 12 of us) found some 40 odd silver coins in the field throughout the day and we called in a numismatologist (coin expert) to dig up the final central "hoard" area. He brought along his wife and small child, and right there, in the wilting heat, proceeded to go through all 40 coins and tell us the approximate date and geography of each. And then, finally, turned his attention to the hoard. He pulled up 3 of the coins that were sitting on the top of the soil, carefully brushed away for him, and then decided that it could possibly go quite a bit deeper and this should be done carefully in the lab.

So....we (the students) made a small column of sand, wrapped it in plaster, and cut it from the field with a string, loaded it on a board and put it in Dan's car.

Snorri thinks it's his birthday!

Dan's assistant finished the processing of the "hoard" on friday and we learned there were another 20 odd coins buried in the top 2-3cm. The latest coin in the hoard was dated to 1009-1017 so the poor fellow who lost his purse walking home one night (probably drunk) did so sometime after the turn of the century.

This is the work at the beginning of friday - we learned about the results at lunch.

Okay..... that wraps up the first two weeks! I will try to not take so long in between posts next time!

Gotland Field School - Day 1

2011-06-28T15:05:00.001-04:00

Just for the record, I can already see that I won't be able to keep this rate of posting up. This is tiring work. But today, we only dug for half a day and it was our first day, so it's special.

The morning was spent with Dan Carlsson and others introducing this year's dig - his reasoning for, and evidence behind, the choice of dig location this year. Pretty interesting, and well reasoned out, and well.... too long to go into here.

We are digging in the middle of a small town, in people's back yards, so..... I give you turf lifting the old fashioned way!

We are each responsible for a 1 metre by 1 metre square. This is Neil getting a start on his 1 metre square.

This is me sieving my first bucket of dirt.

This is the backyard of the house that we can dig in. Some homeowners were enthusiastic about the project and some put limitations on where and how long we can be there. This homeowner is very enthusiastic and apparently has said 'dig it all up!'

This is my first box of finds, in the first layer of the trench. For those not familiar with archaeology, that's the fairly modern stuff. You can see pottery shards, flint shards, chert shards, some glass bits, and two nails. Dan offered a bottle of champagne to the first person to find a Viking Age coin. Sadly, I am not yet that person.

And for the gastronomically inclined, this is tonight's dinner. We're eating as a group on a meal plan, at a nearby restaurant. Buffet style, limited choices each night. Tonight we had some sort of fish in some sort of sauce and chicken in some sort of gravey with vegetables and baked potatoes. Both lunch and dinner are very...... culturally specific.

I'm struggling with the language barrier. Although the course is officially taught in english, there are only 4 english speakers in the group, and the Swedes.... slip into what is comfortable and familiar at times. It will be an interesting experience.

Stockholm to Gotland, and settling into fieldschool

2011-06-27T16:57:00.000-04:00

When last we left the story, Neil and Karen were saying goodbye to the Hotel Rival for a month. We have one more night there at the end of the month on the way home. It is a wonderful place, and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Snorri made a sad farewell to Teddy.

We trundled off to Bromma airport to pick up our flight to Gotland. A slight delay in that they cancelled our trip, and moved us to the next plane, an hour later. No big deal, we weren't in a rush.This was our plane - getting in by climbing up the stairs is old school now 'though - we did that on the last IcelandAir flight. But the propellers were new to me. And the experience of flying an entire trip in an airplane without understanding a word of the language was a first as well. Good thing the safety demo was pretty self-explantory. :)

The legroom.... not quite the same as we experienced with IcelandAir either.... it's a much much smaller plane. If there had been anyone in the seat in front of Neil, they would not have been able to recline their seat.

Visby is a delightful town to the senses - it really gives off a laid back beach front slow moving relaxed vibe - at least in the summer, at least inside the walls. The town wall was likely begun in the 12th century. It was rebuilt to it's current height in 1280, and finished sometime in the beginning of the 14th century, although some towers were added in the 15th century. See the Wikipedia entry here for more information.

This is the laconic waterfront.... note the entire lack of a fence on the boardwalk.

The whole town has these interesting sculpture/seats scattered around - some are adult sheep and some are lambs. Snorri and I visited.

Dinner was on another outdoor patio at a nearby hotel. Snorri and I were very very relaxed - I've got a sangria on the go, a blanket on my lap, sunshine, a good book and Neil's company. What more do I need?

Today, we got on a bus and headed to Farosound, at the top of the island. Our fieldschool residence is here, and the site we are digging is about 30km away. Tomorrow - school starts!

Living Gastronomically, and the "Viking" day tour

2011-06-26T02:50:00.000-04:00

Three folks have commented on the food so far. Trust me, it won't be so exciting once we're established at the field school in another day. I expect it will be pretty standardized student food but I will endeavor to make it *look* exciting once in awhile.

I took pictures of last night's dinner but first let me tell you about the day itself. 8 hours in a mini-bus with the overly talkative driver on a "Viking" day tour. Right off the top, we had this inkling of trouble when he decided to use the "new" definition of the Viking Age as 400 - 1300 AD instead of the more traditional 793 - 1066 definition that we're used to using. He was straightforward about it, right up front. Apparently this means one can include a lot of gothic churches in the tour.

To be fair, there was an awful lot of interesting things to see and he had some interesting theories on the Viking Age to share, but the fellow just wouldn't shut up long enough for interaction or reflection or the chance to absorb through other means. Neil and I are both readers and like the chance to read the signs at places too.

Stops included (thefted from Neil's notes):
- Jarlabankes Bro (old viking bridge) - two runestones, some other stones
- Arkils Tingplats - local thing site, and another runestone
- Church at Vallentuna
- Granby
- Lunda (from bus - no place to park)
- Sigtuna (lunch)
- Gamla (old) Uppsala - mounds from the 500-600 with the Uppsala museum. Lots of fun things to get photos of, and beads in the gift shop - not enough time here, but on our way out we did notice that the kind folks at the museum hadn't bothered to enforce the "no pictures" they have posted - we are grateful
- Uppsala - the Uppsala Catheral - construction began in 1287 with a focal point about King Gustav I

This is the runestone at Jarlabanke Bro.

And in Sigtuna, where we stopped for lunch, we saw this interesting use of a faering. We thought some of the parents in our friends might enjoy the idea. It's a sandbox.

Now.... dinner at Pontus by the Sea in old Stockholm. Although the site in general is all in Swedish, here's a link to the english menu. It is a lovely restaurant, quite literally on the sea-side in Stockholm. We watched boats come in, people of all sorts walking by on the boardwalk, observed the weather and skyline of the city.... and ate delicious food.

Here's Neil getting drifty with the scenery.

My food - char with lemon foam and dill pesto.

Neil's choice - cod with shrimp and butter (again with the butter!).

And my dessert - fresh strawberries are a big thing at Midsummers in Sweden. Neil had a creme brulee.

Today we leave for Gotland - we'll have one night in Visby before we report to the school on Monday. Work starts on the Tuesday.

By the by, I have neglected to mention the window dressings at the Hotel Rival. They have what amounts to blackout cloth! As I've mentioned the northern climes are no fun for the light sensitive sleeper, but this is not a problem at the Rival :)

On the Road - Iceland and Stockholm

2011-06-24T22:07:00.061-04:00

Random bits from the travels thus far..

I was up at 4:30am Iceland time this morning to catch an 8something am flight to Stockholm and really since my body had only just barely adjusted to Iceland time itself, I may not be entirely coherent tonight.

The things you can find on the internet is rather amusing. Alda, from the former Iceland Weather Report has moved to Facebook with a fan page for IWR, and she recently posted a pic of the IcelandAir plane with the Eyjafjallajökull name on it. Apparently, IcelandAir recently renamed all of it's planes with the names of volcanoes in Iceland. Planespotters.net has a list of all the planes thus far - we flew from Canada in Hengill, and over to Stockholm in Askja. Neither have erupted in a very long time so we're probably not gonna have any problems.

Yes, I'm tired. I did mention that. Strange things are important when you're tired. :)

So.... starting the trip in Canada then. (I knew the chronological approach would catch up with me eventually.) Spent the day packing and cleaning house, left the doggie and got on an Airways Transit van, had dinner at the airport (lobster soup and a greek chicken salad for me, lobster soup and a burger for Neil - Anti-V likes to follow the food). Got on the plane - Hengill, mentioned above. Attempted to sleep - it might have worked in brief moments at a time - 4 hours had passed before I felt compelled to check the time.

Didn't feel too badly throughout the day (this part of the trip usually just kills the first day for me) so we wandered around quite a bit. Vikingaheimer again - some changes there but nothing big. It needs some more ... depth. The presentation is awfully light on information. But the addition of a sail, and the animals out front were amusing.

Snorri tried to get on the boat again.

Went into Reykjavik for a bit and found the ever delightful Icelandic Fish and Chips - the service is a bit slow, but the food is just so darned good. We split an order of wolf fish and handmade garlic potato fries, with homemade sodas - lemon mango for me, and pomegranite for himself. Wandered around a bit on the way back to the car, and missed the parking meter just long enough for the parking police to issue a ticket. : (

Off to the National Museum to see if newer cameras would get better results with the really low lighting in the museum. Some improvement.... but heck, what's with the low lights anyway? Okay, I get it on the textiles, but seriously... beads and metalwork aren't going to be harmed by too much light.

I think the new cameras made a difference - wouldn't you say so, Rob?

Dinner at the hotel - Northern Light Inn. Neil had catfish in butter *shudder* with shrimps. Butter just isn't a 'sauce' in my books - drowning anything in it is just..... wrong. Yes, I do love lobster, but I will never ever order it in this all too common form. I had the lamb with wild mushroom sauce. The sauce was served seperately, and several long minutes after the lamb. Very odd. I'd actually forgotten about it when it arrived. We skipped dessert in favour of skyr back in the room.

Crashed pretty shortly thereafterwards.... having been effectively up for two days without real sleep. Had to put my night shirt over my head to block out the sun. The Icelandic hotels that I've been exposed so far don't seem to believe in blackout cloth and this really is the wrong time of year in Iceland for light sensitive sleepers.

Up at the crack of stupid, returned the car, bought some more skyr for the travelling, and off to the airport. I haven't mentioned yet but we somehow have managed to be upgraded to Saga class (1st, or business class) when we bought Economy Comfort (a middle state with slightly bigger seats but no perks). Let me say, the perks in the Saga class are fun! Comfortable lounge pre-boarding with free food and wireless, no lineups, pre-boarding (in Toronto only), gadget giveaways on the plane, free food on the plane and oodles of leg room.

Off the plane in Stockholm, adjust the clocks again (only two hours this time) and we're off to the Hotel Rival (pronounced Ree-val). The concierge here writes a blog called The Stockholm Tourist which is very helpful - that blog and TripAdvisor's ratings and comments are largely the reason we chose the hotel. The fact that Benny Andersson of Abba is one of the owners is just an amusing coincidence. Really. I found out that tidbit after we'd decided on it. Of course, it did explain all the Abba related comments on TripAdvisor. There are Abba cds in every room, should you choose to become assimulated.

And teddy bears. There are teddy bears in every room. If there's a connection between Abba and teddy bears, I'm not aware of it. But he's darned cute.

Wandered around Stockholm for a few hours before dinner - most of the small crafty tourist shops in the Old Town are open, even on Midsummer's Eve, and there are tons of them. This painting, in a store here, of old town captures it better I managed!

Stockholm is a city spread over 14 different islands. This is just one of the riverways that seperates it.

Some parts are very industrialized, like most cities, and some parts are still old and beautiful.

Dinner at the Rival Bistro - a delicious shellfish casserole for both of us. I had a lemon creme brulee with fruit, and Neil had a raspberry souffle with licorce sorbet.

New Adventure - the schedule arrives

2011-06-22T16:45:00.000-04:00

I haven't mentioned this before on the blog, but certainly in Facebook.... we've been a little frustrated by the lack of communication from the school with information about this field school thing we're about to embark on. So today... we're packing, going to get on the plane for Iceland tonight.... and at the very last minute the schedule arrives. :)

It's a good thing we have email access all the way along.

Anyhoo... here's the schedule for your follow along entertainment. Subject to changes due to weather and exciting finds. I do hope to be able to blog about it as we go but we'll have to see how a program designed for the average archaeologist (aka crazy people) and 20 year olds sits with this 40something person.

It's my birthday today, by the way.

Archaeological Field school 2011

Tue. 28/6 09.00-12.00 Roll call, grouping. Practical questions. Introduction to Slite. Info from
Alanna Scott
13-16.30 Field work. Find sorting.

Wen. 29/6 09-16.30 Field work. Survey about osteology, Astrid Lennblad
19-21 Lecture by PhD Christoph Kilger. Viking Age treasures and female
belongings

Thu 30/7 09-16.30 Field work

Fri. 1/7 09-16.30 Field work

Sat. 2/7 09-16.30 Field work. Summarise the week at Slite.

Sun. 3/7 09-17 Excursion with visit to the historical museum

Mon. 4/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by PhD student Gunilla Runesson, Bronze Age on Gotland.

Tue. 5/7 09-16.30 Field work

Wed. 6/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by MA Johan Norderäng. Västergarn-new excavations

Thu. 7/7 09-16.30 Field work. Summarise the week at Slite.

Fri. 8/7 09-16.30 Field work (3 and 4 weeks). Excavation, review, completion (2 weeks).

Mon 11/7 09-16.30 Field work (4 weeks). Introduction 2 weeks, see schedule for Tuesday
28/6

Tue 12/7 09-16.30 Field work. Survey about osteology, in groups.

Wed 13/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by PhD student Joakim Wehlin. Baltic stone ships

Thu 14/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture. PhD students. Gustaf Svedjemo. Iron Age landscape on
Gotland

Fri 15/7 09-16.30 Field work 2 and 4 weeks. Review of the results, interpretation, and
completion for the 3 weeks group. Summarise the week.

Sat 16/7 09-17 Excursion with a visit to the historical museum

Mon 18/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture. Will be decided later

Tue 19/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Lecture by Associate Professor Dan Carlsson. The Eastern
Connection. Scandinavia and Russia.

Wed 20/7 09-16.30 Field work

Thu 21/7 09-16.30 Field work
19-21 Preliminary results, ﬁnd analysis, bone analysis. Dan Carlsson, Anna
Pettersson, Astrid Lennblad

Fri 22/7 09-16.30 Field work, Review of the results, interpretation, completion for the 2
and 4 weeks groups.

Doggie Day Care

2011-05-29T18:50:00.000-04:00

Nina asked what Doggie Day Care is?

Doggie Day Care is just like day care for children. You can drop them off in the morning and pick them up after work already pre-exhausted for you. A boon for those days when the weather is too bad for walking, or you're busy in the evenings, or you're just too lazy for a hour or more of walking / playing after a long day at work. The energy needs of a young puppy are often more then many of us can handle on our own.

Plus, there are benefits for your doggie in terms of socialization with other dogs. They play together in big groups and learn doggie culture - something us humans can't teach.

These pictures are from Country-Side Boarding, Grooming and Day Care. One of the staff is a very adapt photographer, and they often post pictures from the day care.

It's not something we do every day. We need to go on walks for ourselves, and throwing the frisbee is fun from this side too. But it's a great relief to have back-up in raising a highly energetic young puppy.

Shoutout

2011-05-27T11:03:00.000-04:00

Still there? Probably not. I don't believe anyone reads me anymore.

*shrug* Oh well. I'll just blabber on anyway.

I was reading last few posts and thought I'd catch y'all non-existant readerly types up.

Thoka is now only occassionally the dog-from-hell. He's mostly a very sweet puppy who's exercise needs sometimes outstrip my ability to keep up with him. He's even sometimes lapsing into 'companion'. Doggie Day Care is so very yuppy a concept but I'd go crazy without the extra help.

Or maybe it's the spring, and I have more energy for endless walks and frisbee throwing. He really loves that frisbee.

Or maybe he's actually getting me .... *gasp* healthier. More capable of more walks! Nah, can't be that one. It's not like I have any weight loss to show for it. Yes, yes, I hear muscles weigh more then fat. Big fricking deal.... would it kill the scale to give me some achievement markings once in awhile?

Anyhoo.... the trip to Gotland to go on an archaeological dig is still in the planning. We leave in less then a month. The most frustrating thing right now is that the field school is incommunicado. Two months ago, they said they'd contact us with final payment and more information in the middle of May, and well....you might have noticed that in a typical month averaging 30 odd days, that the 27th isn't generally considered "mid May".

If they need us to bring something specific - like steel toed boots maybe - then they need to give us enough time to find and purchase said object. If there's a pre-requisite reading list, then they need to give us enough time to find and read said books. If they want a final payment for the school, they need to tell us where to send it. Sleeping arrangements would be good to know. A map of where the school is, and which office to go to when we arrive would be good. I can google the school's address, but which office to go to isn't something Google can tell me.

Ya know... little things, like details. I've been married to a Project Manager for too long perhaps. Of course I've always liked to have plans.

Planning an archaeological dig in Gotland, Sweden

2011-04-21T10:51:00.000-04:00

Hallo again :)

This year, Neil and I are planning going to an archaeological field school in Gotland, Sweden.

I plan to blog about it as it happens, but I'd like your input please. As you might have noticed, I'm a little short on original material recently. Facebook's brevity and immediacy has sucked my brain dry for intelligent, lengthier writing.

So.... what would you like to see me blog about during this adventure?

I've done previous trip blogging in May 2008 (Scotland, Iceland) and July 2009 (Iceland, the ring road tour), and in August 2010 (L'Anse aux Meadows, NFLD), but this trip is a little different in that there will be an educational component as well as entertainment.

Please be specific. Please feed my poor, starved-for-topics brain with ideas.

If you are not feeling inclined to using the comments field, I have added a Contact Me section to the sidebar - please feel free to email me. I don't promise responses.

Questions about trip preparation will be entertained as well.

Thank you,

Karen

Not entirely abandoned

2011-03-01T09:18:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking about what, if anything, I want to do with this blog in the future.

With Facebook being so much more compelling and immediate, I'm not spending as much time here as I once did. Is it still useful a space?

Do I have enough readers?

Do you have an opinion?

Karen

2010-10-21T21:38:00.000-04:00

This post picks up where we last left off, but peters toward incomplete at the end of it. I think the whole 'bloggging about the fitness thing' isn't necessarily working.

