Raven Tales

I have been learning about the history of our house, and the woman who lived here for seventy years before we did: Bogga was her name. She was a pillar of the village community and many seem to recall her with a smile. We now have a delicious little pile of copies of surveys from the turn of the C20th, images of the village through the years and obituaries of Bogga and her husband. The archivist at the library even has an interview with her recorded on tape: there are not many who can recall how Christmas has changed over seventy years in a remote Icelandic village, but it’s there on that tiny casette. I am both excited and a little nervous to hear it. I imagine it could feel like communing with the spirit world!

Outside the window of my studio, there is a rock that always seems to poke slightly above the snow. The first day I sat by that window, I saw an old man with a flat cap come and put food on that rock. Soon enough a raven swooped down to pick at it. This man turned out to be Bogga’s son-in-law and is our neighbour. We have him to thank for looking after the house so well in the intervening years since Bogga’s death. It seems in those intervening years that he took on the roles that Bogga used to have before she became too old. Apparently there was a raven that Bogga used to feed. If she forgot, he would come and tap his beak on the roof. They were so familiar that sometimes he would come and perch on her. I like to think it is the same raven that comes…we sometimes hear a knocking on the roof…and now he (or they as might be the case…my raven differentiation is not very keen!) is spoilt for choice with tidbits, with Orri’s spoils from the fishing boat.

A deep black smudge of raven often circles the house and settles on lamp posts plok plok-ing with the hollow of his beak.

And down below the blackest of silhouettes struts across the blue white snow to see what he can find.

One day I found this beautiful collection of shapes left in the snow…the trace of a raven stopped to rest his wing awhile…

As the dark ravens slowly circumnavigate their territories, the snow bunting flit in undulating flocks – from roof to ground and ground to roof – collectively hailing their excited cheeps.

And that is the dance of the Not-Quite-Spring: the dark, ominous and solitary playing in the thermals with the sociable and light-hearted.

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The Many Things That Are Spring

Back in March when I arrived in the Westfjords of Iceland, it was announced on the national evening radio that Vorið er að koma, þvi Loan er komin [Spring is here because the Loa (Golden Plover) has arrived]. I found it charming that this ‘fact’ was announced in such a way, and, though I never expected warm weather and daffodils the weather only a few days later told me a different story!

Spring, and Easter in particular, is marked by a coming together, coming home of families as ever more young folks leave their home towns and vilages to live in  the capital Reykjavik. Easter is as important as Christmas and involves similar amounts of eating, gathering and playing games. And of course Easter Egg hunts. Orri’s mum went to some trouble to come up with THE most impossible hiding places you could imagine. We searched the house high and low and in the end all of them were in the same room, one of them embedded in the springs of an armchair!!! I’m not so into chocolate but I did love the duck eggs we were given by a family friend. I even painted some after they were expertly drained by Orri.

For the past few years in Isafjorður, the Easter weekend has also involved a plethora of music in the form of Aldrei fór ég suður [I Never Went South], a homegrown free music festival that is held in a cement factory and features a diverse range of acts, from bigger names such as Olof Arnalds and Mugison to some old boys in a brass band puffing away on very cold instruments! Here are people arriving through the second most snow all winter to  hear the music. It was lovely to see all ages there, packed together in a warehouse trying to stay warm. The line up was scrawled on a bit of board propped up against a portaloo and there was not a whiff of corporateness about it. Just lots of people of all ages enjoying the music. It did get a little too packed for my liking though. It seems Icelanders get excited about being able to make a crowd, but I find it less exciting as what I like about this place is the sense of space. Each year more and more people are drawn to these remote shores in search of something more raw and authentic, and it seems to outgrow each building that hosts it. I’m not sure where it will go next…there’s only so  many buildings in Isafjorður.

Spring in the Westfjords can be the falling of snow ( as can summer occasionally), but more often the melting of snow. We battled against this when we built our snow house….so much snow certainly makes you want to make things, but it can all be gone within a couple of days. As they say in Iceland, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait fifteen minutes!”. I like the way it makes you seize the moment and be spontaneous. That fits well with me. The snow and the melting and the strong wind blowing can create some very beautiful patterns and a variety of crunch-squelches underfoot.

The road out of Isafjorður has been blocked by snow for a few days and we took the opportunity of its clearing to take a trip to warm our cockles in a variety of hot springs that the Westfjords is blessed to have. Spring brings sun, and rain, and the dance between them, and on our way we were danced over by many rainbows which adds a touch of magic and bright colour to an already surreally beautiful landscape.

