Day 2. Rain. Solid, grey, vertical rain. And little response to it. No dramatic posturing, rushing or jostling in doorways. Locals and tourists, snug in a smorgasbord of artic-type weather gear, ran with it. Without running. We walked to Laugardalslaug public pool. Twenty minutes along an office lined road into a neighbourhood of grey, pebble-dashed chunky residential buildings with open garden areas. Scattered bikes and BBQs.

I learned the pool rules during my summer research: shoes off outside the changing room; naked showering with important areas for suds highlighted in posters; cozzy back on and out.

I hadn’t realised two shower inspectors would sit in a booth opposite the open shower. Minutes later, after asking a few, nerve generated (did I pass muster on the sudster?) clarification questions answered with charm and politeness; “Er, you can take your towel if you want but it is raining outside”, we were basking in a steaming geothermal pool. The now light rain peppering our faces.

That evening we discovered ‘happy hour(s)’ in the Bravo bar on Laugavegur.

Day 3. The sun was out. We had a plan. A trip to Videy Island. Would you just look at this:

Mount Esja beginning to reveal unimaginable strength and beauty. And Videy Island that thin slice of mustardy coloured land laid out in front of her (although we didn’t realise it at the time). A walk around the headland to find the ferry port.

No words really. An Icelandic director’s house next to the Sigurjon Olafsson Museum and artwork to graze en route. Heavy haulage action I could only dream of talking to Connor about. And a short wait for the ferry across to the island.

Postscript. In writing these posts I keep coming back to the composer Olafur Arnalds.

Particularly this:

He apparently refused to translate Georg’s poem because it would lose some of its beauty.

Eight days in Reykjavik*. A long time for us to be on holiday. In a city with temperatures around 10 degrees and steady rain forecast. We went plan-less having planned the trip the whole summer. Hiring a car: ditched. Iterations of the same tour in a range of different colour and sized coaches: ditched. Temperatures steadily rising at home. I stopped googling. And reading.

Day one. A five minute walk to the sea early morning and glimpses of Mount Esja beneath heavy clouds. Following the sea wall alongside a dual carriageway and backdrop of highish rise flats we passed the opera house and reached a picture postcard harbour. Whale a minute!  This was never in our non-plan.

Kitted out in thick red onesies, goggles, life jackets and gloves we were bouncing out to sea on a speedboat within 30 minutes. Our guide a Prisoner of Cell Block H guard type with layers of understated charm, humour, orders and persuasion. Vertical arm for help. Horizontal arm and clock position shout out for whale spotted. The puffins had pretty much left for the winter. We waited, engine off, bobbing in the North Atlantic. Grey drizzle. Deep, dark waves. Exhilaration, joy and intense horizon studying. Minke whales and a porpoise dolphin whale pitched up, late season. Thank you.

That first day was particularly blue. With tots popping up in the nearby Punk Museum and a shop window display.

*There’s a kind of non back story behind this.