----------
I know we walked on Monday, but apparently I forgot to note how long it was and I've completely forgotten the route.

1.2 km.- Tuesday - Thoka, as always, totally annoying without Neil on the walk

2.7 km - Wednesday, I was feeling energetic and we went early in the evening, the weather was so fantastic.

1.9 km - Thursday, good walking for the humans, but Thoka was crazed and I had to hand him off mid-walk for the sake of my blood pressure.

1.2 km - Friday, both of us were incredibly tired. End of a long week and I actually brought work home. Thoka appears to agree, being asleep now.

Hmmmm.... seem to have lost the weekend. I think we both skipped saturday, and then on sunday, Neil skipped out on the flimsy excuse that giving a lecture and helping students make beads all day long was exhausting. I stayed home and entertained the dog all day, which is pretty exhausting in a way too but Thoka and I went for a walk in the evening too. I was afraid of losing my own habit. But we just did 1.2 km.

Have no idea what happened on monday, but on Tuesday, Thoka and I went to our first puppy obedience class. It is.... I don't know yet. I'm of mixed mind.

Wednesday night, Thoka and I walked 2.3 km. Neil joined us for the last 1.2 km. :)

Thursday - haven't the foggiest.

Friday - haven't the foggiest.

Saturday - Bogenschutzenfest! Thoka came with us - so many new smells, so many new people to con into believing that he's cute and adorable and needs to be petted.

Sunday - I stayed home and made pumpkin pie, and green tomato salsa. And did a lot of laundry. Thoka and Neil went to the Wareham Forge for the day to play with smelting like things.

Monday - Down to the parentals for turkey dinner! Brought the dog but had to leave him outside all day because my Dad is both allergic and asthmatic. It was a nice day, we could be outside much of the day with him.

Tuesday - Home sick, but had to take Thoka out for a walk before his hyperactivity killed me. 2.1 km. Puppy obedience class tonight - I don't know how I'm going to make it through that. I'm not at my best, and I'm ready to kill the damned dog after spending all day fending off his.... energetic.... approach to life.

Puppy obedience class that night was pure hell. He was such a frigging pain in the butt and I was so afraid of him peeing or pooping in the class (he did) that I couldn't focus at all on what the instructor was saying. I held it together til I was picking up Neil after his night class, and then bawled all the way home. Spent the next two days avoiding the dog altogether.

Note to self: don't spend the whole day at home alone with the creature-from-hell just yet.

----------

Okay now... a whole other week has gone by and I like the doggie again. There has been walking. I have neglected to keep track of it.

My sinuses have been somewhat unhappy for ....say... the last 8 weeks. Is it the month we spent in Newfoundland clearing our systems of Ontario's pollution? Is it an allergy to the dog? (I didn't have that much of a problem with Leif.) Is it the change of seasons? The furnace coming on? A cold?

Karen

still more fitness and doggie - with flowers

2010-09-26T22:29:00.000-04:00

1.2 km - Thursday

3.0 km - Friday - doggie was psycho, weather was fantastic

---------------

No walk on saturday. We went to Oakridge Acres Fall Farm Day, and spent a ton in the store. Thoka went along for the car ride, but it was too busy there to let him out.

In the afternoon, we had friends over to build a bead furnace and they brought Bella. Bella exhausted Thoka, and vice versa.

Neil found building a bead furnace to be physically challenging, and Karen's only excuse is pretty marginal in that her sinuses are trying to kill her.

------------

We did a ton of housecleaning today.

2.5 km tonight. Thoka was relatively well behaved. Or I was channeling Ceasar Millan. Can't figure out which.

Karen

Thoka helping out in the garden, more exercise

2010-09-22T22:45:00.000-04:00

This is our first weekend with Thoka when we first discovered his 'talent' in the garden. Took a bit to convert the file. It's a bit grainy, but still funny.

Here you go...

Thoka Video

Walking on tuesday night was just 1.2 km, but Thoka was much better behaved tonight.

Had lots of sushi for lunch today - went with friends. :)

----------

It's wednesday and I'm looking back.... it's only been a week since I started this walking everyday and tracking it thing? It feels so much longer.

Well, I guess that's why I'm tracking it.

----------

Tomorrow, Thoka will have been with us for 3 weeks. That makes him 11 weeks old. He's gained 4 pounds (I have never managed to convert to metric in measuring my weight), and 3 inches in height. He's gonna be a big doggie.

-----------

Vandy asked me if my camera was broken. Apparently I'm not posting enough pictures of the doggie recently. I will endeavor to correct that oversight. :)

----------

Did 40 flights of stairs today. Up and down.

Where 'flight' is defined as 'all in one direction, two flights per floor'. 10 floors, twice up and twice down. Took about 15 minutes. Definite increase in heart rate.

Was able to report to facilities that the air quality on 5, 6, and 7 is seriously diminished. Turns out they knew already but still.... I should get a gold star for attentiveness or something. It's not an everyday occurence.

Both the attentiveness and the air quality problem, that is. :)

---------

Aren't you glad I don't have a Twitter account? At least this is one long post of seriously disjointed thoughts posted all at once and not millions of discontinuous thoughts throughout the day.

---------

1.9 km tonight.

Karen

Monday walking

2010-09-20T22:15:00.000-04:00

Got an awesome letter from UW's food services, explaining which guidelines they use to calculate the sodium content in their meals. References and all!

We just disagree a little about the guidelines that should be used. But that they did some research and returned my letter is amazing. One so rarely expects that kind of service in bureaucratic institutions.

The long and short of it is that they are working from the old standard guideline based on an upper average of 2390mg per day, instead of the more current 1500mg per day. The Government of Canada has set new standards, and says it's working with food producers on a voluntary compliance basis to bring sodium levels down across the board by 2016.

Well.... good luck with that voluntary compliance thingy.

If I was in charge of the world, I'd make compliance mandatory. Better yet, I'd wave my magic wand and....

Anyhoo.... walked around Ring Road at work again today. The short version this time, cutting off one corner of it.The total was 2.4 km.

--------------

Tonight's walk with Thoka was just 1.7 km. He was psychotic, and we were both tired and wanting to get back to a new line-up of tv shows.

Castle returns from it's summer hiatus tonight! House was.... amusing.

Sunday walk

2010-09-19T21:56:00.000-04:00

2.5 km today. But it seemed longer. We were working on correcting and controlling Thoka such that he will walk calmly in a way that doesn't entangle our feet.

He's a problem.

Remember those digging skills I mentioned last weekend? He demonstrated then again this weekend. Right in the middle of one of my more finished gardens. With rather fierce determination. Ample correction has been applied.

We think there might be mice in garden. He means well.

Fitness again, and Thoka

2010-09-18T21:52:00.001-04:00

Short walk Thursday night, just 1.1 km.

It was just me again, and the weather was lousy. That is, I was the only human. Thoka the pup was along for the ride as well. He's a real pain when Neil is not on the walk with us. Thoka wanders all over and seems to prefer 'sideways' and 'backwards' to 'straight ahead'. Yeah, I know, I'm never gonna end up in a sideways pocket of the universe this way.

But I'm really looking forward to puppy obedience classes in October so I can get some training in dominance behaviours.

-------------

2.5 km on friday night. Pretty much the longest route we can do in this small town, without repeating some part of the loop. Neil was with us tonight and Thoka was much happier.

-----------

1.01 km on saturday, but we did some work in the backyard, and to be fair, it was quasi-raining. Neil had his usual weather luck in that it opened up into a much heavier rain just as we arrived back at our own front door.
Thoka was all tuckered out after the time out working in the backyard - His persistence in digging is ... quite remarkable.

I'm finding that I'm feeling better after a walk. I still resent the time it takes, know that this small town will bore the crap out of me soon enough, and I won't be quite so eager in the oncoming Canadian cold weather...... but I like the feeling of the lungs getting some sort of workout.

And as I gaze at my napping puppy..... I know that "a tired puppy is a good puppy".

Day 2: fitness reporting

2010-09-15T20:14:00.000-04:00

I'm just arbitarily gonna call it Day 2 of fitness reporting. This isn't by way of promising that I'll blog every day like the esteemed Grondzilla, but I need to track the fitness thing somehow.

For breakfast, I had the Tim Hortons' breakfast sandwich - bacon and egg on an english muffin. Their nutrional information calculator kindly informs me that the sodium content is 710mg, with 3g of sugar. Yes, sugar is bad now too. :(

http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/menu/nutrition-calculator.html

I had sushi for lunch - while not the exact version of what I had, a similiar package is nutritionally calculated at 860mg of sodium and 12g of sugar.

I then walked around the campus Ring Road (sort of, I elongated it in places). This really neat newly discovered gadget calculates my walk at approximately 3.13 km.

gmap-pedometer.com

Highlights from that walk were the skinny little size 0 passing me when I'm at my briskest pace! and noticing that Concrete Blonde makes really good walking music.

Supper tonight was two very fresh pieces of corn on the cob and we won't even talk about the butter and salt that is necessary to it's enjoyment, and a homemade mini pizza (bruscetta and cheese on a pita).

And tonight's walk with Neil and Thoka was approximately 1.9 km.

I hear that if you can get through the first 14 days of any new habit, it's supposed to have a better chance of sticking. Wish me luck, send me kudos!

Tonight's walk

2010-09-14T19:58:00.000-04:00

Thoka was very scared of everything without Neil's dominant presence on the walk tonight. I nearly had to drag him around for most of the walk. Of course, we did try a new route and there were people, and other dogs, and people cutting their lawn.

It's hard to get Google to tell me exactly what the mileage is but I figure it's approximately 2.2 kilometres.

I really need to just stop looking at this stuff

2010-09-14T14:51:00.001-04:00

I'm eating lunch and congratulating myself on choosing a healthier alternative this time.

UW food services has a nutritional information database on much of what it serves on campus. I had the California Chicken Pita.

http://www.foodservices.uwaterloo.ca/nutrition/itemsearch.php?id=1989

It looks good, if you're only reading the percentage column. When you actually look at the milligrams, and do the math, and are aware of the Government of Canada guidelines on sodium consumption....

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2006004/article/sodium/4148995-eng.htm

One really has to wonder in what weird Universe the University of Waterloo is calculating 640mg to be 23% of 1500 mg. I wrote them of course. UW is famous for it's math faculty and all.

Thoka, exercise, changes to Blogger and my Blog

2010-09-13T22:21:00.000-04:00

Thoka and I weeded the comfrey bed, of the comfrey, today. He helped by terrifying me with his digging skills. I think I am going to be using the NO word loudly and frequently when I'm trying to plant in the spring.

Blogger has made changes to the editor, and (also in the range of terrifying) --- I like it!

Also in the way of news - I've been worried about my health for a few years now. Long and short of it is that the Doc says I need to lose weight. More specifically, I need to exercise. I'm not good with that.

I mean, I'm not good at it. I make a lot of excuses. Anyhoo..... new puppy. New leaf to turn over?

Thoka is definitely a purebred mutt, but there's a lot of Australian Cattle Dog in him. This breed needs a lot of exercise.

I need to keep a fitness and nutrition journal. And frankly, the easiest way for me to do that is to blog about it. So.... dear readers, I'll be posting more often, but you may find the content more boring.

Today I walked approximately 3.8 km. And well.... ate 96% percent of my daily recommended intake of sodium at lunch alone. I looked up the nutritional info after I ate the sandwich.

I'll try to do a picture a week, just to keep it entertaining.

Oh, and by the by, I went to the Kitchener Knitters' Fair on saturday and tried out a few spinning wheels. I'm circling around to making a decision. Soon.

Thoka

2010-09-03T20:41:00.003-04:00

Yes, we're back from Newfoundland and starting to get unpacked. The weaving is back up on the loom and surprisingly, I'm still willing to work on it.

So... two days ago, himself says 'want to go and look at puppies when you pick me up from work?' And....

Meet Thoka. The name is Icelandic for 'fog'.

He's 9 weeks old, 16 pounds, and a cross between a Mom that is mostly an Australian cattle dog and a Dad that might be a collie. So far, he's beyond adorable.

Look Ma, I'm weaving!

2010-08-23T21:00:00.005-04:00

I had this apparently optimistic plan to sew the heddles in two days and weave for the next 7 days.

It took 5 days to knit the heddles and do a little more clean-up/prep work, and I was finally weaving on the 6th day. I've got a day and a half left.

But I'm weaving! I'm finally weaving!

Oh and by the by..........I got screeched in tonight. :)

I'm here, I'm really here

2010-08-19T20:31:00.003-04:00

Now that I've been here.....

.....for a few days, and have settled in a bit....

I have to say two things -

1) I'm really really enjoying myself. If it weren't for the lack of flush toilets in the longhouse.... I could live here. I could be a Viking woman.

I'd lose the addiction to the internet eventually. It would be good.

2) And, I'm really looking forward to my day off tomorrow.

Yes, I know, a study in contradictions.

DARC does L'Anse aux Meadows - the blog

2010-08-18T05:27:00.004-04:00

I've mostly been writing about our trip to L'Anse aux Meadows over on the blog for the Dark Ages Recreation Company - click the link here. The photography on the DARC blog, by the by, is not mine.

Short version - visitors are time consuming. I'm not as close to weaving at this point as I'd hoped. And contact lens are a pain - literally. I could try the fuzzy world of no contacts and no glasses - once I start weaving. I'm convinced a blind person could do it. But for the setup, I still need to see what I'm doing.

Oh my - I've never met so many creative ways to butcher the taste of seafood in my life. Deep frying seems to be a way of life here, unless they're pan-frying it in a squad of butter.

Karen

We have arrived in Newfoundland

2010-08-15T07:15:00.006-04:00

Trust Neil to find us scotch. Oh right.... single malt distilled whiskey. Can't use the word 'scotch' because it's not made in Scotland. The Scots even tried to stop them from using the name 'Glen' but the Supreme Court of Canada beat them up.

Glenora is North America's only single malt distilled whiskey, and it's in Cape Breton. Neil bought 3 bottles.

We moved on to getting to Newfoundland. There was a ferry - this great maw enveloped many 18 wheeler trucks, a few cars and trailers, RVs, and many more ordinary cars.....

And then we pulled away from land.

Six hours later, we arrived on The Rock dead tired and crashed in a nearby hotel. I didn't get my first real view of Newfoundland til the morning. First impression - very much like Iceland.

Second impression - not really like Iceland. Too many trees.

We spent a night in Gros Morne, and wandered the shoreline. Found this creature - a live mussel, still secreting his 'glue' that anchors him in place to all these rocks beneath him.

Karen

Yup, we're on the road again

2010-08-11T20:57:00.004-04:00

Haven't really felt like blogging til we got here.

Ben and Jerry's factory tour in Vermont was a bit of a bust. We don't have a scoop shop in Ontario, and we can't get all the flavours routinely in the grocery store. I had wanted to try some of the new flavours that I found on their website.

It didn't happen. They don't have all the flavours available at their on-site scoop shop - only the most popular. At their --main headquarters---. This should be the jewel in their crown. The hospitality should be superb.

Now, they did have all the flavours available - in 1 pint containers. Stupid. I'm traveling. I don't routinely carry a freezer in the car. There were four flavours that I had wanted to try. I'm not going to buy 4 pints of ice cream that I couldn't possibly finish before it melted and I'm not a fan of that much wasted money or food. Very disappointing.

But on the bright side... this morning, we left Alma, New Brunswick - home of the world's largest tides. This boat is a working vehicle - just temporarily grounded (literally) - while the tide is out.

Alma is a very peaceful town, even swarming with tourists. I think I could have enjoyed spending more time there, basking in the tidal changes, good food and a great hotel (Parkland Village Inn) and the change of weather - taking lots and lots of pictures.

Hopewell Rocks, just a little further along the road is another site that demonstrates the range and power of the tides. You can walk on the ocean floor at low tide, and just observe it from above at high tide. We were here in 2005 - this time, there were too many people.

London Wul - a wool shop I totally fell in love with 5 years ago - also a disappointment. I think it's me this time 'though. She does have a lot of stuff, just nothing I wanted. I have different tastes in fiber now. I want more than most shops can offer. I want spinning wheels in the shop to try out, fiber to spin, handmade fiber tools... I don't know really... just more.

It seems like most fiber shops are all about the Knitters. And frankly, I'm tired of it. There's more to do with fiber then knitting. Yes, yes.... blasphemy, I know. Get over it.

ancient tech, ancient enemy

2010-07-28T19:47:00.003-04:00

This little fellow is eating all of my asiastic lilies. It's called an Asiastic Lily beetle - what an original name. I hope the lilies come back next year when I'll be prepared to kill the beetle, now that I know how.

Let's hear it for ancient technology! This little bit of wood is based on an artefact in Viking Artefacts (James Graham-Campbell, ed.). The original is just 10cm in length, but this recreation is just a little longer to fit my hand better. It's called a pin beater.

I've been weaving for a few years now, and I admit it, I'm slow. I just didn't see the purpose or usefulness of pin beaters. But since I've been using this one, I'm in awe. It's a great tool, both for weaving on the warp weighted loom and as I'm using it here to beat the tablet weaving header of my new project. Both the new pin beater, and new weaving project are part of the preparations for our trip to L'Anse aux Meadows.

DARC does L'Anse aux Meadows

2010-07-24T19:40:00.003-04:00

Text below has been cheerfully thefted from the DARC blog, where I'm also an administrator. Darrell actually wrote the text 'though and made the webpage that is linked here.

At the request of a reader, I'll try to make a few posts about our preparations for this adventure, and I'll certainly be blogging from the road as it happens. Darrell tends to be more of a big picture guy and his posts will show up on the DARC blog, so it might be interesting to follow us both.

the Viking Age comes to LIFE
August 15 - 25, L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC

http://www.warehamforge.ca/DARC-LAM/DARC-LAM-2010.html

The Dark Ages Re-creation Company has been asked by Parks Canada to mount a major presentation at L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC. The 10 days of living history is to help mark the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the archaeological site in Vinland.

Leif, will be much missed

2010-07-09T10:12:00.002-04:00

I will miss my friend and companion, Leif, very much.

He was my first dog, and the bestest.

Leif died on sunday. I hope he knows how much we loved him.

Tagged!