First stop was Heydalur, where a very sweet and particularly resourceful ex-farmer, Stella,  had turned her barn into a wood lined restaurant with a chandelier made from many old glass floats, turned her sheep shed into rooms, and her green house into a green house-cum-hot swimming pool. I believe the hot water from the source first heats the buildings, then slightly cooled comes to the pools which are of various temperatures, both inside and outside. And finally the cooled water is used on the vegetables and herbs that she then uses in her kitchen. Mental note: this is a most excellent set up!

Some hot pools in Iceland can be disappointing in the sense that they seem sealed off from the landscape in which they sit. Stella has really thought through what the most beautiful experience would be, and so in the outdoor pools one is greeted by an expansive view down the valley. In the inside pool, as if being in a shed surrounded by trees and herbs was not pleasure enough, she has cut out a large window at breaststroke eye level, so one can still look out onto the mountains yonder and appreciate even more the warming of your core.

Next stop was a little way down the same fjord to a small pool, Horgshlið, which I had passed once in the dark and dipped a toe in, but as we were racing home for Christmas festivities in a storm we had not stopped for a proper dip. Being outside so late at night, I realised how quickly the light changes from Winter to Spring. By May it will be light nearly all the time and this is so soon after the months where darkness was still predominant. After our second hot bath we were very ready for a good night’s sleep in our wool lined van – the first of the year and toasty as toast even with snow still on the ground.

For breakfast was Nauteyri pool, which though very cute, was not quite hot enough. And there were a fair few flies in it. And when I saw maggots I got out. And so we moved homeward, stopping on our way back for a final dip in another pool, which, in its eerie algae lined form, furnished us with an idea.

Orri had got into pulling off bits of the algae from the walls of the pool and as he held them up to the light, I noticed what beautiful shades and patterns were within it. I often make paper lanterns and thought how beautiful a ‘paper’ this could be. And so I got a box. And we took lots home with us.

We experimented with making paper, by laying it out on a board covered with plastic. Over twenty four hours we would see it become a much smaller and warped piece of nature’s work with lovely shades, ripples and apertures, but also something too brittle to work with.

Then we experimented with making lanterns from twigs that had been gifted by the melting snow outside the school down the way.

I bound together my structure with wire, to make a series of arches, in which there would be a little doorway. I loved the delicate rows of buds that would look so striking within, and coming out of the lantern.

I gave it clay feet to stand on.

And started draping wet algae onto overlapping branches, creating a kind of forest themed natural stained glass window.

I kept adding more wet algae to the pre-existing algae as this seemed to create a more coherent bond. I also used the buds and rough edges of the branches as a means to ‘hook’ the algae in place. Now you can see the beautiful shades of green that so captivated me in the pool.

And finally it was ‘done’.  A lovely thing somewhere between a small tree, a fat old lady and a wonky windmill. Just what I was going for (!). I pasted algae on the doorway opening side as well as I had a suspicion it would tighten into an arch, which it did, on all sides…oops!

And here it is, dry, but with a rather insufficient light source inside. I guess that is the problem with dark green. You need a very bright light for it to be a lantern. But who said a lantern needed to be functional. It is simply a beautiful thing with a light inside.

Finally I shall leave you with the layers of a paper lantern I made for Orri’s sister one Christmas: an old lady in a wintery forest (there seems to be a theme here), looking for we know not what…

Within the lantern I made, she holds a lantern, and the light from within the within, is the light for both of them.

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How to make a snow house

1. Be told by Icelandic boyfriend that there is not enough snow in the garden to build a snow house.

2. Say “Pah!”.  Start with a stove…every house must have its hearth, and in every thing exists its opposite.

3. Dig the ‘not enough snow’ into foundations around the hearth and pack it gently with the back of a spade, not forgetting to leave a doorway.  Feel slightly bad about disrupting the white peace blanket over the garden.

4. Using a loaf tin, make bricks out of the astonishingly little snow left in the garden.

5. Lay the bricks this way then thataway to get a tight fit, and make each layer sit slightly further in than the last, and sloping inwards, to create a dome shape.

6. Admire how lovely the snow bricks look above the drystone wall. Stop feeling bad about ruining the garden. Hope for more snow. Resist the temptation to decorate with icicles at this stage.

7. Have a day off and inside as a storm rages, and watch how the snow plays around our new walls. Be thankful that the ground is all white again, and that we have more snow to build with.

