Man flu and 'When Birds go bad'

Bear with me on this one, I've had Man Flu for the past 5 days and haven't got a clue in what order things have been happening recently!

First things first, and if you've checked them out already ignore this, Hjaltalin. They're a band I saw recently in Akureyri and I can't recommend them highly enough! They're a 7 piece band and often play with a full orchestra backup. click for Hjaltalin's MySpace page. I really enjoyed their sets (they played two) it's really uplifting and happy stuff.  They were supported by Lára Rúnars, she's really talented and has a habit of playing the piano like a beautiful, fashion forward, marionette. Anyway you should also give her a listen too click for Lara runars MySpace page.

After 3 Vikings (the beer, not the men) I managed to walk back to the farm and also remembered to take a picture of these...

all the traffic signals in Akureyri have hearts on the red light, its cute!

I seriously hate having a cold, technically you're not that ill that you can't do something. However, you also don't feel well enough to do anything! I'm so pathetic when I'm ill, hopefully though we're coming to the end of it, it's being helped along by copious amounts of Echinea (expensive placebo anyone?) and lots of healthy food - well some healthy food. Einar made traditional Lamb soup the other day which was really, really tasty. The lamb here is ridiculously good!

It's a good thing it tastes so nice as he made enough to last the week!

We're still waiting for the weather to stay dry enough to finish off the hay bales, hopefully with the change to fairly good weather today we should be able to get it done before the end of the week.

Speaking of which I finally managed to get to Grimsey click for map today and stood within the Arctic circle.

even though it's just a signpost at the bottom of someone's garden it still felt a little exciting. Maybe because I'd had to run the gauntlet of the dive bombing Arctic Terns to get there?

They maybe tiny but they're actually a little scary when there are so many of them, all eager to peck you silly. I know that I definitely resembled some crazy old lady, hunched up and waving my tripod wildly above my head, whilst crab walking my way up the road. I'm also convinced that the islanders don't have cars for transportation, more as a perfect form of defense. After all there's only one road and you could walk to most places in 20 mins max its that tiny!

I did get a chance to see some Puffins though, and got a lot closer than the camera makes it look. For some reason it barely zooms to what your eye can see, let alone the advertised 3x zoom.

They're very cute and apparently taste a little like liver...

By the time we made it back, the weather had finally broken and the blue sky was back.

I'd almost forgotten what it was like! Oh, this is Dalvik by the way. It's where I caught the ferry to Grimsey. It smells so strongly of brine and fish that initially it's almost hard to breathe!

Only 2 more days left on the farm, and then back to the traveling. I'm both looking forward to it and dreading it too. I've had such a lovely time here with Inga, Einar and the kids that its going to be weird being on my own again. Not only that but I'll have my backpack fully loaded, lets hope the work at the farm has given me a little extra stamina!

Catch you soon
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