2010-05-21T12:42:00.000-04:00

Nina tagged me with a few questions! I love getting tagged.

1- What would your perfect day consist of?

There's lots of elements to make a perfect day and they don't all need to be in one place at one time. Fudge, warmth, new experiences, sleeping in, good food, friends (or sometimes just that special one - the hubby), my garden, my pets, Iceland.

2- How would you describe yourself if you were an item of clothing?

Hmmm... have never really thought of myself this way. A big cozy blanket or tunic dress, probably.

3- What hobbies are you currently working on?

It's gardening time!

4- Walking in the woods in Wellies or Barefoot on the beach?

Depends on my mood. :) I'd be totally content in either situation.

5- Have you ever hugged or sang to a tree?

I got married under a tree, and we left the flowers at it's base when we were done. Does that count?

6. Growing your own veggies or nipping to the supermarket.

Growing my own! It's so rewarding to watch the whole cycle of birth to growth to eating. And yummy too!

7. Have you found anyone exciting in your family tree?

I've never explored my family tree.

8. Slap up meal in a posh restaurant or fish ‘n’ chips from the wrapper?

Posh restaurant, man. Hands down. Not because it's 'posh' per se... just because, generally, you really do pay for quality and fresh new experiences.

In Toronto this past weekend, we ate at Colburn Lane and Lee restaurant. These two folks are considered to be Toronto's top two chefs right now.

I wouldn't go back to Colburn Lane because it just wasn't worth it's pricepoint. This is high end molecular gastronomy - something I could never do for myself at home, but there's a whole experience thing, the big picture, that I expect out of a high end experience and Colburn Lane was missing a few parts. I can't complain of the tastes - that was delightful! But the portions were small, the time lag between dishes was annoying, the music was a bit loud and they had fake cheap candles on the tables instead of real tealights.

Orange in Reykjavik,was also high end molecular gastronomy but it was more fun, the portions were bigger, the waitress couldn't crack a smile for the life of her, and a mad scientist mixed up liquid nitrogen smoking meringue bombs at our table. They served their dessert on liquid nitrogen chilled rocks from the Icelandic earth. The appetizers came floating a few inches off the table attached to perfectly filled helium balloons. The restaurant is mere feet away from the dock and the fish tasted like it was caught that morning and died only seconds before cooking. And!! the drink menu wasn't confined to stiltifying perfectly suited wine choices but had wild tasty fun choices instead. I've never met a cocktail menu more alive!

Lee, on the other hand, was fantastic food, served with perfect timing fashion, and larger portions. It was however - crazy busy (which didn't intere with the service!) and the music was a bit loud.

9. Which element do you most resonate with, Earth, Wind, Fire or Water?

Depends on what I'm doing, and what mood I'm in. I'm mostly Fire and Water - all steamy and in conflict, but I've been blown away by Iceland's sheer physical earthly beauty. :)

10. Do you believe in fairies?

I haven't seen one myself, but there's just way way too many stories out there to not have some basis in truth. :)

Weekend - Shoes, peaceful setting

2010-05-02T19:26:00.004-04:00

Bunches of interesting things this weekend. Met up with friends in the Dark Ages Recreation Company to learn how to make turnshoes. We're using modern tools, but the end product should be pretty much the same as Viking Era shoes.

This is our teacher, working on a pair of shoes for his daughter while we're all off on earlier steps in the process.

Our hosts for the weekend have beautiful garden spaces and right now, their tulips are in full bloom. Long time readers will likely realize that I have a special thing for tulips. :)

This picture seems to have turned out pretty darned well. I like the luminous sunlight and slight fuzziness around the edges of the photo.

They also have chickens. I think this is the rooster.

And horses, and cats, and a deeply peaceful farm out in the boondocks of Ontario. Sitting on the porch in the early morning ... it was so peaceful.

Our host was Grondzilla and his partner, who dislikes seeing her name in print. Grondzilla has been engaged in a commitment to blog every day for a year. I'm intrigued by the idea. I briefly considered the idea. Generally speaking, I update my Facebook status once a day anyway.

But I'd have to be crazy to consider it right now. DARC is gearing up pretty heavily for a gig at L'Anse aux Meadows in August, my boss just went on mat leave again leaving me busier at work, and there's that gardening thing. I have way too much to do these days already.

Ahh.... yes. :)

2010-04-30T10:54:00.003-04:00

Forward Into the Past XX, and unknown flowers

2010-03-29T19:28:00.004-04:00

The 20th anniversary Forward Into the Past has come, and gone. It was fun.

Awesome amounts of fun! And utterly exhausting.

Sadly, I was too busy to take photos.

Now, there's been a warm streak happening in Ontario and my garden is starting to grow. Again, I'm faced with I-didn't-keep-the-tag-and-I-don't-remember-what-that-is. Bad gardener girl.

So, dear readers.... help. What is this?

Mmmmmm..... seafood!

2010-03-21T20:00:00.002-04:00

We had a lovely dinner at Solé tonight. We went because they had a special Celebration of the Sea menu and we both love seafood.

Neil had a crab cake appetizer, and the Thai Seafood Bake (little neck clams, mussels, scallops, shrimp, sticky rice croquettes and baby bok choy, steamed in a banana leaf with a spicy lemon grass and lime leaf broth). I had a crab tower appetizer, and the Baked Icelandic scampi tails (sweet potato, banana bread and pecan hash, saffron and vanilla bean cream, steamed asparagus and blueberry reduction).

For dessert, we split a lemon and poppyseed cheesecake with a raspberry coulis.

Delicious!

We're restaurant-testing, you see. We have to decide where to take Michele for dinner next friday.

Well, it's a good theory anyway.

Comment moderation

2010-03-18T10:09:00.003-04:00

Sadly folks, I've had to enable comment moderation.

I've now had the comments section spammed a few times too many. I had hoped it was an isolated incident or two, but it's becoming more frequent. I promise for those of you who are actually writing a real comment, I'll be quick to approve them.

Karen

Spring!

2010-03-09T13:46:00.003-05:00

Bet you're wondering where the month of February went to, right?

So much for that New Year's resolution. :)

It's just that it's so much faster and easier to update my Facebook status then it is to blog. One needs real content for a blog, or pictures.

Anyhoo.... I am otherwise a tad more organized. I have all the kid's (nieces and nephews) birthdays on a wall calendar, and I've remembered birthday cards for two of them so far. Neil and I worked out a gifting scheme based on their ages.

And I've been reading more then the goal set worth of articles or book chapters in my field so far.... but I do have incentive.

Forward Into the Past is a yearly event, on March 27th this year, at which I laughingly pretend that teaching doesn't scare the crap out of me. This year, I'm teaching a class introducing people to the warp weighted loom. I had a real fit a few weeks and called in someone more likely to teach me a thing or two. What the heck am I doing teaching if I can't figure it out myself? But I digress.

I learned a few things, and I'm in the middle of warping up yet another new project on the loom to apply said things.

Hopefully I'll know what I'm doing enough by then...

But if not, if it's an utter failure, there's another incentive to keep researching... DARC is going to L'Anse aux Meadows this year in August, and apparently I'm the weaver. Eep.

I feel.... well, a little panicked, to tell the truth. And the hubby wonders why my body is showing stress symptons in back and muscle pain, and intestinal distress. *rolling eyes*

On the bright side.... I didn't mention this one as a New Year's goal because everyone does it, and everyone fails at it, but I wanted to exercise more often this year. And so far.... while I can't yet call it an established habit, I am doing okay on this goal. Well... better then last year anyway. The jury is still debating the outcome.

Spring, here in Ontario, does seem to be making itself known. There have been warmer temperatures (although we still have snow), some bulbs in really really warm brick wall braced south facing gardens are showing (on campus of course, not at our house), I've changed out of snow boots, birds have been heard singing, ducks on campus are abounding, and the sunshine is getting lengthier. All to the good.

But this is still Canada, and I don't want to be skeptical. :)

Karen

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-02T18:31:00.004-05:00

I made a few. Maybe I shouldn't have, 'cause they do have a tendancy to fall away and not get followed up on.

But I would like to:

Not skip whole months blogging. re: December. Sorry folks, it was busy and I have been less than organized.

Be more organized. :) I'm thinking mostly of remembering people's birthdays and anniversaries. Facebook is so interesting, in that if you enter your birthday in your profile, it tells all your friends a few days ahead, and it's just so darned easy to go to their wall and write a quick 'happy birthday' and it makes people so happy. Why would it be that much harder to remember to send cards? I'm an aunt, I've got to step up.

And on that organization thing - making notes all year when I come up with ideas for presents for people. I do get them all year round and then I forget them when it's time for christmas shopping and then that process becomes painful.

Read just two chapters or articles in my field of research - Viking Age textiles and women's studies - per month. I'm not convinced that isn't just wimpy as a goal, but maybe I'll get inspired and want to do more. I don't want to stress the New Year's Resolution curse too much.

Last year's goal - to take pictures at least one per week and blog them - well, that didn't entirely work out. It was Neil's idea. He was hoping that I'd get comments about the the quality of the photo and work to improve my skill, but it didn't really work out that way. I didn't take one photo every week, but overall I did take more then one a week. Approximately 150 a week actually. My photography probably did improve.

What can I say? We went to Iceland this year.

This year I'd like to learn a bit more about post processing of photos in one of them fancy computer programs.

So there you have it. A few gentle goals. What are yours?

Another smelting thing...

2009-11-10T20:35:00.005-05:00

Well, there was another smelting thing..... I like the people, I love the husband.... but I'm getting a little tired of the smelting.

On the bright side, Snorri came back for a visit.

And the beating of the hot rock is still amusing.

Wareham also had a few very attentive bluejays hovering about. I haven't seen ours in quite awhile.

mini vacation!

2009-11-05T15:10:00.005-05:00

Went to see the new Cirque du Soliel show - Ovo - in Toronto recently.

The show was a matinee so I took the whole day off. Neil worked the morning - he tends to be more gung-ho that way. Gets paid more for his dedication. I packed and lounged around the house.

Ate bad food at a fast food place on the way out. Had time to check into our favourite hotel before the show. I love the Cosmopolitian. It's technically just outside of the business district in Toronto, but you could throw a stone at it. The views are fantastic from the windows (we could even see the big tops of the Cirque on the waterfront), and the place is so Zen-like.

Meandered over to the Cirque tents and settled in to be entertained for a few hours. Lots of kids in Halloween costumes in the audience. The little girl next to us was so fascinated by the show, we hardly heard a peep out of her.

The little girl inside me was so fascinated I hardly moved myself. :)

After the Cirque let out, we meandered up to Vertical Restaurant. I'm always interested in trying new high end restaurants when we come to Toronto. I'm looking for that perfect mix of a quiet atmosphere, unobtrusive but friendly service, and food so good that it challenges perceptions and delights the senses. Vertical comes so close..... but I am getting harder and harder to please as I gain more experience in high end food.

I'm looking for that stillness that comes down around me when it's just about the experience right there in front of me and everything else fades away. High expectations, I know, but I've been there.

Anyway - excellent service, reasonably quiet atmosphere, good mix of music in the background, and the food was excellent. Not transporting, but there it is. We opted to split the appetizer in order to indulge in the Italian mult-course experience. New food experience - grilled octopus! Then we both had the half size portions of the lobster tagliatelle, and he had the black cod and I had ummm.... darn, it escapes me... another fish. We both had the creme catalana for dessert.

Although the fish was perfectly cooked, and the veggies a nice mix that worked well together, I think the dish needed a little dribbling of some sort of sauce to pull it altogether.

It was a beautiful night as we walked back to the hotel some 2 hours later, much relaxed. He walked, I limped - haven't worn those heels in quite awhile and they were trying to break my feet in again.

The next day we went shopping! Efston Science and Capital Leather and Findings managed to eat a few of our dollars respectively. At some point, Neil turned to me and expressed the feeling that it feels like we've had a full weekend already and how delightful it was that we still had another day before having to go back to work again. I was feeling the same darn thing. :)

Drove home to mundane food and candy handing out duties, shamelessly eating all the good stuff and giving out the stuff we didn't want. Did not get as many kids as most years so we've had to clean up the leftover candy this week. It's been tough. :)

Weaving with the handspun is progressing, but it's difficult to get a good picture of it. I've broken 5 of an original 120 warp threads so far, just in these first 4 rows of weaving. I'm hoping it will settle out and find a stable point of weaving. I'm having no end of grief with opening one of the sheds.

Karen

Fleece, Garden

2009-10-29T19:48:00.004-04:00

The reporting is getting a bit behind the reality. It was a few weeks ago now that I was at the Woodstock Fleece Festival, where I found this delightful fleece waiting to be taken home by someone. The vendors and displays inside weren't nearly as much fun as the creatures on the outside of the building. No pictures there. And although I didn't find a new spinning wheel, which I was hunting for, I did gather some new Shetland rovings, which I need like I need a hole in the head.

Came home that weekend to discover that somehow we'd managed to overlook this nest all summer long. Can't imagine how. We did notice an increase in wasps in the yard, but I guess neither of us ever looked up.

It's gone now. I had some guys from the local nursery do some yard work last week, and handed off the task to them amongst the other chores.

Leaves, of course, are everywhere. Neil got this new gadget that sucks and mulches them. It's been very handy.

But this one leaf paused on the way down to attach itself to the bird feeder.

Pretty.

Bird feeder by Darrell Markewitz at Wareham Forge. Advertising is intentional - he's our friend. And I really like the bird feeder!

Bogenschutzenfest, the pottery, handspun on the loom!

2009-10-24T11:09:00.004-04:00

This is one of my favourite pieces from the clay firing. It started out as a bowl, and collapsed, and turned into a small vase.

We made our yearly usual appearance at Bogenschutzenfest. I love this event. I don't really know why.

Maybe it's the archery, maybe it's the silly factor. You see, there's this styrofoam bird on top of flag pole..... and the bar opens halfway through the day.

On a more serious note, I have finally decided to weave with my handspun.

There it is, in mid-warp. I'm holding my breath. It's scary.

Karen

Viking Althing

2009-10-05T21:23:00.007-04:00

So.... it's been a busy few weeks again. I'm way behind.

Back in September, one of the groups in the SCA held an event loosely based on a Viking Althing. The Althing is basically a gathering in Iceland's history where all the people came together to hear the laws read out, and some legal cases decided. Because they only happened once a year, the Althing was also sort of a party / merchant / craftsman mecca.

The Dark Ages Recreation Company - www.darkcompany.ca - and Regia - www.regia.ca - and Torvik - www.torvik.org - were all asked to participate as well and show off our unique Viking Era skills.

I'm a part of the DARC group. This is what the 'viking' street looked like, with DARC folk front and center and Regia and Torvik at the far end.

It's hard to parse from this picture, but DARC had 'booths' with a money changer and pewter caster, a fellow working on a pole lathe turning wood, a tavern for the group cooking appropriate foodstuffs (and boy, was that ever a discussion in the planning stages!), a textiles co-operative, a wood carver, a blacksmith, and a bead merchant.

I was mostly spinning all day in the textiles co-operative and sometimes helping out in the kitchen.

Kadja is also part of DARC and was experimenting with pit firing clay vessels. She and Foote the Potter (from Regia) are seen here covering the pit fire.

It's a process that takes a full day. Digging a pit, carefully placing fragile pottery and building a smoking fire on top of it, and then burying the whole thing to burn out underground, gradually 'curing' the clay.

The next morning, we all (those who had pots in the fire) helped dig out the pots... it was really neat. Some of my pots actually survived!

Snorri showed up to peruse the pots....

Remember Snorri from our trip to Iceland in July? Well, when we got home, we sent him off to Peterborough to travel back to Iceland and then on to Denmark and England with another couple, who returned and gave him back to Steve, his maker. Who knows where Snorri will show up next?

Doggie

2009-09-23T21:00:00.002-04:00

Aka Leif the Licky.

It's September and....

2009-09-09T15:56:00.005-04:00

The students have returned to the campus, en masse. *sigh* To be that young again.

I haven't seen The Tool yet. Usually the engineers have to strut obnoxiously through Arts Quad at least once with the thing. But it is still early in the term.

Still early in the term, and one of my more unflappable co-workers has already been heard to mutter something to the effect of "I think they're trying to kill us."

-----------

The September long weekend, created compliments of Labour Day, brings it's usual trip up north for the annual SCA event at Bonfield.

Vikings everywhere, oh my.

Well, just Viking tents apparently.

-----------

My tomatoes are starting to hit the production level. Sort of. Finally.

It's been a bad year for the tomatoes. Big plants, but relatively few tomatoes - I think I'm seeing the results of a critically reduced bee population. Next year I may take the precaution of pollinating by hand.

But between my own and the farmer's market, I've managed to stock up enough pasta sauce to last for the year, I hope.

Yes, that is an entire shelf in the upright freezer. Maybe a few more batches?

Karen

Bubbles and the garden

2009-08-24T21:35:00.005-04:00

On the weekend, I went with the menfolk to Cedar Hills Park in Wiarton, to watch the bubbles while they went scuba diving. Isn't it a pretty place? And a beautiful day? *sigh*

Da boys had fun. :)

And they taught me something - it took us 3 hours to get there, and they took another 40 minutes or so to get their equipment on and tested. Same in reverse afterwards. All for about 40 minutes underwater where the real fun is.

I should apply this to my weaving. The warping takes a good solid 8 hours of work. And it is a terribly picky fidgity boring annoying thing to do. But really, in perspective.... a small price to pay for the joy of weaving.

Anyhoo... I digress. I was up to my usual tricks of trying to tag the wildlife too. This seagull graced me with his presence. I sense he was disappointed 'though that I didn't try to bribe him with food.

Back home in the garden, this sunflower is thriving under the birdfeeder. Apparently the birds missed one or two of the seeds...

And.... my tomatoes are starting to ripen!! Hooray!

Back home

2009-08-16T19:50:00.003-04:00

Have you ever been someplace that's so special, so different, that it's hard to let it go when you go back to your normal life?

Iceland's like that. I've been back for almost a week and I feel like.... without seafood and restaurants, I don't know what to have for dinner. Without the clean, clear, fresh air - I don't know how to breathe. It is incredibly hot and muggy here. Without being in Iceland, I don't know what to blog about!

