"Snow is so common that I have omitted to note its falling two days out of three"~William Henry Ashley

We have just had 3 blizzards in 3 weeks and record snow falls, rumour says the most in 17 years.

Gamla Pósthúsið during one of the blizzards.

View of my neighbours houses from my front door

Cleanup after the first blizzard, creating a huge pile of snow around the flag pole and right where the christmas tree is going...

On one street around the corner from my son and daughter inlaw (Ross and Olga), 3 houses were evacuated because of avalanche danger.  Monday the snow stopped falling and the sun and blue skies appeared for a short period and everything looked glorious. So I took a stroll to visit my grandson and this is what I saw along the way.

This is the street Ross and Olga live on.

Piles of the white stuff every where.

Snow up to the top of fences.

backyards completely disappeared.

the local playground,

no swinging on the swings here

Vehicles buried

Ross and Olga's house

...the fence has nearly disappeared

Ross had to dig the car out,

channels had to be dug through the snow so to get to properties

Around Gamla Pósthúsið there were mountains of snow where flat ground used to be

The back of the building

There is another row of windows under there

huge snow drifts up to my height in spots covered the carpark

the parking on Kirkjutorg was severely diminished

with huge snow drifts taking up most of the space

the side of the building....my studio windows are under there somewhere!

 The balcony completely covered in snow up to the railing

 view from my kitchen window...still magnificent!


This video is of a drive around the town on the 19th Nov.

The weather yesterday warmed up to 4° so the melting has begun.

         I leave you with pictures of my grandson Henry 

and the only way to travel around here!

Winter seems to have arrived early!

The shift from summer to winter has been pretty dramatic here,  we have had a bit of a storm in Iceland...it seemed to affect the whole country somewhat but mainly the areas in the north, some places have had 15-20cm of snow which is a new record for this time of year.  The wind was violent and caused a power blackout in the north, apparently the worst damage to power lines in 17 years.

Photo source

We here in Sauðárkrókur were with out power for about 4 hours but some areas have gone without  for a couple of days.

The wind was so strong that in one place (Skaftafell) it blew the asphalt from the road...I had never even imagined such a thing could happen but Icelanders just nod knowingly...they have heard it all before!

Photo source

This is the time of the year when the Réttir is on (sheep roundup), it usually runs over a couple weekends, the storm happened between the two, so things were not looking good for the sheep that were not brought down from the mountain during the first weekend. It was thought that up to 13,000 sheep were yet to be brought down.  Volunteer rescue teams have been out trying to find and recover as many sheep as possible some buried in several metres of snow.

 

Fortunately most seemed to have survived the ordeal and have been successfully rescued.

The weather is once again calm and yesterday there was some blue skies with snow on the mountains surrounding the town.

 I love my morning walks on days like this...the air is still but crisp and cool.

“I have to be alone very often. I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel." ~ Audrey Hepburn 1953

Last Thursday I travelled to Reykjavik to farewell Ross, Olga and Henry as they left for their month's holiday in Australia.  Ross has not been back for 4 years and is really ready for some quality time down under.  Of course I will miss them and I will really notice the difference a month has on my grandson. So at the moment I am alone in Iceland, except for 2 dogs...however, being alone has never been an issue for me and I feel quite happy and content...most find this part of my personality hard to understand but I am really not perturbed, there definitely is a little hermit within me who relishes times like these...I feel very much sympatico with Audrey and her need for time on her own to refuel! 

Ross and Henry stretching their legs at a petrol station on the way to Reykjavik.

Whilst they are away I am caring for their dog Nina who is the younger sister to my Perla, fortunately they get on very well and are good company for each other.

Nina posing nicely for the camera!

The weather has been lovely, very little wind, mostly sunny with a few overcast days here and there, so I take the two dogs for long walks morning and each evening.  Last night we went to the beach....Nina likes to dig holes...

perhaps she is trying to dig her way to Oz

While Nina is digging Perla frolics in the water...she loves to paddle...winter or summer makes no difference to her.

