Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
End Of An Icelandic Saga
by admin - 20:22 on 01 July 2014
Our reluctant departure from Iceland, and a long day of travel, began when Matchgirl's alarm roused us at 4.30am. An hour later, packed, showered and breakfastless, we escaped from Hotel Keilir and drove the RAV4 to Keflavik Airport where it was left in the short-stay parking area with, as instructed, the keys and ticket left in the glove box and the car unlocked. Just like Shetland.
Check-in, bag drop, security, breakfast, duty free window shopping and vacant staring at other travellers occupied us until 7.45am when we boarded the terminal bus that drove us through torrential rain to our Icelandair Boeing. Thirty minutes later we were in the air and Iceland had become just a pleasant memory. Two hours after that we landed in tropical Glasgow.
The world was now seriously out of whack – we'd swapped a grey and miserable holiday spot for sun-soaked Scotland.
We drove home up the A82, through scenery that competes with anything Iceland has to offer: Loch Lomond, Rannoch Moor, Glencoe, Loch Ness, all bathed in glorious sunshine. What it also has to offer is twenty times as much traffic but on the whole it was a pleasant trip, although the fifteen-minute delay north of Fort William while the occupants were retrieved from a car upside-down on a confusingly gentle bend cast a small dampener. I don't know their condition but the ambulance didn't hurry from the scene.
We were welcomed home by three cats who didn't appear to be pining for us, just their teas. Willow and Pandora disappeared as soon as they'd eaten; Maia hung around in hope of seconds. Nothing changes, and within an hour my hayfever had returned, Icelandic pollen being less of a problem than the Scottish variety. Despite that, it's good to be home.
The washing, the snappery sifting and the lawnmowing will begin tomorrow. Tonight, a very tired Matchgirl and I will be lazy, although it's tempting to stay up to see a dark sky again. Sometimes you don't appreciate something until it's gone.
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