*sigh*

Have I mentioned yet how two weeks of near constant rain and summer temperatures affect a garden? We didn't ask the house/dog sitter to do anything other then water the garden if the weather didn't do the deed.

The lawnmower broke just before we went on vacation anyway, and I didn't want to educate a city boy on how to care for the tomatoes.

So.... the grass was overgrown and the tomatoes were every which way out of control and there were weeds.... everywhere.

We hired a friend's 13 year son - Peter - to help with the weeding this weekend and got started. Peter cleared the driveway, the path to the back gate, the flagstone pathway and the front garden. Neil handled the fenceline garden, and cut the lawn with a rental lawnmower until ours can be fixed.

I weeded, and weeded, and weeded, as much of the rest of the gardens as I could. And staked the tomatoes, and cut their suckers. And discovered why the irises didn't bloom much and died abruptly - I think they are too crowded, too covered in mulch and plant remains, and two weeks of constant rain have rotted many of the bulbs.

Anyway... things are mostly back under control.

Neil's freshly weeded fenceline garden.

Neil's shade garden. It's his thing. We have distinctive garden preferences.

The tomatoes - back under control, sort of. While I don't have a person standing in the shot to give you perspective, consider that I am 5 foot 4 inches tall and standing to take this photo. It is not angled up in any way.

Something else that I found strange upon returning home are these black eyed susans. It just doesn't seem like it's the right time for them. It feels too early yet in the season. For me, black eyed susans are the harbinger of fall.

Iceland: some numbers

2009-08-09T06:06:00.006-04:00

18 days
11 hotels or guesthouses
1 ridiculously hard bed
0 "soft enough" beds

0 incidences of salt and vinegar chips
At least a dozen incidences of searching grocery stores for said chips - I lived in hope

1 incidence, purely by the kindness of a charming waiter, of vinegar made available for french fries

6 completely new food experiences - puffin, whale, reindeer, hakarl, langoustine, monkfish and liquid nitrogen

5 hours. Until the very last night here, that was the longest consecutive sleep I could achieve in a country with this much sun in the summer. On the last night here, I almost got 7 hours!

5 hours on the plane, 4 hours ahead in time difference.

0 natural disasters - last year you see, there was this earthquake...

1 incidence of whale watching that resulted in 0 whales spotted and 3 hours of vomiting

1.5 Canadian lanes wide - that's how large Icelandic 2 lane roads are. In the West Fjords, .....largely ungraveled and often steep and blind...... that makes driving
rather interesting.

1 billion waterfalls encountered

1 volcano encounter

1 glacier

1 billion museums or 'centres'

Dozens and dozens of dirty brown rags categorized and photographed - how's that going Michelle?

18 days in Iceland? Priceless!

Questions? I'd be happy to answer.

Last day in Iceland :(

2009-08-08T18:23:00.005-04:00

The last few days have been fun, but I have few pictures to show for it.

We started off thursday morning by getting up and deciding to go to Thingvellir, rain or shine. We wanted to go Wednesday night after dinner, but it was raining. Raining too hard even for the hotel outdoor hotpot, never mind a walk around the national park.

Got there.... rain mostly stopped for a bit. Went to Oxarfoss first to try out the tripod idea that Greg suggested. Longer exposures can be done better with a tripod, humans find it difficult to hold a camera steady long enough. And we did bring the tripod, after all, so we might as well use it.

Really cool water..... strange colours in the rock and moss. I think I have some work to fine tune this idea.

The rain started again in torrents midway up the continental divide. *sigh*

Neil went back for the car like a gallant gentleman, and I trudged up to the tourist centre at the top, which was somewhat closer. Pulled off layers and tried to dry out watching films of the lake and UNESCO world heritage sites while waiting for Neil or the rain to stop, whatever would come first.

Along with dozens and dozens of other tourists like me all hiding in the only shelter, short of their cars or buses.

Snorri is seen here overlooking the valley and the nation's guest houses for visiting dignitaries. The hotel that we would have been staying at was right across the parking lot from the dignitaries' guesthouses but it burned to the ground a few weeks ago and now it's a lawn.

Snorri's picture was taken in a rush, in the rain, before we got in the car and drove back to Reykjavik, completing our circle.

Errr... with a brief stop at the factory outlet store for Alafoss, Iceland's leading wool producer / exporter. The dollar exchange in the last year has effectively made this wool about half the price I can get it for in Canada, but I'm a little afraid of how little room I have left in the suitcases so I didn't end up buying anything.

We arrived in Reykjavik in the early afternoon and went to the Student bookstore at the University of Iceland to hunt down a book for a friend, and not finding it, went to the National Museum next door to hunt in their gift shop, since they did publish it in the first place. Sold out, all across Iceland and at the publishing house.

BUT.... on a whim, I asked at admissions if they had changed their policy on taking pictures in the museum. Last year, the answer was NO, and we were quite disappointed. This year.... the policy has changed as of April, and we can! Neil went back to the car to get the camera!

One drawback.... the lighting level is quite low in the museum and pictures are extremely difficult to take well. These few are the best of a bad lot. All are approximately in the Settlement Period.

Beads....

A textile bit, probably tablet woven trim....

A reconstruction of what it is currently thought that a warp-weighted loom would have looked like based on later period evidence. It should be noted that there is very little actual remains of these looms from the Settlement Period. There are no actual whole looms. Loom weights, sword beaters, a pin beater, spindle whorls.... but no actual loom frames.

An axehead...

That night, we went out to dinner in Reykjavik with Michele, an archaeologist friend from Rhode Island, who just arrived in Iceland to study the nation's textiles. Elín, whom Neil has been corresponding with about bead finds in Iceland, joined us later for drinks. Much conversation and a late night later.....

We woke up friday morning to head off to the National Museum archives with Michele - me to look at textiles as her assistant and Neil to look at beads. We are not allowed to publish those pictures. While I'm quite sure they mean for profit, I'm erring on the side of caution, and applying it to this blog.

Except for this one of Snorri of course, seen here sitting beside the boxes of textile remains that Michele and I got through after 7 hours of eye-bleeding staring at small fragments, tiny weave patterns, the set of the spin ....all various shades of unrelenting brown.

And damned, but it was exhilarating. I touched (with gloves) fabric pieces that were quite possibly a 1000 years old. I took pictures of things that probably will never get released to public viewing because the museum has boxes and boxes and boxes and still more boxes of these things.....

Yes, I know I'm weird. :) But it's a good weird.

We went to the hot pots afterwards to rest our weary eyes.

And then out to dinner, again with Michele, to a place called Orange. It was an accidental find, in that we had aimed at another place nearby and were turned off by the crowds and dingy appearance of the place.

Orange is.... pretentious, terribly trendy in design, has at least the one waitress who couldn't bring herself to smile or even be polite, and was still.... a fantastic experience!

The food was divine and experimental, and there's weird science with liquid nitrogen both for the cooking thereof and for entertainment. I'll say no more. Go and look them up on the website, and if you get to Iceland - go with friends who love food and laughter.

Today.... our last full day in Iceland, we slept in deliciously, a rare thing for me, and then picked up Michele to go shopping and to amuse ourselves with the Gay Pride parade through downtown Reykjavik.

It was a party for sure, but way more tame then Toronto's Gay Pride celebrations - sorry folks. I know Reykjavik likes to think it can party, but it just doesn't have the sheer volume that Toronto's crowd can offer. And somehow the party mix is much more pleasant in Icelandic then in English.

Oh and there was the flea market, and more shopping, and a bite of harkarl - rotted shark. I had made it my goal to give it a try this year. Must not leave the country without doing so. It is memorable. I say say no more least I spoil the surprise.

Tomorrow, we're picking up Michele for one last visit and a stop at the Blue Lagoon, on the way to the airport.

I will miss the fresh air, the wild wild geology of this place and my first (hopefully not last) encounter with the National Museum archives, and all the seafood along the way...... but I am looking forward to seeing my dog and my waterbed again.

2 days behind, 2 days ago

2009-08-05T17:55:00.006-04:00

After visiting Jokulsarlon, I was intrigued by the glacier that we could see.... just outside the hotel room window. I wanted to get right up to it. Distances are deceptive in Iceland, and it wasn't really "just outside" the hotel room, but several hills away. So we took an access road for glacier climbers instead, and walked in instead. Not being in safety gear, we didn't attempt to climb on the glacier itself. Took pictures, didn't like them.

Did find this on the road for Darrell....

Snorri visits
Kirkjubaejaklauster with us. Click on the link, it explains better than I can at the moment. I think I'm coming down with a cold.

I blame Neil. It's all these darned waterfalls that he's dragging me to see. ;) Or the museums, I just can't decide. He got his waterfalls mixed up. I really wanted to see the one that you can walk behind and he thought it was this one, was convinced that it's this one. So he says... let's go, and starts plunging toward the waterfall. The mist layer is so heavy it's starting to soak us and I'm yelling 'no way, can't be this one" and finally he stops. He's gotten far enough and wet enough to understand the error of his ways, but he just had to wait for me to catch up with him to turn around.

This is Skogafoss, by the by...

Yet another 18th-ish century museum. Really well done, but just jammed packed full of mostly uninteresting stuff. Except for this thing.... apparently 17th century, and it's the remains of an upright for the warp-weighted loom, which was in use in Iceland well into the 18th century.

Now this one, this is the waterfall that you can walk behind. It's really really cool, and somewhat terrifying inside the cavern because the sound of the water falling echoes and vibrates and you think you're in the middle of an airplane taking off but it's all around you.

This is the Saga Centre in Hvolsvolur. It is focused on telling the story of Njala's saga. It's really well done in one aspect only - lots of large boards with pretty picture to tell the tale. But oh my.... where do I even begin on the 3 dimensional stuff they are using to flesh out the story?

The blade on the spear is wrong, the shield is the wrong shape, the helm is wrong, the broaches are wrong and the shape of the cloak is wrong! That's just one of maybe a dozen such characters, all filled with looming inaccuracies.

And then that day was over.... it was a long long drive to what is billed as Iceland's only 4 star hotel and restaurant. I might agree that the restaurant deserves 4 stars, but sadly, not the hotel. In fact, I think it's earned the dishonour of the hardest beds in the entire country. And the outdoor hot tubs weren't... hot. At all. *sigh*

Now... off again the next morning to.... the Hekla Volcano Centre. Wonderful presentation. A little light on the facts, if you want more of that science stuff about volcanoes, but really really well presented.

The Centre uses several modern techniques like a tilted floor and ambient noise to disorient and disquiet it's patrons, to emphasize the destructive power of volcanoes, and Hekla's history in particular. A very large eruption in the mid 1300s earned it the nickname of the gateway to Hell, because it's ash layer made it as far as Scotland and England, and destroyed farmland for miles and miles around.

These ash layers are part of Iceland's archaeological dating, because eruptions were recorded in some fashion as far back as 1104.

This is Hekla today - note that people are moving back into the area. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable living so close.

Hekla is calm today. Well, on the day I took this picture of the seismometer, anyway. :) It's very reassuring.

One last stop for the moment is Stong. It's a recreated Settlement Period (ie. Viking Age) longhouse, that got buried by ash during Hekla's eruption in 1104. Archaeologists have uncovered the site and a recreation was built in 1974 as part of celebration of the 1100 years of Iceland's settlement.

It's been very well built, but Neil and I both agreed that it really needs re-enactors to bring it to life.

Snorri approves.

This warp weighted loom is on temporary loan to the Stong site. It is beautifully set up, and has obviously had a very competent weaver behind it at some point.

Now, I have to apologize. I'm still two days behind in blogging! The last two days have been so full that I haven't had time to finish up this post about the previous two days so... you'll just have to bear with me a bit more. We met up with the lovely Michelle Smith, and explored new hot pots and lots of old brown textiles. More on that, and some liquid nitrogen, to come.....

Karen

Jokulsarlon

2009-08-04T13:42:00.002-04:00

It finally dawns on me that the difference between a 4 star hotel in Iceland and a 4 star hotel in Toronto is.... the city that surrounds it, in which they can find almost anything a demanding client might want, is nearly 10 times the size of the entire population of Iceland. But I suppose that's a digression....

The night before the day of Jokulsarlon. This is the Vatnajokull glacier at....oh, 10:30pm from the beach near our hotel at Hofn. So peaceful....

And Vatnajokull in the bright sunlight as we neared Jokulsarlon.

Jokulsarlon is a lagoon created by the melting of the largest glacier in Iceland, Vatnajokull. It's filled with icebergs that have broken off from the glacier and are in the process of melting as they mix with the warm currents of sea water.

These intriguing boats will take you out into the lagoon for a brief run about, where a guide carefully explains the nature of glaciers and the formation of the lagoon, including the timelines involved. It is thought that the glaciers in Iceland were much much smaller in the Settlement period (ie, Viking Age) and that the settlers farmed areas now buried in glaciers. Imagine doing that kind of archaeology!

Glaciers are dirty at their leading edge, picking up the earth as it moves. When an iceberg turns over, having left all that dirt at the bottom of the lagoon, it is a beautiful crystal clear ice that slowly turns white as the sun crystallizes the surface. This is a freshly turned iceberg.

This one, Neil and I are debating.... does it look it a duck or a seal to you?

And speaking of ducks.... there is an abundance of wildlife living in or about the lagoon. And you know me, I'm a sucker for cute wildlife. Caught this cute baby duck in mid-shake....

And while we were hunting for seals in the lagoon, we caught this little bird of some sort in the rocks in front of us....

Found a seal! As the salt water of the sea mixes with the fresh water of the lagoon, seals often chase fish into the lagoon. It's an interesting mix of currents as the seawater mixes with the fresh.

Neil caught this artic tern on an iceberg with his meal in his beak...

Snorri had an overview of the icebergs "Why is it always water with these people?"

"This is so undignified...."

Sunday in Hofn

2009-08-02T16:39:00.005-04:00

Waking up in Myvatn the next day, I am much refreshed from the travails of the day before and it's a bright sunny day with winds from the southeast. Just over the hill and around the corner, we stumble on this site that we hadn't been expecting - Namafjall Hverir - another heavily loaded geyser site, much like the one near Gullfoss in the south.

The Namafjall region is close to Krafla, one of Iceland's still active volcanos. I start piecing together how geysers work, and their relationship to volcanos. Go, shoo.... look it up on Wikipedia. I did when I finally paused in the hotel at night. Did you know that Yellowstone National Park is basically just one huge supervolcano? That even just one explosion of a supervolcano could completely change our entire world literally overnight?

This is just one of the prettier pools of bubbling hot water, superheated by underground magma pockets.

This is a steam vent. I like this picture. I look so.... tentative.

Snorri just sighs at being threatened with hot steam once again...

This stop is planned! It's yet another waterfall - I don't really feel like that... that 'yet another' thing, because I really enjoy them, but I'm starting to wonder if my readers are going 'what another waterfall?' as you follow along.

This is Dettifoss. It is the largest waterfall in Europe in terms of volume discharge, and it is largely glacial runoff from the Vatnajökull glacier.

Neil pauses in the sunshine to enjoy the water flowing past him. We can walk right up to the edge of the top of the waterfall, and even stick our hands in the stream - it's cold!

Back on the road again, I've been making it my ambition to get some of the thousands of sheep that I've seen on film (ed - electrons dear, film is so old school).

We spent the night in Egilstaðir, where I wrote the last blog, but not the day leading up to it. It's getting a little confusing, the where and when of where we are, but don't worry.

Egilstaðir to Hofn is a long drive - 250 odd km, so we decided to skip the two waterfalls that would have been an 80 km detour, and just let the road itself entertain us along the way. There aren't really that many plannned tourist distractions on the east coast.

But the road itself.... now that's another story. It started to rain, quite likely the heaviest rain since we've gotten here. Very annoying. We found what looked to be a shortcut on the map that would cut off about about 60 km, with a secondary road over the mountains.

It's kinda twisty.....

.... but it was in better shape then the #1, and had some fantastic sights along the way. After we got out of the fog, that is. The climb up the mountain was ...eerie.
I could tell there was awesome scenery out there, but we couldn't see it. And then we reached the halfway point and started climbing down out of the mountains, and the sun broke out, the rain stopped, the fog dissipated, and there was a waterfall and picnic table pull over.

This is not that one, but yet another beautiful unplanned waterfall along the way!

I guess it's not surprising that there are so many waterfalls in Iceland, what with mountains, and glaciers, and all the rain it takes, all the freaking time, but... wow, there are literally thousands, all over the place.

I like this image, just because I got that blurry water effect of an open shutter to work so well, and these black (what we think are) rows of lava tubes.

Back into the car, back into rain.... *sigh*.

This is just the coast line, as we are starting to approach Hofn. It's still overcast and rainy, but the coast is getting... craggier. It's so pretty that I defy the rain to get a shot.

Then it's into a brief tunnel, only 1.3km, and out the other side.... the rain stops, the sun is shining, and there is our first glimpse of the Vatnajökull glacier.

We're in Hofn quite early, just around 3pm, so we decide to take a long walk around the town. Found another cat.....

And went to the Glacial exhibition, which was just chock full of science and yet very well presented - a mix of boards full of facts, frequently asked questions, a short film, and a trip to their rooftop to view the glacier itself with different peaks all laid out along the way.

In the exhibit, while I was still capable of absorbing the science.... I couldn't help but think that Marcus is just going to go totally crazy here. This entire country is a geologist's wet dream. You could spend a lifetime investigating the geology of Iceland and still not get it all.

Today, we head out towards Jokalsarlon for a tour of the glacier. Brrr.

Ummm...more days later

2009-07-31T03:50:00.010-04:00

Today, we are in Egilstaðir, where the sun is shining, and the wind is from the south. Finally, I'm warm.

Still can't find salt and vinegar potato chips anywhere 'though. I am almost ready to give body parts in exchange.

Let me forewarn you, this is a really really long post with lots of pictures. Take a deep breath and join us.

Now, picking up our story where we left off a few days ago.... in Holmavik.

We went to the Icelandic Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery.

Most of the witch burnings, and the practice of witchcraft itself, are a significantly different thing then what was happening in Europe in the similar time period.

In Iceland, there were only 21 burnings and almost all of them were men. It was thought that men were largely responsible for the practice of witchcraft.