The light in the evening softens, these were taken a bit after 7pm.

Last Sunday was National day and the flags were up all around town and sunny blue skies abounded.

Lupins cover the hills in a purple glow at this time of the year.

This morning was overcast but still warm and windless.

This photo below is a bit blurred...it is quite difficult taking photos with 2 dogs on leashes.  These horses were being moved to different paddocks and as they came out of the gates where the white car is, they headed the wrong way and came racing towards me and the dogs, I just stood stock still as they came within a couple of feet of us, Nina and Perla, were quite in awe of the moment as I was...others on horseback managed to turn them around and this photo shows them now heading in the right direction.

It was a magnificent sight...the photo does not do the experience justice.

There has been a slight delay with the finishing of the apartments as we have had trouble with the sealing of the cement floors and they had to be stripped and re sealed as we ended up with lap lines across the floor span.  A different sealer is now being rolled on this second time around and so far all is looking good.  Everything will be finished by the end of next week and I can start setting them up for holiday rental.

On a Sunny Sunday Afternoon!

Not sure what happened as I had two windows open and obviously published the wrong one, the correct one went like this.

Firstly I just wanted to acknowledge my grandson Henry's 1st birthday yesterday...time just sails along so fast and it really only seems like a few weeks ago he entered our lives.

He is just adorable, I get to have him stay over tonight as he will be on the other side of Australia for a holiday this time next week....will miss him so much.  We just had a very low key family dinner to celebrate as Henry will share a major birthday bash with his Nonno in Australia who turns 60.

Dad looks more excited than Henry about blowing out the candle!

Happy Birthday Henry Thor!

Last week the weather was absolutely glorious, every one grabbed the opportunity to be outdoors soaking up as much vitamin D as they could.  This week the weather has cooled down a little, with some chilly windy conditions, however that seems short lived and in the last two days sun and warmish conditions have returned.

Perla enjoying the sun too!

I spent last sunny Sunday outdoors with my geocaching buddies Bjarki and Patricia visiting a few new places and trying to replenish some of my 16,000 lost photos. I am a bit of a jinx when it comes to technology these last few weeks and my camera battery went flat after just a few clicks (it needs replacing) so most were taken with my phone.

When driving around Iceland in the summer you have to watch out for sheep and horses on the road. During summer these animals roam free, we had to slow down several times to let sheep cross and this horse just walked right up to the car to say hello.

One place we visited was a small fishing village not far from Akureyri called Hjalteyri a pretty little spot.

 We stopped for lunch and had a wonder around, there was a deserted herring factory here.

I found the old fish factory a fascinating structure

I could have taken heaps of photos of this building but this is when my camera battery died.

After lunch, acknowledging Sjómannadagurinn (Seamans day) we drove on to Hauganes to take the ferry ride to Hrísey...a little island off the mainland that I have wanted to visit for sometime.  Only a 15min cruise across the water to this great little village.

 The local taxi vehicle on Hrísey

View down to the waters edge

This is what you call a real rock garden!

 Hrísey

Spied this on the drive, looks like canola growing...I think a farmer might be experimenting to see if it will grow here...looks ok so far!  I wonder if it has anything to do with this project.

Very happy with these 3 little pics taken on the day with my phone just as a mist was rolling in, can only remember it was near one of the 3 tunnels we travelled through.

One of the cache locations in Siglufjörður was in pine forest with parkland and waterfall....really beautiful...you will just have to take my word for it as the phone camera was stuck on zoom and those photos are not worth posting.  

This would only happen in Iceland, at one of the picnic tables was a metal box with key in the lock, inside was a lovely leather bound guestbook for anyone visiting the area to sign.

As seems to be our regular practice, we try and time our arrival in Siglufjörður to be for lunch or dinner, just so we can eat at either of these places.

Hannes Boy and Káffi Rauðka

From the docks at Siglufjörður

                        We arrived home at around 11pm...it just doesn't get dark anymore.