8. Realise that this may well be a bit of a wild goose chase given that the temperature this day has risen considerably and all the snow is melting. Continue anyway because its fun. Keep making the walls higher by slapping on sloppy snow ever upwards, ever inwards.Find out that woollen mittens are no good for this sort of thing.

9. Stop resiting the temptation to decorate and go for that over making a roof. It’s hot anyway. See Pan in a snow column made for strength and unleash his form. Add horns.

10. Turn round to find Orri has quietly carved an astonishingly beautiful totem pole like column, comprising a Cyclopse, a Selkie, and a woman.

11. Go inside for tea and leave Pan and friends to hold the fort.

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Upside Down Seasons

Since I last appeared here, which seems now like many moons ago, we have spread our wings and made our way to the Southern Hemisphere. It is a strange thing, to have had our seasons in reverse. I left you with tales of the gathering of sheep in October, and the sprinkling of snow and the feeling that winter had arrived. This sprinkling was followed by a rather more thorough carpeting, more deep than I have experienced since childhood.  I enjoyed the crunch underfoot of my meanderings and the way  forms were rendered in ‘absence’, with just a hint of a house or a wheel and the world became a black and white photograph. There were also some incredible icicles rooted like fangs to cliffs as the still falling spring water bubbled away inside them.

But, as is typical in Iceland, the weather changed from day to day, and we still enjoyed sunshiney visits to farms and shores and abandoned houses. It was a busy time as some of the sheep that had been gathered were slaughtered by the extended family and prepared in various ways, and everyone who had helped with the gathering and the slaughter was rewarded with a share of the meat. Kitchens were full of activity and smoke houses gently billowed their birch smoke. At the same time we were readying our little red van Mariubjalla for her imminent departure to Reykjavik, which involved finding a new set of tyres for a rare diameter size. I had started to worry, as there was no way we could drive south on snowy roads with the tyres that we had – bald as they were through to the wire mesh! But as with the majority of ‘problems’ in Iceland, we were provided for through a passing comment to a family friend.

I had been missing my friends terribly so was ready to leave for a while. We had planned a month long stop over in England specifically to spend some good times visiting people, and also to try and raise some pennies towards our onwards leg by doing some Christmas sales with my Cabinet of Curiosities from all over the world, and some hand made jewellery of mine. This is something I have been doing for many years now, in various forms. I have sold my wares on street corners and beaches, school halls, and church halls. A few years ago I discovered that some people, especially around Christmas time, liked me bringing my treasures to their house and transforming their living rooms into Aladdin’s caves. They could invite their friends and everyone had basketfulls of Interesting and Beautiful Things to peruse over a mince pie or two. I like this better than being out on the street as it feels more like a cosy gathering and I can tell the stories of where I found those objects. I managed to do a couple of these while back and through doing so had some surprise visits from friends.

We were ultimately heading to Kenya, where I spent my teenage years and where my parents and grandmother still live. I have not been home for Christmas in many years, and felt it was time. So Orri and I decided to make a trip of it and see out the worst of winter here. And so in a few blinks of an eye we went from vast shin deep Icelandic snowscapes to the damp and sunny orange leafed Autumn of England, and now we find ourselves sitting in the shade of trees and porches, and glad to be dry, even though it is the ‘rainy season’ here! It is strange to have my year this way round, but then there has been nothing ‘regular’ about this year, and I like it that way.

Tomorrow is an exciting day as we are heading to the north of Kenya to a region called Samburuland where I made a documentary in 2006, called After The Rains Came. I am going to visit all the people I spent the summer with that year, and to take a wedding video I have made to someone who married while I was there. This is no ordinary wedding video, mind you! The wedding lasted three days, involved a slaughter of a bull, highly decorated warriors leaping into the air and a lot of singing and dancing. Fortunately there have been rains up there recently. When I shot the film there had been a long drought, the end of which thankfully coincided with my arrival, but as a result I was given the Samburu name Nashangai, which means ‘The one who came with rain’. So there’s a bit of a pressure to deliver on subsequent visits…fingers crossed! I shall bring tales of that journey on my return.

In the meantime I would just like to say how touched I was by the number of people who have read this blog and loved it. When I was out in the wilds of Iceland wondering how many more hundred kilometers it would be until I found internet access, I sometimes wondered why I was doing this. ‘Was anybody actually reading it?’ I wondered. It turns out you were, and it suddenly felt like I had so much company on the ups and downs of this rolling road and people knew where I was at. Please do feel free to leave comments here to keep the connection going. It is most lovely to hear real comments straight from the horse’s mouth, but the fact is I am Here now… wherever There was, and the land of blog is a rock we can all stand on.

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