Also.... the nature of the witchcraft was different. The little that I know about European witchcraft doesn't include such complex signs as the one below. There are dozens of examples of these in the museum and almost all of them are supposed to be written in blood from very specific body parts, depending on the sign in question.

We move on to the sheep museum, which was a bit....dry, in nature. The most amusing part is these bottle-fed lambs who accosted us in the parking lot, hoping to be fed.

Moved on to Blonduos for the evening, and loved the ocean. Our room had a quite entrancing ocean-side view. Managed to get a few shots of the bird-life...

In the morning we hit the Icelandic textile museum. I was disappointed in that there were no references to pre-1600 era textiles or textile tools.

This, apparently, is the very first sewing machine ever imported to Iceland.

This is Viðimyri, and it's almost a classic postcard shot. :) It dates back to approximately 1834 and consecrated in 1935 - what happened to those 101 years one might wonder? Most of the timber, and many of the artefacts inside are original but the turf needs to be replaced.

Oh yes... and there was also the Seal Museum. Yep, another museum. I'd smite him if only I could. I didn't take pictures at this one because frankly, stuffed carcasses just don't appeal to me.

Glaumbær Folk Museum - well, the most interesting part for me was meeting the archaeologists who are doing this dig. They are from U.Mass. and UCLA, and were just coming up for a washroom break when we arrived. There is .....wait for it Darrell... evidence of pre-1104 iron smelting. Neil passed on his card to the nice people.

Now, the museum itself. While I do recognize the value in preserving history.... I'm really just not that interested in 18th century anything. It's very well done as a museum, has great presentation value... but I got really grumpy photographing a million things that I just don't find that interesting.

So.... being contrary... here's the backside of the houses, and the husband. I always function better in the outdoors here. Errr.... well 'always' might be too strong a word, but more on that later.

Then we made a brief pit stop in Akureyi for two cables for my Ipod. Smart enough to bring the Ipod in the hope of plugging it into the car for music on the road, but stupid enough not to bring the cable in question, or the recharge from the computer cable. I am much much happier with music around.

It was a long drive today, with lots of stops, and I was definitely ready for arriving at the hotel, especially after getting grumpy at Glambaer. But we had yet one more stop to make.

Goðafoss (waterfall of the Gods) is so named because when Iceland officially converted to Christianity in 999 or 1000, the lawspeaker of the Alþingi, Þorgeirr Ljósvetningagoði was charged with the task of throwing his statues of the Norse gods into the waterfall.

Snorri says "oh no, not me! I'm not a god!"

Neil and I have been taking some time playing with the camera to get the more 'artsy' shots, especially around waterfalls. I really liked the way this one turned out.

We finally ended that day in the Myvatn nature preserve, at a lovely hotel called Hotel Reynihlið. We planned to stay here two nights, because the day in between, we drove up to Husavik to go whale watching.

But we had some time before the tour started so we went to the Husavik Phallological Museum. Yes, that's right, it's a museum dedicated to penises. Most of them are like these... preserved in formaldehyde. But there are a few dried and mounted, and a few that have been made into other objects like a whip or a cane. There are even three letters, from three different currently living men, who promise their penises to the museum upon their demise. One of whom is the current curator of the museum.

So, whale watching then. Cue.... the theme to Gilligan's Island. "A three hour tour... the weather started getting rough... the tiny ship was tossed.."

Here I am starting out all cheery like in a tower of the orange waterproof jackets they provide. Note the calm water of the harbour behind me.

And here I am, after the first tossing of the cookies. Yes, the first... I spent the next 3 hours vomiting. It was.... just so very much fun. And I did take the darned sea-sickness pill they gave us, just in case. It just didn't work.

Although I was too busy being ill to take much notice, apparently I wasn't alone. Neil escaped the same fate quite narrowly, and observed that about half of the people on the boat were suffering the same fate.

And just to make it worse..... no whales were spotted. They offered free vouchers for another trip, but there is no way you'd get me back on that trip for quite a long time.

Neil did manage to take a picture of this comorant 'though. Apparently it's quite unusual in this part of Iceland.

Now... I didn't feel like dinner that night, but we did get to the Myvatn Nature Springs. A long hot soak in one of Iceland's hot springs can cure many ills.

Snorri thinks it's much nicer then that waterfall we threatened him with as well.

Karen

Day 2, 3, 4, 5 - Leaving Reykjavik, Sytikkisholmur, a ferry, Ísafjörður, and finally Holmavik (sort of)

2009-07-28T18:13:00.003-04:00

No internet access tonight in the Hotel Laugarhöll, so I'm writing this offline and hope to post it tomorrow on our way through Holmavik. (Turns out there was a very weak signal - posted tonight.)

The good news is that we have plenty of time here, so I can get caught up in offline mode.

Let's see now.... we left you in Reykjavik. On saturday, we arrived at the Mac store an hour after it closed and discovered that it isn't open on Sundays. I brought my Ipod to play music in the car for the drive, you see, but orgot to bring a "connect to the car" cord, or a "recharge from the computer" cord. Darn.

We had dinner at the Tapas Barinn in Reykjavik. Wonderful! Delightful! Sangria! I love tapas as a style more and more as I try it in various places and in Iceland, with its variety of products from the sea, it's even more delighful. Puffin and whale were on the menu! You can try a wide variety of things from the menu because the portions are so tiny, the arrangements on the plate are visually exciting, you can stop when you're full and not feel like you're wasting anything, and you can stretch the meal as long or as short as you wish into the evening as a result.

Day 3, also known as Sunday, sees us driving to Sytikkisholmur via Eirikstaðir. Eirikstaðir is a small museum on the site of what is thought to be Eirik the Red's first married homestead. It was occupied for only 10-20 years before he had to move on "due to some killings". The museum itself has a small staff shack, a set of washrooms, a half dozen full sized poster boards with the site history in four languages (Icelandic, English, German, and one of the scandinavian languages). Just slightly uphill from the signs is the actual remains - covered over again but with the wall outline shown as at L'anse Aux Meadows.

Neil tries to give us some perspective on just how small the house is - 4m by 12m.

A few yards off to one side is the reconstructed house where you find the re-enactors.

Their presentation is entirely in third person story telling. They talk through the story of Eirik and Leifr - birth, exile, new lands, all of it. The hall is fairly nice, and like the houses at L'anse Aux Meadows it cuts out the outside wind-noise perfectly. Neil thinks they have too much stuff 'though - multiple spears, a sword, multiple axes, many shields, sheepskins everywhere, bric a brac tucked in every corner, lots of clothes on the walls.

This nice lady (who's name we failed to get) humoured the crazy Canuck and held Snorri still against the wind so I could take his picture.

In Sytikkisholmur, we stayed at the Hotel Sytikkisholmur, which had sticky internet service that was nowhere near a power outlet (as mentioned in the previous post). Dinner was lovely 'though but I've already forgotten what I had. I emailed it to Vandy as she requested and it promptly left my brain. I'd check my sentmail, but gosh, I'm writing offline.

On Day 4, also known as Monday, we got up early enough to get some gas and to be at the ferry at 8:20am. I was up even earlier then I'd hoped because the bed was too hard, and sunrise happens here at 4 bloody am. I have yet to meet any form of accomodation here that understands the concept of blackout cloth or blinds or those of us afflicted with light activated brains.

Neil answered a directional question from another tourist just before we hit the ferry - in French!

The ferry ride was fun, if a bit.... windy. The wind, by the way, is all out of the north so far, so it effectively drops the temperature. Don't get me wrong - in Iceland, outdoors is almost always better then indoors, but it can take some getting acclimated. Neil tried to take some bird pictures while Karen hid from the wind just around the corner.

When we landed at Brjanslækur, we turned right and drove 6km to Flokalunda for lunch.

And then the fun began.

Where 'fun' becomes synomonous with words like 'terrifying' and phrases like 'oh my freaking god' and 'Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die!' Serenity fans should know that last one. Neil tried "I am a leaf on the wind" just once and I had to remind him that the character did die right after that line!

Let's just say the drive to Ísafjörður was.... a tad.... interesting. Lots of blind curves, blind hills, sharp drops from large cliffs too close to the road for comfort, steep inclines (up and down) - and did I mention narrow and roughly unpaved?

We took a brief break from the driving terror to visit, and climb several terraces up, around Dynjandi. This group of waterfalls is 186m tall in total and is comprised of many different smaller waterfalls on the way down, each of which is indvidually named. At the main fall off the cliff, the top spread is 30m, widening to 60m at it's base.

Just to give you some perspective on that height - see that road just in front of the fjord? And the little brown circle (aka the parking lot)? You can't really see the cars from this close to the top....

And here's one of us in front of the main fall, courtesy of fellow tourists returning the favour.

so..... this was Monday, and we lived to arrive in Ísafjörður. But I was so tired that even though we had great internet and a wonderful meal ... I went to bed quite early, and even slept through sunrise at 4 bloody am, right until a rather decent 8ish am.

Day 5, otherwise known as Tuesday, sees our inteprid couple driving in zig zags around these annoying obstacles called fjords - no straight lines here!

Also, a few amusing obstacles, known as sheep....

No special stops along the way here but the road was much much better then the day before and there was lots of interesting scenery.

Tomorrow, we'll be stopping at the Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery in Holmavik and the sheep farming museum about 12 km just outside of Holmavik on our way to Blondous.

Day 2 - Botanical gardens and Vikingaheimar

2009-07-26T04:31:00.003-04:00

Again, blogging a day behind the pictures. I'd hoped to catch up tonight but the only place the signal is connecting is nowhere near a power outlet so I'm limited by battery power. There's supposed to be signal in every room, but alas, it appears to be not quite the reality.

Yesterday then, we went to the botanical gardens in Reykjavik and found a few things to photgraph. A pretty rock garden....

A humble bumble bee doing it's thing...

Lots and lots of pretty flowers....

This bird ....

......splashing around in this lovely water garden.

There were also children aplently pulling the leaves and sometimes the plants out of the water feature in the botanical garden cafe (not pictured to protect their destructive little identities) and dropping their plastic cars in the pond.

Snorri made it to the Vikingaheimer with us to see the Islandingur, a replica Viking ship. More on the museum and the ship on the DARC blog when Neil gets around to blogging.

And of course.... in Reykjavik, there are cats everywhere. Ragnarr the cat visited us again briefly this morning before we checked out of the Erikr Rauði. This kitty was found in a wool shop in downtown Reykjavik.

Day 1 in Iceland - getting here and jet lag

2009-07-25T07:09:00.007-04:00

So.... we're in Iceland. :) I'm writing on Day 2 actually but the pictures are from Day 1. I was way way too tired to write up the blog on Day 1. Jet lag is a real drag.

Snorri Steveson is a shared resource, carved by Steve from DARC. He's come to Iceland with us, and later he's going again, and to Denmark and England with Marcus and Jo.

First.... Snorri had to say goodbye to my .... err, our garden.

Here's Snorri at the airport while we waited for the plane. He's visiting the DARC website.

Snorri visited the Blue Lagoon with us when we landed.

The Blue Lagoon is a great way to .... attempt at least.... to recover from jetlag. It worked decently well last year...well, that and a nap... but not quite as well this year. There was a strong enough northerly wind while we were soaking to create cold currents in the water. And maybe I'm just not as hardy as I was last year. Jet lag had me bouncing up and down all day long - lost appetite, grumpiness, chills.... it's no fun. Good thing a good night's sleep will do wonders.

We did manage to wander down to the shore in Reykjavik for another look at the sun sculpture, Solfar. I was disappointed with last year's pictures because the day was overcast. This year.... lovely bright sunlight really loves this sculpture!!

That is almost the classic postcard shot.

Another shot... more whimsically artistic...

And one from The Man of the intrepid photographer doing her thing.

Trillium War, making beads, garden

2009-07-20T20:45:00.005-04:00

So... we're on the eve of taking off for two weeks in Iceland, and I'm trying not freak out about not being packed properly or leaving a clean enough house for the house/dog sitter. I've decided to blog about the past few weeks instead. Just to take my mind off of it for a bit.

By the by, I'll be blogging from Iceland whenever the spirit moves me, and we have internet access.

Back at the beginning of July, we went to an SCA event called the War of the Trilliums. As is becoming usual for this event, Neil made a bead furnace and invited anyone who wandered by to try their hand at making beads.

This is the furnace.....

And these are some of the beads that people made.....

We got 1/3rd breakage rate - 12.5 beads broke, and 25 survived. That's a definite improvement over the years, but it's still pretty high. And those that do survive are often pockmarked with ash in the process. I don't think we have the hang of Norse bead making yet, but it's fun trying. :)

Our friend Steve gave us this fellow to take to Iceland with us - Snorri is the suggested name. I've called him Snorri Steveson in the Icelandic fashion. At Trillium War, he was guarding our camp.

Coming home to the garden, we have some lovely astilbes in bloom - they are shade plants.

The cosmos and the clematis are still in full bloom.

We had so much fun with working beads at Trillium War and managed to take the furnace home intact that we decided to do it again a week later with a smaller crowd so that we could test a few things - reheating an already existing furnace, and videotaping the tesserae method.

This is a still from the tesserae method of making beads. Rob is just lifting one of the tesserae pieces from a piece of flat new charcoal and starting to wind it around the mandrel. There's more information on the bead making process on DARC's bead pages and on DARC's blog.

This is a delightfully composed and poorly shot (it's not in focus!) picture of the beads that I made. One survived whole and one didn't - it's in the background in two pieces.

In the garden and the living room

2009-06-28T21:56:00.003-04:00

This is one of Neil's pictures. He says the birds act funny when they know their picture is being taken. :)

This is largely what I blame for the last month's worth of fatigue. Imagine if you will, because I don't have a 'before' picture, the trim is 50 odd years of layers of white paint, and the walls are a pale taupe.

We've been renovating. And please don't get me started on hiring a person who said he'd get it done in two days, and didn't, leaving us to spend weeks finishing it.

Of course, the garden has been a pretty busy place as well. Neil keeps bugging me to post larger garden pictures - this is the round garden, the triangle garden, and the tomato garden in the background. Three for the price of one picture! Remind me to take another one like it in the fall when all the annuals are at their peak.

The long promised tomato experiment

2009-06-19T14:47:00.002-04:00

Before:

After:

The Problem: The already established 'veggie' garden is right out by the fenceline, to the right of the 100+ year old maple tree. Said maple tree is currently reduced to about 1/4 of it's root system (due to road and driveway work) and it's all in the yard. In the past few years, I've tried growing tomatoes out there, but they fight with the tree roots for nutritients and don't do as well.

Plus..... that garden space is increasingly being taken over by flowers and woad. I'm running out of room!

The Solution: A new garden space, in a raised bed, with fresh soil. Obsessive hobbies are fun. :)

Squirrels and Chipmunks and Birds, oh my!

2009-05-13T10:40:00.003-04:00

Okay... I've had these pictures and the Garden Notes paragraphs at the bottom of the post ready for two weeks, but without any other content here. Then I got busy.

It happens. Apparently... somewhere between June of last year, and June of this year, I managed to forget to take my vacation time. The workplace gets a little annoyed with things like that.

Anyway, the bird feeder has delightfully increased the life in our yard!

We have squirrels....

.......chipmunks,

....cardinals,

and blue jays, oh my! And I am having a great deal of fun with the new lens for the camera.

Now, the flowers here have come and gone, but they were beautiful as usual.

This is Fritillaria Imperialis - it's an interesting flower. It hangs down, as if from a pedestal, and in it's early growth - it stinks. The banner for my blog is a snippet of the flower from two years ago. It seems to be a reliable perennial.

Tulips, of course, are the mainstay of many Canadian gardens. This yellow-red combination is fairly common.

I had some beautiful pink tulips along the fenceline at the sidewalk, and some inbred redneck teenagers appear to have alternated between snipping them or ripping them up and leaving them on the sidewalk. It certainly makes me understand the urge to violent revenge in the human race - if I could catch them, I'd be tempted to do some damage to their heads.

Last year, I dug up much of the grape muscari that had multiplied and spread it out in a different area - lots of colour! I think I'm going to find some more and continue this line down the garden.

Garden Notes:
Temperatures unusually high for this time of year, but we're still getting the occasional frost warning for evenings. This is Canada, after all. I haven't bought any annuals yet. That's next weekend's project, I hope.

Planning a raised bed for the tomato / green pepper crop. Haven't figured out where to put it yet. (Have done it - next post :) )

Last week and this week

2009-05-03T22:26:00.008-04:00

Okay, I'm behind on last week's photos and getting ahead of this week's photos.

Chokecherry blooms and house - I really like the depth of field. I can't remember whether this is one of the wedding trees or not. I think so.

Okay....the weekend before last, we headed off on a new adventure in Peterborough. A friend arranged to have her teacher give a private class in wheel thrown pottery and a grand time was had by all!

This is the very first thing I've ever thrown on a wheel! It's not yet dry or even trimmed in this photo. It's a little lopsided.

But I love it. I loved throwing pottery! I came home from the weekend and started looking for classes/studio time here in town.

These are the hubby's hands doing his own thing.

We came home from the weekend to the neighbour, with a large branch of the maple that's just over the property line on her side down in her driveway. Close inspection proves it was a lightening strick! Neil volunteered to chain saw it and take it away. He's a sweetie sometimes. Or very politely deranged. Your choice.

And two fence sections torn out by the wind. Shame that isn't as easy to fix as a bit of chainsaw activity.

But on the bright side... two days away and I swear all the plants grew six inches!

First tulip of the season! (Don't worry, there will be many many more.)

Yellow Primrose....

Apricot blossoms with the church steeple in the background..... again, a beautiful depth of field.

And just for fun - my new view at work! After 18 years...... I finally have a window!

Before and After

2009-04-26T21:12:00.003-04:00

Playing with Photoshop today....

Before:

After:

Any thoughts?

Karen

Spring birds and flowers

2009-04-12T22:42:00.003-04:00

Playing around with the new telephoto lens again. I wonder if it will be enough to capture dolphins on our next trip to Iceland.

Both this photo and the next one are cropped from the original for a tighter frame.

Strangely enough, I found all the photos of the yellow finches on the feeders just slightly _over_ exposed. My usual problem with this camera is that it generally _under_ exposes pictures on automatic.

Perhaps it was the way the light glinted off the bird feeder? The sparrows (all hiding in the brush like this fellow) didn't have that problem.

Now, a slightly different problem with the sparrow picture is that it is just slightly out of focus. The brush is somewhat further away then the bird feeder, and this is an even tighter crop then the yellow finch picture. It's harder to tell just exactly what the camera is focussing on when one takes the photo.

Crocii, yellow. Second blooms of spring. :) The snow bells always come first. It is very very nice to see - it was a very long hard winter for some reason.

Canada Blooms

2009-03-26T20:32:00.006-04:00

Last weekend, we made our annual pilgrimmage to Canada Blooms, Canada's largest garden show. It's draw is a strange thing to me.

Is it the new ideas in gardening? the forced blooms giving hope for spring? The chance to stay in our favourite hotel - the Cosmopolitian? To photograph the city?

Forced tulips....

Water feature.... I love 'em, but I don't have the energy to maintain them in our yard.

I love calla lillies, but this picture is actually about me discovering another feature of the camera - being able to change the ISO to accommodate the low lighting on the show floor. I hate using the flash. I think it's rude to the people around me and I never like the results anyway.

Photographing the city.... usually it's the CN tower for me - either up from the ground or down from it's observation platform. But this time, it was the Royal Bank Plaza. On bright sunny clear days, it really comes into it's own.

The Cosmopolitian - delightful as always, but the food in it's companion restaurant is becoming more.... normal. We have another unexpected opportunity to be in Toronto in mid-May - could anyone recommend some high-end eating? I'm interested in a quiet peaceful atmosphere, in which the food is utterly divine. The ethncity of the food is completely unimportant to me - I want to try new things!

Spring!

2009-03-15T22:07:00.004-04:00

Spring is finally finally really.... almost here.

Forward Into the Past is almost upon us on April 4th. Go.... check out the website at http://www.treheima.ca/fitp
and if you're local enough, come on out and join us for the day.

We had a high of 12 degrees celsius here and I got some yard work done. I burned a bunch of wood. You have to see the yard to know why that made such a little dent but still made me feel good.

And there are buds on the cherry tree.

Birds and Spring

2009-03-10T20:49:00.005-04:00

Neil and I are having a light debate about two photos - perhaps you can help us.

I like this one better - I've lightened the colour balance, although it does seem to flatten the depth in the picture a bit. I like the compositional balance - birds, clematis and fence all seem to be in good space to each other.

Neil likes this one the best - he likes the profile of the birds and feels that the clematis detracts from the simplicity of the birds. I tried lightening this one, but it seemed to make it too light in some spots. Although the depth of field is better in this one, I feel that the third bird being right on the edge of the photo ruins the compositional balance.

Which one do you like better?

--------------

We went to the Stratford Garden Festival on the weekend with my folks. I don't know what everyone else's reasons were - it was very crowded - but I desperately needed a hint of spring.

Usually I can manage to hold out til the Canada Blooms weekend (that's in two weeks) but this year, the yard is a horrible mess and winter seems to be just dragging on.

If we had geothermal energies all over the place like in Iceland, maybe we'd have more recreational greenhouses to get people through winter.

This wild exhuberance of blooms was almost enough.

But these darling little things in my own garden the next morning are tipping over my sense of hope. :)

Another week, another post

2009-03-02T22:46:00.005-05:00

Just in case any of you are wondering why I'm posting more frequently, almost predictably, and the photos have been relatively inane of topic....

I'm trying a new thing, suggested by the hubby, to aim for taking and posting one new photo a week - just to work on my photography. Posting to the blog and increasing the readership is just gravy. I hope.

So....this week's topic is my workplace. I don't talk about it much. It seems somehow.... like a bad idea. But I've got a few pictures to show you. :)

We're planning on some renovations (mostly just moving people around into new space) and wonders of all wonders.... I'm told that I will finally get a window! I could have plants! This is the view a few days ago when there was still snow on the ground.

It's important to make sure that this fellow comes along for the ride. It's the gift of a former student - he's been on our whiteboard for 3 years. What's in the thought bubble keeps changing. "Goðin Dag" apparently means "Good day" in Icelandic. I'm a closet Icelandophile.

And should the view not pan out, and the turtle needs to go away.... as long as they don't change this nearby feature.... I'll be okay. His name is Porcellino.

Sunshine!

2009-02-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

So... a few days after the fog, after months of dreary overcast winter skies.... the sun came out to play on the weekend.

Compare this picture of the front fenceline to the foggy one of the last post. Sunshine is good, but the colours in the picture just aren't as interesting.... the lights don't stand out in the same way.

Much less snow 'though.... this is a good thing.

On a sunny day, I guess the birds don't mind as much if I take their picture while they are eating...

My hubby gave me flowers for Valentine's Day (and took me out to dinner - twice!) - isn't he the sweetest?

Foggy day, and fiber

2009-02-16T19:09:00.004-05:00

We had a foggy day a few days ago. It created some fantastic shots.

But first, getting something out of the way that I've been meaning to post for a few weeks now.

Nina (and any other fiber artists out there) - this is the wall hanging that I did for my hubby's office a few years ago. The warp is junk yarn, and the weft is unspun roving. It's the inspiration for what I want to do next - lots of thick thick yarn. But I'd like it in both warp and weft, and much better colours.

I want to get something up on the loom that is simple and quick - something just to get me started again. Any recommendations for the right kind of fiber? Think really really thick...

This is our front fence line - interesting the way the coloured lights stand out in the fog, even turned off.

The birds tried to hide in the lilacs, waiting for me to go inside so they could help themselves to the freshly re-filled bird feeders.

Freshly re-filled, since the squirrels seem to love getting at them and dumping it all on the ground! Could anyone recommend a good type of grease for the pole?

Boat Burning

2009-02-03T20:49:00.005-05:00

Friends gathered, camera settings were played with, tripods were needed. Wishes were made, memories guarded, and family remembered.

And a boat was burned, keeper of our thoughts. What was once, and will be.

Do I have enough hats?

2009-01-25T21:08:00.003-05:00

Left to right.....

Crotchet, crotchet, knit, knit, knit, naalbinded, and naalbinded.

Unknown wool, acid dyes in spinning class.
Cotton/aycrlic, commercial.
Cotton/aycrlic, commercial.
Variegated aycrlic, commercial.
Variegated aycrlic, commercial, and it now (after the pic was taken) has a pom-pom on it. What can I say? I'm a dork. :)
Icelandic lopi, dyed with madder and I forgot to loosen the skein knot in the dye pot so it's got these little undyed spots that make nice polka dots in the hat.
Icelandic lopi, dyed with.... something natural. I forget.

My husband prefers the second one, and I'm currently wearing the fifth one. I like the red one too, but I find the lopi a little itchy.

The brightly coloured one in the middle that I was working on last week turned out too small.

Karen

I'm doing it again

2009-01-18T17:13:00.003-05:00

I think I've picked up an additional hobby, rather unintentionally. Knitting seems to be contagious.

It's not that I don't already have 5 or 6 hats around the house in a variety of naalbinding, crotchet, or knitting. But but but....

Oh, by the by....some recently acquired knitting knowledge:

Ripping back one's knitting to fix a mistake is considerably less satisfying then ripping it back because you have an artistic difference with reality.

New tricks for some Auld Phartes

2009-01-07T21:06:00.004-05:00

The new year is bringing in a few new tricks for some of our favourite folks at Treheima.

My big strong man takes things into his own hands....

....and made this step stool for our aging doggie. He's having trouble getting up on the bed these days - the arthritis in his hips is sometimes troublesome.

I took up my knitting needles for the first time in 25 years.... and made this scarf and hat, inventing what passes for a pattern as I went.

Karen

2008 in review

2008-12-31T16:14:00.004-05:00

Once again, Alda at the Iceland Weather Report leads the way and I shamelessly theft an idea. :)

It's 2008 in Review!

January

Tired of being frustrated by the spinning wheel that Anti-V had kindly loaned me (to create space in her own house), I decided to sign up for lessons. Although I started the classes in December 2007, January finds me reporting on what I'm learning.

February

February was all about the new elliptical machine and a recommitment to exercising. I wanted to be healthier for my trip in May. Yo... husband, stop laughing out there in the background.

Not blogged about at the time but I also started a new job in February. More on that through the summary.

March

March saw us in Toronto for Canada Blooms, and a stay at our favourite sinfully luxurious hotel - the Cosmopolitian, an annoying confrontation with NYPD helicopters, and the single finest meal I think I've ever had.

April

In April, I'm sure there was a lot going on in the garden, but apparently I was too busy getting ready for my trip in May to blog about it. My big excitement seems to be updating my blog with a gorgeous picture in the header bar.

May

May saw us heading off to Scotland and Iceland for the whole month, for our long overdue honeymoon. Perfect weather, lots of ancient places to explore, and just so much to see and take in. Iceland even gave us a rather memorable send-off with an earthquake on our last day there.

Believe it or not, I'm actually rather shy, so I didn't introduce myself to distant relatives in Scotland, or to Alda while I was in Iceland.

June

June saw me getting back into the garden, and trying out the One Local Summer thing again. I eventually got off the One Local Summer thing - while I was still eating locally, I found I didn't have the stick-to-it-ness to blog about it weekly. The whole year has seen my blogging diminish considerably from previous years.

The new job mentioned in February is a mat leave position, and I ran into the first major kink in June when my assistant moved on to another position. I can't blame her - this was temporary, and what she moved to is permanent, but it did create some instability and extra work for me.

July

July gives us some reporting from the garden, and the fiber side of life. We held a get together in the backyard to make glass beads in a new smelter that Neil's working on, and I co-opted the firepit to put some dye pots on.

Ahh yes... and Darrell delivered the bird feeder.

August

Birds, gardens and squirrels - oh my!

I also started with that Facebook thing - very absorbing.

And then there's that pesky job thing. The person hired to replace the assistant who moved on, moved on himself! It's August, on the cusp of the single busiest time of the year and I'm training someone new again!

September

September disappeared into a black hole. Literally, I have no memory of anything but getting increasingly short of hair available to pull out. I was very very very busy.

October

Marginally better, work-wise, in that the new fellow is working out well. But my laptop at home started to malfunction and it took weeks to get fixed. Actually, we finally discovered that the repair place was nuts, and it was just easier to get it replaced entirely.

November

November brought a new challenge at work when the guy that my position is a back up for, got sick. Very sick. Of the not yet back variety. And I've been doing two jobs for two months now.

I'm surprised that I blogged at all in November, but I'm not surprised that it was a meme. Brain power is something I that had little extra to spare.

Oh, and the snow hit us early and hard. We still have mulch in the driveway that wasn't distributed and leaves that never got properly collected or mulched into the lawn. I didn't get a chance to plant bulbs, and the two trees that came down are still largely in piles in the back yard. I'm going to pay heavily for this in the spring.

December

December was better job-wise, mostly in that the students all start to get focussed on exams and leave us alone for awhile. Perhaps somewhat in that I might now have the hang of a few things. And I got some reason to hope that things will get better in the new year - but more on that in the New Year. :)

At home, Neil bought some skyr from Palssons in Manitoba - the only place that we know of that makes skyr in Canada. I've been trying to make more at home, and not having a great deal of success.

More on making Skyr at home

2008-12-01T21:58:00.002-05:00

But first, a recap - here's a summary of all previous posts that mention Skyr, including the recipe that I'm working from, and previous results.

We get our skyr shipped from a small grocery store in Arborg, Manitoba, by the name of Palsson's. As far as we know, it's the only place in Canada that makes and sells the stuff. They make it in their dairy section.

When I have it, I keep trying to make some more. I just tried again yesterday - draining the results tonight.

*sigh* Let's just say I don't have the hang of it yet. 4 quarts of milk reduced to approximately 2.5 cups of something that only vaguely resembles sky and tastes ...... Neil kindly says "not bad". I didn't like it.

Seven things

2008-11-24T21:41:00.005-05:00

Nina tagged me with a meme (bless her heart, I did need a kick) - 7 previously unknown things about me.

1. I've never bought a gadget direct from one of those tv infomercials.

2. But I have been tempted, and found at least two of them in a store later and bought them there. The indirectness of finding it in the store later saves my geeky pride.

3. The Perfect Pancake, and the Quick Chop, in case you were wondering. One's been useful and the other a complete flunk.

4. I don't own a Klingon dictionary. ;)

5. But I do own at least two of the Nitpicker's Guides - a) for Deep Space Nine Trekkers and b) for Next Generation Trekkers.

6. I prefer the term "Trekkie".

7. I just started knitting again, after nearly a 25 year hiatus. And I blame the Yarn Harlot. :)

Darn, it's October already

2008-10-01T10:02:00.002-04:00

I swear that I'm still here.

The first two weeks of September were a blur - all psychotic work stuff, all the time. Things are calmer now, but my laptop starting freezing and went to the shop and it's been more then a week now and I'm going crazy.

Yes, there is another computer in the house but it's in the smelly boy infested basement office and all of the settings and bookmarks are different, not to mention the weird keyboard and mouse thing.

The husband in question has kindly been letting me use his work laptop in the living room (we really need to renovate the basement) and it at least has a normal keyboard and mouse but all the settings and bookmarks are still different! My husband and I really have different brains about what works for us on computer settings.

I really really want my laptop back.... soon, I hope. I have pictures on the camera, but I can't blog unless I go down to basement office. His office laptop doesn't have Easy Thumbnails or Adobe Photoshop. *sigh*

Karen

August flies by

2008-08-29T09:00:00.003-04:00

I know, I disappeared into a black hole again for a bit. It's my brother's fault, loosely speaking. :)

He was home visiting - he lives way over on the other side of the country - and I happened to ask him if he had a Facebook page. I had signed up months ago for a Facebook page so I could see the pics that my boss was posting of her new baby while she was on mat leave, but eventually I found I was wasn't using it. Of course when my brother told me he did indeed have a page, I had to start using it again! Must keep in touch. And then there were all these people I knew and .. well, one thing lead to another and I've been gone.

But don't worry, I still prefer blogging. Facebook feels very ....invasive. Young. And overly structured. In blogging, I think I have more freedom, and there's a design element to the page that I can control.

Anyhoo.... back to my world. It got quite crowded at the bird feeder for a bit....

But lately, they've been staying away. It's quite strange.

Found these in the yard a week or so ago.... anyone know what they are? This is WAY out of my experience!

Well, we're off to that traditional Canadian activity on the long weekend - camping! It's another SCA thing so maybe I'll have some pictures when we get back. If my increasingly psychotic work schedule allows me the time, I might even be able to post again.

Karen

Perception Personality Image Test

2008-08-20T15:42:00.000-04:00

Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test...

NBPC - The Daydreamer

Nature, Background, Big Picture, and Color

You perceive the world with particular attention to nature. You focus on the hidden treasures of life (the background) and how that fits into the larger picture. You are also particularly drawn towards the colors around you. Because of the value you place on nature, you tend to find comfort in more subdued settings and find energy in solitude. You like to ponder ideas and imagine the many possibilities of your life without worrying about the details or specifics. You are in tune with all that is around you and understand your life as part of a larger whole. You are a down-to-earth person who enjoys going with the flow.

The Perception Personality Types:

Take The Perception Personality Image Test at HelloQuizzy

More Garden, and Birds

2008-08-02T18:57:00.005-04:00

Ecineachea in bloom. I think this is the original variety that is supposed to be good for the immune system. I find it amusing to grow a bunch of medicinal herbs that I'll probably never have time enough to learn how to use properly.

House Finch. We think. We looked it up on a website somewhere.

Blue Jay.

Squirrel, oh so innocent looking.

Squirrel, caught in the act.

Funny squirrel. Must find some grease for that pole.

Garden, Birds, Fibre

2008-07-30T21:41:00.008-04:00

Sometimes they look pretty even not fully open....

Sometimes they look pretty when the sun catches the stamen just right...

I'm afraid of bees. But I've learned, finally, that these ones don't care about me at all. As long as I don't get between them and their food..... I don't have to run away squeeking, I can stay and watch.

Even dead and dried, these alliums are interesting.

Golden Marguerite is another great dye plant. I need to start collecting the dead heads. Apparently you can freeze them without ruining the dyestuff.

Darrell, our friend the blacksmith, made this very pretty bird feeder for us. Darrell's work can be found at Wareham Forge - http://www.warehamforge.ca - or if you want to talk to him in person, he'll be selling his stuff at the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival on August 8 - 10th.

The feeder on the right is many times more popular, but these little creatures are very messy eaters and leave much of it on the ground. The squirrels are very happy campers.

By the by... if you happen to be a bird watcher, please let me know what kind of visitors I'm getting?

I'm pretty sure that this is a golden finch.....

But this fellow.... I have no idea. He's much larger, in the same size class as a blue jay (they are not hard to identify!) and prefers the sunflower seeds.

Just to round things out.... remember that lovely peachy colour from the second soaking of woad leaves? Here it is carded and fluffy....

And spun.

Dyeing, Flowers

2008-07-22T20:09:00.004-04:00

Pretty delphinium - all gone now. Big rain last night killed many of the older flowers.

Foxglove - all gone now.

This pink ecineachea is blooming, and survived the rain.

This regular old purple variety is about to bloom. Ecineachea has interesting shapes, even pre-bloom.

Lily, also recently deceased. They are such fragile flowers, even at the best of times.

White cosmos. Very pretty. At moment, I think it's my favourite annual, in all of it's colours.

What I did with my most recent weekend - dyeing woolstuffs with natural dyes. I invited a few friends over - Nina and Vandy. We used madder roots, madder plant tops, ladies' bedstraw, alkanet root, and two different dyebaths from woad leaves - all from my own garden!

We were busy!

Darrell brought us this tripod to hang our dye pots on. That's the madder tops and alkanet roots in those two pots. Their colours turned out somewhat disappointing so I have no pictures of their end result. Both the alkanet and the madder tops gave us a distinctly boring beige.

The woad results were mixed. I've never used woad before but it has such an air of complex mystery that even this little tiny bit of blue was exciting, but it was such a tiny bit that it was a bit disappointing too. I think I just didn't have enough woad leaves, or abundantly healthy plants to clip from, to produce enough pigment for the really exciting results.

Although, it's interesting..... this secondary colour from the leaves turned out quite nicely. It's bang on the results one is supposed to get from a secondary dye bath from the woad leaves - a pretty peach.

And madder is always a show-stopper. There are so many different ways you can use madder to get different results. For that straight up WOW of watching wool turn a different colour - just harvest roots that are at least three years old, rinse them well, chop them up......

.....throw them in water and simmer and add your wool stuff and simmmer.....

.......and watch that magic! Bright orangey red!

Karen

One Local Summer - Weeks 3 and 4

2008-06-23T20:58:00.003-04:00

Life keeps getting in the way, ya know?

Not in the way of local eating - one does have to eat, after all. We might as well do it locally.

But it does get in the way of blogging about it.

So.... since I theoretically missed Week 3's deadline (yesterday) - I give you Week 3 _and_ 4. Just to get caught right up so I don't have to worry about it again for another week.

Meat pie - it's possible that some of the ingredients aren't strictly local, but the trick here is that the beef is Black Angus cow from Well Fed Food in Ayr, our favourite farm store. The family that runs it raises the Black Angus cows right there on the farm, and feeds them properly (no chemical additives) during their lifetime. They also sell their neighbours' farm fish, chicken, turkey, pork, venison, wild boar, eggs, honey, and milk.

Anyway, these lovely farm folk want their business to make a go of it so they recognized that folks want convenience, and they have hired a professional chef in town to make up these meat pies, which they then sell frozen and waiting. Good ingredients go in here - the meat and the creation of the pies are local, and although I haven't actually asked, I'd betcha that most of the vegetables and spices in it are local as well.

Meat, again from Well Fed Food, aspargus and potatoes from just down the road at the other nearby farm store - Herrles. Herrles is a little closer in that we drive by it every day on the way to work. Even the marinade on the aspargus is local, though I can't remember where it's made.

Karen

Skyr!

2008-06-17T21:09:00.001-04:00

Skyr is a delicious Icelandic treat, that theoretically goes back as far as Viking times. It's sort of a cross between cheese and yogurt, most of it with a .5% fat content.

It's very difficult to find commercially - there's a small place in Gimli, Manitoba that makes it in Canada but the shipping usually doubles the price of it.

The largest Icelandic skyr company - skyr.is - has recently started making it available in the US at Whole Food Markets. Unfortunately, Whole Foods can't make it available at their Toronto store - I've asked. Something about the Canadian Government being fussy about milk products.

Just recently back from Iceland, I have to have continued access to this delicious treat! So I've decided to try to make it myself at home.

Understand that it's also difficult to get english language information on how to make skyr at home, and that I have no concept of chemistry, and have never done anything even remotely like this before. :)

Basic recipe that I started with:
Bring 4 quarts milk to a boil, and cool to lukewarm.
Add 2 tbsp starter (skyr) to 1/2 cup of the lukewarm milk.
Stir back in to the rest of the milk.
Add 12 drops of rennet.
Store for 24 hours in a warm place.
Drain liquid through cheese cloth.
Remove cloth, put in bowl, chill.

Nothing about what kind of milk.

I tried 1% milk first. I heated it til it got bubbles. Bubbles = boiling, right? I've always been a sort of fly-by-seat-of-pants kind of cook. Measuring is for wimps.

Added the starter, and the rennet, and turned the heat off and ignored it for 24 hours.

It didn't turn out so well - gritty and dryish.

Read some more - bought skim milk this time. Paid attention to the thermometer this time - didn't judge by bubbles alone. Brought it to 90 degrees celsius, and then let it cool to 40 degrees. Added the skyr starter, and then the rennet. I used less rennet this time (only 9 drops) - other recipes suggested an inverse relationship between the amount of milk and rennet. More milk, less rennet.

I also had trouble finding rennet. I ended up with a vegetarian rennet from a health food store. I don't know enough about the chemistry to know if this matters but I do know that rennet in it's original form is certainly not vegetarian!

I made more effort to keep this second batch warm during it's waiting time, not ignoring it entirely.

The first batch, I squeeze dried. This second batch, I just found a way to hang it in it's cheesecloth and let it drip for a few hours.

Second batch - skyr! Soft, creamy, tasty!

Pictures? turned out awful. Either the flash overexposed it, or turning off the flash underexposed it, and I didn't like the "fixes" in the photoshop.

One Local Summer 2008, Week 1

2008-06-08T14:45:00.003-04:00

Bacon and Eggs for lunch.

Bacon is from Well Fed Food in Ayr - it's a neat little farm store that is gathering meat from local farmers that it believes feeds their meat decently during it's lifespan. Ayr is 25km from us.

Eggs, cheese and tomatoes - Eggs are from Elmira, tomatoes are greenhouse grown in Elmira, and cheese is both organic and from Millbank.

Millbank is 28km, and Elmira is 26km.

Spices used in the eggs: basil, organo, paprika, rosemary and fennel. The basil and oregano are from my own garden - 0km. The others are not local, but by the end of the year, the fennel will be from my own garden - the plant is enormous already.

Later this week, I'm going to ponder the idea of local eating and how I define local, and talk about my first attempt to make skyr (an Icelandic delight that we can't easily get in Canada).

Karen

Home!

2008-06-02T13:11:00.003-04:00

We're home again and the garden is full of riotus colour (and weeds) to greet us!

A garden party has been suggested, and I like the idea, for mid-July. At the moment, I'm not sure I'll be able to make it happen or be content with my garden by then.

Time will tell.

Don't Panic

2008-05-29T17:20:00.002-04:00

We were here.....

otherwise referred to as here.... (note the red arrow, picture taken earlier in the day)

When a 6.1 scale earthquake hit near the town of Selfoss, only about 50 Km away. We certainly felt it up there on the platform!

Afterwards, the nice lady in the visitor centre wouldn't let us go back down the walkway on the continental divide for fear of falling rocks.

Our hotel is at the bottom. One of the Reykjavik Excursions tour buses gave us a lift back down via the roads that don't go through big rocks.

We're a little shaken, but not stirred.

Karen

Visitor

2008-05-27T18:48:00.002-04:00

We had a visitor yesterday afternoon when we returned to the room.....

This is Ragnarr - his tag tells us his name and address (next door). We opened the door to our room and found Ragnarr walking toward us. We assumed he'd gotten in via an open window (no European place to date seems to believe in screens) and couldn't find his way out so we escorted him out the door.

A few hours later he was back at the window, wanting in. So we let him in and spent an hour or two watching him curl up on a bed and go to sleep. When we wanted to go to sleep we pushed him out into the cool world to find his way home - cruel, I know.

I've been looking for him this evening, but he seems to have abandoned us.

Karen

Iceland, with pictures

2008-05-26T05:40:00.003-04:00

So.... Iceland, with pictures. My apologies for not getting to it sooner. I think I'm coming down with a cold - I hope not. Neil went out to pick up the rental car this morning and came back with vitamin C.

A few days ago, on Thursday I think it was, we arrived in Iceland. We wandered around a bit, went up to the bell tower of Hallgrimskirkja, had a delightful dinner at a place called the Tivoli and crashed. On friday, we hit some highlights in Reykjavik. The Reykjavik 871±2 exhibit, the National Museum and the Saga Museum at the Perlan.

The Reykjavik 871±2 exhibit is very new. When the Hotel Centrum demolished an old building in the heart of the city to build a new hotel, they discovered the remains of a viking longhouse under it's foundations.

In 2006, the exhibit opened under the hotel. The stone walls of the house are still there, but they are difficult to photograph. The lighting is very low level in the exhibition. This is mostly to accentuate the high tech stuff they use around the foundations.

They have these neat little mini-screens around the walls that are motion activated. When you get near one, it turns on - this one has a ghostly blacksmith pounding on his anvil.

There is an interactive computer screen that takes you through what a longhouse might have looked like and how it was constructed. You create the different sections of construction as you move your finger around the control panel.

There were also computer touch screens with more conventional written texts on genealogy, the evolution of the language, foodstuffs, animals and textiles in the Viking Age. There were some artefacts in display boxes, and also an interactive computer table model of the longhouse.

Overall, decently impressive but unexpectedly high tech for the Viking Age.

The National Museum, on the other hand......

This is the only picture they would allow us to take. Just inside the front door. It's impressive architecture, this new building, but that's where it stops.

No photos allowed, no artefact numbers in the display cases, very little information on any given piece. The museum text was written to provide context, without specific details.

And then we ended the day with a visit to the Saga Museum at the Perlan. No pictures allowed at this place either, but I didn't mind as much. There were no artefacts - it's life-sized figurines in fixed tableaux, mixed with an audio tour. The audio tour was quite decent, but the figurines reminded me of the wrinkly people.

Saturday, we went on the "Golden Circle" tour of Iceland, offered by Reykjavik Excursions.

The first stop was Kerið - a 6 thousand year old extinct volcano crater with a lake in the middle. Some tourist types got caught on film, together even.

Gullfoss is their "Queen" of waterfalls, tumbling down a deep gorge. It's hard to describe or even understand Iceland sometimes - this waterfall is a good example. I took lots of pictures of it - this is the best overall one. But it doesn't let know you the sheer pounding force of it, or that you can almost climb right up to it. Do you see that ledge that the arrow is pointing at? We were walking on it.

Iceland doesn't yet have (and I hope they never do) North America's sheer paranoia about safety and lawsuits. The "safety" barrier is a rope about six inches off the ground, and Neil and I couldn't decide whether they were trying to say "past this point is unsafe for you" or "don't ruin our waterfall by making these rocks fall in with you".

The Geysir area is a geo-thermal field where hot springs bubble and geysirs burst. Little geysir here mostly just spurts a bit now and then, but you can see the guide rope, it's name and the geysir - "go past this guiderope and you are stupid and deserve whatever you get" seems to be all they need.

We spent some time on this geysir, trying to get just the right shot at it's moment of bursting. There's this strange luminescence in the water just as it bursts. This one is called Strokkur and it bursts pretty much every 5 minutes.

This is Strokkur at it's height.

And last, but not least, Þingvellir National Park. We'll be spending two days up there near the end of the week so expect to hear more about it then. Þingvellir is the place where the Norse gathered every year to hold their Alþing (central meeting where disputes were settled and laws made).

Sunday.....we went on the "Saga Circle" tour - which bored me quite a bit more then I expected. It was a long trip (maybe it's just that two in a row of these trips isn't a good idea), in a cramped bus, with a guide alternating between "Scandinavian" (a mixture of Swedish an Norwegian) and English so seamlessly that I couldn't easily tell when to wake up and start listening again.

I thought the tour would touch on Viking stuff but apparently Saga stuff is something only sort of related. The highlights of this tour were the icelandic poppies at the Snorri Sturlson (an important 13th century saga writer) museum.....

.........and Deildartunguhver, the largest hot spring in the northern hemisphere.

Untitled? Boy, must I have been sleepy!

2008-05-24T18:06:00.004-04:00

Nina wrote in the comments...
"That is one very cool castle and info on the website. The mascot is incredibly cute as well. The tapestry is awesome. Any idea how long it is taking to complete them?
Sleeplessness must be atmospheric or something like that. I hope things look brighter in the morning."

Things were definitely brighter in the morning. 'Though I'm still not sleeping as well as I do at home.

The tapestries are indeed awesome. I think I want to try it someday when I get a bigger house and can have more then one loom set up somewhere. :)

It took them 3 years to do one of the panels (can't remember which one). There are 3 finished panels and they're hoping for 7 (I think). They are currently in the middle of the 4th and the weaver's shed is open to the public but it's a little frustrating. There are signs asking the public not to speak to the weavers because the work requires concentration, and we're not allowed to take photos.

Not that anyone other then the rule-oriented Canadians obeyed either request. And I wanted to do both photos and conversation!

Now... Vandy has asked in email why I haven't blogged Iceland yet.

The answer is just that the days have been so long and so full, and the pictures were so heavy today that I haven't had time yet to sort through all the pictures and decide which ones to talk about! Text posts are a whole lot faster to write then photo posts.

In Iceland, there's approximately 1 public pool for every 2,000 citizens. The average citizen uses 1 tonne of hot water every day. Everyone swims or sits in a hot pot almost every day. In Waterloo, that would equate to approximately 50 public pools. There are exactly 3, if you include the pools at the two Universities.

Geothermal energy is violently abundant and _cheap_ here. It costs them to _cool_ the water, not to heat it.

There's one of these pools just around the corner from the guesthouse that we're staying in. It's availability lengthens the day we spent out of the guesthouse and away from the wireless access.

I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow. I think the pool closes early on Sundays. ;)

Karen

Today is Thursday, May 22

2008-05-22T17:26:00.003-04:00

...so I must be in Iceland. That's what the schedule says so it must be true.

I'm starting to lose track of time. Last night's last night in Scotland was a lovely little place near the Glasgow airport, but for some reason neither of us could sleep well. And we didn't sleep much on tuesday night's ferry trip either.

So we're both a little sleep-deprived.

The guesthouse here is a little .... less then hoped for. I could list my complaints but maybe I'm not being fair, being sleep-deprived and all.

Oh, and Iceland is an hour earlier then the UK, so it's really an hour later by the body clock then the alarm clock wants me to believe. So.... maybe in the morning...

Bought a large package of Orkney fudge on the ferry to last as long as possible. Tried the Shetland fudge and didn't like it. Weird flavours, and even grittier a texture.

Went to see Stirling Castle on the way from Aberdeen to Glasgow. Was it only yesterday?

Anyway, they are putting a lot of effort into reconstruction at this castle. They've rebuilt the great hall (and boy, would I ever love to have an SCA event there). And they have full-time weavers recreating several tapestries that used to hang in the great hall.

Totally not Viking Era stuff, but the tapestries were wonderful. They've built a small tapestry weaving studio inside the castle and are employing full time weavers to get it done. 3 of the (I think) 7 tapestries have been completed.

Here's one of them ...

I'm going to bed now. I'm a pumpkin.

Getting caught up

2008-05-19T03:36:00.010-04:00

This is going to be a very very long post. It's been a few days since I travelogued and I need to catch up. Bear with me folks.

-----------

Now, as previously noted in the comments - for those who use them *cough* *hint* - Orkney fudge wins with two thumbs up.

And it can be bought here: http://www.buyorkney.com/shop/food/confectionery/

-----------

I found a drop spindle yesterday! I had found some North Ronaldsay rovings in Orkney several days ago and I've been regretting leaving my drop spindle at home.

Apparently they take their sheep quite seriously in North Ronaldsay - they are fenced _away_ from the grass on the land and eat seaweed on the beaches instead. Those with experience and discerning palates convey the idea that this significantly changes the taste of the meat. I've tried it, and I didn't notice the difference. Mind you, I don't have a great deal of experience with eating sheep.

The North Ronaldsay people also seem to be the only ones who understand that hand spinners still exist. I've found very little in the way of wool available for spinning. While there's a huge knitwear industry here in Shetland, it seems that it goes straight to commercial mills for industrial spinning, with a little made available for felting crafts. What's made available to crafters for felting isn't usually suitable for spinning - it's already semi-felted.

----------

Anyway, I'm digressing, and you want pictures of all these days since I left off in Orkney.

We visited the Italian Chapel. It's not really our thing, but it's story is interesting, and it was pretty enough.

On our way to the next stop, we came across this Blacksmith's museum in St.Margaret's Hope. I have blacksmiths in the family, and one of our closest friends is still a blacksmith. He doesn't use this kind of bellows anymore. :)

Tomb of the Eagles was notable in that it's entrance is only 1 metre high. They provide a trolly and a rope for you to lie down on and pull yourself through the doorway. This is another site with a warning to people who suffer from claustrophobia!

Unfortunately, it was also our biggest disappointment. It's a privately held site, and is not run by Historic Scotland or any other professional historical society, and it shows. The short version is that we had some difficulty with the interpretation of finds and handling of artefacts.

We finished up that day with a visit to the Orkney Marine Life Aquarium. We expected to find very little, but it was actually a very interesting place! Tons of information, and staffed by the owner who is obviously knowledgeable and cares about her aquatic friends. Some of the marine life is actually rotated through the exhibits on a catch, display, and release cycle.

It was a pleasant end to a day that was otherwise somewhat disappointing.

Started off the next day at the Broch of Gurness, which I quite enjoyed. Neil had a "shrug" moment. I think I heard him muttering something about "more rocks". It was, not surprisingly, windy. I quite enjoyed hiding in the remains of the wheelhouses where the wind was completely absent and it was really easy to imagine how the people of the day lived.

More stone = more remains. In this picture, we can see the firepit, an oven (hot rocks from the fireplace boiled the water and meat = most meals), and part of a quernstone, used to grind the grain to make bread. Quernstones of some sort follow us into the Viking Age and I've quite enjoyed playing with them whenever a historical site has one set up for demonstration.

The Broch of Gurness is also the site of one Viking Era burial, near the edge of the entrance to the broch from the sea. It's unclear whether the Norse used the site for a bit, or just pulled up and buried this woman and then took off again.

Minehowe has no pictures. I couldn't get the picture that someone else did on the Undiscovered Scotland site. It's just 29 steps down into the earth - yet another site that is not for the claustrophobic. They give you hard hats when you go out to climb down the steps. At the bottom of the steps, there is enough room for two people and that's it.

Neil enjoyed talking to the staff here - it's apparent that archaeology on the site is still in it's early stages.

St.Magnus Cathedral was interesting in that it's architecture is _very_ similar to the Dunfermline Abbey but the entire cathedral is still in use. The modern lighting that has been added made it very difficult to take a good picture of the interior. It is NOT Viking era as you may continually read in many promotional literature, but it may have been influenced by later period Norse earls in Orkney.

The Orkney Museum had a few interesting things from the many different archaeological sites on the islands although I'm not sure that I liked their presentation of the use of drop spindles. It is more then amply possible to spin consistent fine yarn on these things - I've done it. This is just ....in incredibly poor taste.

And in this picture.... both of the stones with holes in the middle are listed as loom weights. Somehow, I doubt it. The one on the right is simply far too large and heavy. I'd be more prone to believing that it's a small quernstone.

So..... on to Shetland. As previously noted in another post, there was some travel and some delays. We went to the Shetland Museum and Archives while waiting to achieve keys to our next place of stay.

This is a great new museum with some really interesting stuff. Like these beads, from a find at Northmavine, Shetland. And unlike both the National Museum of Scotland and the Orkney Museum, this place had artefact numbers easily available!

This gold ring is what Neil used as his guide when he went to a jeweller to say "make something like this with diamonds in it so I can propose to my chick". It's from a find at Marrister on Whalsay in Shetland.

Lerwick also has this lovely garden in the middle of town. I read the dedication sign so I know why it's there, but I can't remember it at the moment. I just like pretty flowers.

This is the outfit used in January 2008 by Up Helly Aa's Guizer Jarl (parade chief), Roy Leask. He was representing a later era saga figure Kol Kolison. We actually met Roy when we toured the Up Helly Aa exhibition shed - he's an interesting guy. Reminds me a lot of the chief librarian at my library.

The short version of describing Up Helly Aa is that it is.... a world apart from actual Viking Era history. It grew out of the Victorian Era, which has done many strange things to Viking history. If you think of the festival as Living History, you need to think of it as living _Victorian_ history.

In Shetland, the biggest site of Viking Era findings is at Jarlshof . Jarlshof is a multi-use site, meaning that it was continuously occupied over thousands of years and several different cultures from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Pictish, Norse and Medieval eras, right the way through to the 1600s. Again, I find myself more drawn to the wheelhouses and brochs of two thousand years ago then the Viking Era Norse houses that remain here.

Neil, of course, remains attracted to the Viking Era side of things. He's standing in the middle of the longest of the longhouses found here. Perhaps it was the community hall, or just the home of the wealthiest farmer in the area.

I keep finding sheep that want to have their picture taken. This youngster was quietly semi-sleeping, having finally filled his belly. I think that's all the sheep do - eat grass and sleep. I know it's a bit of a filler really, in a post already heavy with pictures, but I thought it was a pretty picture. Don't you just want to take her home and .... shave her repeatedly over several years for the wool?

This lamb has a different story. She's just a couple weeks old and was found wandering by the fellow who was staffing the Shetland Crofthouse Museum. He's been hand-raising her, and needs to feed her four times a day. She follows him around everywhere so he takes her to work too, where we found her warming herself by the peat fire inside the Crofthouse.

Neil says the crofthouse reminded him a lot of the sod houses in the early Canadian west.

Imagine sailing around the Shetland Islands in the later centuries BC, and coming across this imposing feature. It says "powerful people live here". And it's still standing today, sufficiently intact that you can take the interior steps all the way to the top, where you can see the landscape for miles all around.

It's BIG. It's the only remains of it's kind in this good a condition, largely because of it's remote location. The island of Mousa is currently unoccupied, except by the inevitable sheep and many other wildlife.

This is Mousa Broch. It stands an imposing 13 metres high on the landscape. It has two walls - both quite thick in themselves, with an interior staircase running between them for stability and access to the top. At it's base, the outside width is 15m across, but it's interior width is only 6m.

It's thought that there were wooden floors at different heights, somewhat like balconies, to increase the living space, but nothing of wood remains. If there was a community of smaller houses around the site, they have not yet been uncovered. Strangely enough, no one has undertaken an archaeological dig here.

The island of Mousa is also a nature preserve. We did the entire circular walk (about a mile and a half), and spent some time trying to capture the various wildlife we could see. These are the two shots I'm happiest with - I need a larger lens for the camera!

We saw seals, and tons of different kinds of birds. I'm not a birder, by any means, but I did spend some time trying to catch the birds in flight. *sigh* This is my best shot of them. I'm going to add "tripod" and experience to the list if the next vacation includes wildlife.

And finally, we conclude with Old Scatness Broch. Neil calls this our most surprisingly find. Yet another Broch, yes? Well....yes. But it's still being dug, and pieced together for the tourists to visit, and staffed with a very strong interpretive program. Very enthusiastic people who really know their stuff, some of whom double as students in the archaeological program at the University of Bradford, which conducts the digs.

Unfortunately for me, the weaver had the day off, but I looked through her stuff. I'm quite impressed by the work she's done on the loom. The dress to the right of the loom was made on her loom.

*Whew* and now that I've finally caught up... we get on a ferry tonight at 7pm to leave Shetland. See you at the next stop!

Oh and btw, this post took a long time to write and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something here or there, so feel free to ask me questions! Hit the word "comment" underneath the post, it's a link - follow the steps. :)

Karen

Which is Better?

2008-05-18T06:58:00.003-04:00

Orkney, or Historic Scotland fudge?

If just one person posts a comment, I'll consider telling you. :)

Karen

The Grumpy Traveller

2008-05-16T13:22:00.004-04:00

I'll get to the last of the Orkney pictures in a bit. That is, I'll organize and plan tonight and post tomorrow. This post is all text. I'm having a vent.

Who makes a tourist office without public washrooms? And then points you to the nearest really groody public washrooms two streets away that should be condemned? Do they want me to ever visit again?

(Lerwick's tourism industry, apparently. We're now in Shetland, btw.)

That made me really grumpy.

But I admit, I was primed and ready to find something to get upset about. It had been a long time getting to Shetland. Maybe I just don't travel well. I'm good once we get where we're going.

Yesterday, we had to be out of the Avalon House by 10am. I suppose we could have asked for longer (they were really nice) but we didn't. We had to turn the car in by 11:30 am. We had luggage. And the ferry terminal not only doesn't store luggage earlier in the day, they don't even open until 9pm.

The ferry leaves at 23:45pm. Yes, that's a quarter of midnight.

So what did we do with ourselves? And our luggage?

Well apparently, Bob's Taxi will take luggage for storage. They call it "left luggage". That was great, and we used them to get to the ferry terminal at night.

Then we just had to entertain ourselves in Kirkwall for.... oh... 10 hours or so.

There was an hour in the post office shipping back two weeks worth of finding new books in Scotland. We shall not mention that episode again. There was lunch to be had, and some history to explore. Shopping happened, some gifts might have been bought. This is a lot of walking around. And still.... we had more time to kill.

Discovered that the public library had internet access and while I didn't really feel a need to connect, it was at least a way to pass the time.

Then there was dinner, and still....

Then there was a pub, and it was only Thursday so not a big party scene... we listened to the locals play bingo. Perhaps we should have joined in.

And then finally, there was the ferry. Straight into the room, which was _small_ with twin beds. It was a surprisingly sound sleep, given the ridiculously hard bed and no husband to fight over the bed covers with, but still, too short. The captain work us all up at 6:30am to prepare to arrive in Lerwick.

In Lerwick, where the place we were to pick up the keys for the next accommodations didn't open until noon. At least we got the rental car in reasonable order and had a place to put the luggage.

So we wandered around Lerwick, entertaining ourselves, and encountered the tourist office. I think I needed a nap at that point.

Now the bright side is, the place where we're staying turned out a whole lot nicer then imagined and we have a kitchen. I promptly went grocery shopping and we've just now finished a box of Kraft dinner.

Comfort food.

Karen

Orkney - the first two days

2008-05-13T04:41:00.002-04:00

Getting to Orkney involved: dropping off a car rental in Inverness, taking a cab to the train station because (of course) they aren't conveniently located, a train from Inverness to Thurso, a cab to Scrabster (where we sat in a pub for a few hours), got on a ferry, had a problem with the car rental agency so we got on a bus to Kirkwall, and took a cab to the guest house.

Basically, every form of current land travel known to man except farm equipment and rickshaw.

We figured out the car rental problem the next day.

Internet access is in high demand here, and the connection is slow so I may get a bit behind in blogging.

These first two days (sunday and monday) have been jam packed with activities.

Spent several hours wandering around downtown Kirkwall, and had lunch at a lovely little bistro.

Then we did some driving around the countryside - the Orkneyinga Saga Centre (which we didn't know existed until we got here), and Earl's Bu and the Orphir Church (which were right beside it). Link to all three here.

We also visited the Ring of Brogar, and the Stones of Stenness. It might be hard to reach the mind set of the people who built these things - it was nearly 4000 - 5000 years ago - but if you're at all sensitive to .... let's call it "power" shifts in the universe....it's abundantly clear at the centre of the rings, even as broken down as they are today.

Monday, we got up bright and early and went off to the Brough of Birsay. The Brough is on a tidal island so seeing it is dependant on low tide. And it was fantastic! Lots of the remainders of a Norse settlement - which I could almost reach to, but Neil totally could imagine a Norse village and their lives.

We also saw a dead dolphin and a dead fish washed up in a cliff's cleft at low tide. Kind of icky, but part of life.

I swear the wind was trying to kill me today and my brain starting functioning on half mast after the Brough, but we kept going. Earl's Palace (15th century, not as interesting for us), Skara Brae and Skail House, and then Maeshowe. Neil's been finding new kids' Viking books all over this trip - the gift shop at Skara Brae was no exception.

The gift shop there also had a few other things, which I haven't bought so you'll have to be content with a photo. That's right - Viking bath oil, herbs, shampoo.... too funny.

Unlike the picture in the link to Skara Brae, the public is no longer permitted to go into the structures - we must stay on a path around the perimeter. They are starting to become more concerned about preservation of the site. However, they have built a replica of the most detailed house near the visitor's centre and it is quite impressive in itself.

The guide at Maeshowe was absolutely delightful and really brought the place to life. No pictures were allowed inside the tomb but the Viking graffiti was right there, right in front of me. I could have touched them - I don't know why I didn't! But it's okay, there's a book that we bought that has great photographic plates of every last one of the 41 runic inscriptions found.

Neil thought the guide's pronunciation of the english translation of the runes in a Yorkshire accent was pretty funny. I was just grateful I could understand him easier then the Orcadians.

Don't go here if you're claustrophobiac - the entrance walkway is 10m (30 feet) long and only 1m (3 feet) high. The chamber itself is tiny, and deeply inside a hill.

Do go here if you love really _feeling_ history!

Karen

It's a long one, and we're in Orkney now

2008-05-10T17:27:00.004-04:00

Well, we're stuck in a bar in Scrabster, waiting for the ferry. Two hours before the restaurant next door opens, and three hours before the ferry starts boarding. Four hours before it actually leaves. It's an hour and a half crossing - we could go there and come back in the time it'll take us to wait for it. I'm composing this in a text file because there is no internet connection in the bar.

This is one of the more annoying points in the travel. 'Though I think the worst of it is the travel that we found out (long before we left) that we couldn't do. Our plan is actually to get up to Shetland, and we had wanted to take the ferry from Shetland to the Faroes Island and then to Iceland, but they canceled the Shetland to Faroes link. No crossing of the Atlantic in the footprints of the Vikings.

Instead we'll need to take a ferry from Shetland down to Abeerden and drive back to Glasgow to pick up a plane at the International Airport.

So.... to continue the chronology then, since I haven't blogged in a few days, we woke up a few mornings ago, and started off bright and early at the Scottish Crannog Centre.

Crannogs are these things that were set out on the water in lochs all over Scotland in the Iron Age. People lived in them and used the waterways for transportation. It's not really our time period of interest, so I can't give you many details.

There is some carry over into the Viking Age however. This is a warp-weighted loom.

The guide was careful to say that we don't actually know what kind of loom they used, since we've made no actual discoveries of intact looms, but the same problem exists in the Viking Era as well. Things that might be loom weights have been discovered, and there's a sketch on a Roman vase that looks like a warp-weighted loom (link). This particular loom hasn't been used since they set up the Crannog centre, some 10 years ago. Pity they don't have a weaver on staff.

And honestly, that's my only criticism. This was a fantastic place, with great hands-on interpretors/guides and things that we could try out for ourselves. Like this bow-drill...

Our next stop was the Edradour Distillery, one of three distilleries that we've visited so far, and the smallest in all of Scotland. Neil picked up a bottle, of course. I must admit that I fail completely to understand why he wants to lug bottles of whiskey around for the rest of the trip, but I suppose that's one of those things that one just ... accommodates in a marriage.

He finds my attachment to things that grow amusing. If I thought I could take plants home successfully, I probably would.

This beautiful burst of colour is growing all over the highlands.

Here's a closeup - it's called Gorse. I'm going to try to buy some back home and install it in the garden. It's very pretty. (edited later: Hmmmm.... just got to an internet connection and looked it up - invasive by seed dispersal. I'll have to think on it.)

We drove some windy narrow roads at decent speeds that often weren't fast enough for the other drivers, and eventually arrived in Inverness at this delightful guest house called the Trafford Bank Guest House Lovely rooms and genteel breakfasts in the sunroom, a very helpful hostess, and many modern amenities like Sky TV and ipod docking stations in the rooms. My only wish might have been for a softer mattress.

We spent two nights in Inverness, and the intervening day driving around the countryside. We had many plans but weren't able to achieve nearly all of it. Everything closes up shop at 5:30pm so it's often difficult to fit everything in.

We did get to Urquhart Castle which has a great visitor centre and brief history of the castle, before letting you out to see what's left of it for yourselves. As a centre of power, Urquhart is dated back to Columba visiting Picts to convert them to Christianity somewhere in the range of 560 AD. It is not known exactly when the castle itself was built but apparently some records refer to it in the early 1200s, and it finally blown up in 1692 to prevent it from being used as a base for the Jacobites.

It's on a promatory in the middle of Loch Ness, but sorry.....no monster sighting. :)

I found this fellow (Neil) leaning over one of the window sills...

And later in the day, waving up at us from Corrimony Cairn. Corrimony Cairn is a short distance away from Urqhart Castle.

Corrimony Cairn is dated back some 4000 years ago, and is a passage grave in which the bones of just one occupant (probably a woman) were found. There's a circle of small standing stones around it. It's probably the strangest of our historical visits so far - it's just off by itself surrounded by sheep, almost in the middle of nowhere, with no visitor center or staff - just a single information sign.

These people - the sheep - are everywhere in Scotland! On hills so steep it's a wonder they don't fall off of them, in little runs just barely on the outskirts of any given town. Everywhere - it's amazing.

Today was a long day and is ending with us safely ensconed in Orkney. More on that trip later....

Karen

Edinburgh, and Out

2008-05-07T16:16:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, we entered this place around 12:30pm and left..... 4 and a half hours and some 650 photos later, at closing time. We didn't even get out of the Early Peoples exhibit hall.

There were lots and lots and lots.....and lots... of Viking things to photograph.

Reporting was briefly interrupted by exhaustion and dietary distress.

This morning, we rented a car, got all turned around in Edinburgh on the way out by one way roads, roundabouts, bus and taxi only lanes, narrow roads, and people parking on the street to make the roads even more narrow. Driving on the left was only mildly terrifying as a result.

Once out of the city, it was still annoying, but Neil is slowly getting used to it.

I was a bit disappointed by Deep Sea World - great style of presentation, but not enough of it. Not for the price.

On the other hand, the Dunfermline Abbey was stunning. I would gladly have paid the price that Deep Sea World asked, to see the Abbey. Our Historic Friends cards got us in for free - I almost felt like I was ripping them off!

The place was beautiful, and felt very..... old and still.

This is just one of the many beautiful stained windows.

These stairs were rather tight, and steep!

History that I can walk in, and touch. I love it.

Karen

Hafnarfjordur, Njarðvík, and Edinburgh

2008-05-05T17:45:00.006-04:00

You have no idea how hard it is to pick images to blog with out of the some 80 odd images that I've taken in the past two days.

Upload them, tag them (all), pick them, rename them, make thumbnails, and finally mount them. Then ya gotta type the link in correctly (a little detail). Whew!

And I've got two blogs to update tonight - here, and on DARC's blog.

Thankfully, the husband has been very helpful tonight.

So, we last left you yesterday (sunday) morning in Iceland. The plane to Glasgow didn't happen until 5:30pm (Iceland time) so we had some time to wander around a bit more.

First we went to Hafnarfjordur for lunch at the Viking Village.

I think Neil wanted to get it over with quickly because I really want to check this out, and ....let's just say it doesn't have a reputation for accurately portraying the Viking Age. Vandy, you should check out the menus.

Unfortunately for both of us, the restaurant only does dinners. So we'll have to go back when we're there again at the end of May.

Instead, we ate a hot dog and looked at some art near the harbour.

Off to Njarðvík, which is on the way to the airport, where we just tripped upon a Viking ship (see the DARC blog) and this rather neat bit of Viking-inspired art in the middle of a roundabout.

For my Canadian friends who are just getting used to the things, Iceland is swarming in roundabouts. They really do make the driving so much more efficient.

In the airport, we had some more skyr. It really is delicious. I wish we could get it in Canada in a fashion that's easier then ordering it express-couriered from Gimli, Manitoba (edited because Vandy's right, I am too tired and too far away to know my provinces).

So.....on to a plane, off to Glasgow, which we immediately skipped and hired a car into Edinburgh. We'd planned to take the train, but the cost proved to be only a tiny bit more, was much more efficient and direct, and the driver was an absolutely delightful travel guide.

Woke up the next day and headed off to the Edinburgh Castle, where they are just starting to set up for some sort of event just outside the Castle. I tried to figure it out to provide you a link, but I'm mystified. Anyway, we likely won't be here to partake. We've got one more day here and then we're off to see the rest of Scotland.

We spent quite a lot of time in the Edinburgh Castle (it's huge), here's another view. The small buildings in front have been converted to a small restaurant called the RedCoat Cafe. Pleasant enough.

This is one of the gardens inside the castle grounds. You know me and flowers, I couldn't resist.

And this is the view inside of St.Margaret's Chapel. It was very.... still. Peaceful. A zillion visitors didn't disturb this tiny sanctuary.

We also hit the Royal Mile Whiskies shop (apparently they find shipping to Canada difficult) and the Scotch Whiskey Experience (Neil decided that £9.50 each was overpriced for a one hour tour and one shot). No pictures there, I guess I'm just not as attached to Scotch.

Another edit here - I must have been really zonked last night. I completely forgot to mention the Tartan Weaving Mill. And I can't imagine why I didn't take any pictures here. Maybe Neil is subtly influencing me - he hates plaids.

I was a bit disappointed. The place is huge, contains lots of shops, is all about the history of tartans - and all of the displays of weaving are covered in a hefty layer of dust. Not to mention that they did't have the family tartan that I wanted in a lady's kilt "off the peg". I'd have to special order it at some large price. I am considering just bringing the fabric back and staring at it for the next 30 years instead.

And finally..... of course, there was fudge. :) The fellow who was making the fudge was quite the showman and reminded us both of us of a friend.

Tomorrow is another day in Edinburgh. Must blog at DARC and sleep soon.