Well that’s a good question, we got to bed about 2am and all took our time to rise in the morning, as you do, the morning after the night before. We had the usual dog excitement when we got in because we brought a friend of the groom home too to give him a bed for the night, and one of the dogs doesn’t much like men, so it takes a lot of barking before you can settle her down and get her to believe there is no threat. It’s funny because she is so loving and adorable but has obviously been mistreated by a man in the past.
Here I am digressing again, so first of all we had breakfast together which was lovely. Little Heidi had become best of friends with her Amma Elisabet at the wedding because they danced together for a really long time, so she was helping her Amma and wanted to sit next to her at breakfast, so cute, a really lovely little girl and an amazing dancer for three years old, copying all sorts of stuff on the dance floor. Then we had Vignir and Ásgerður and their boys come to visit briefly to say good-bye before they started their journey home to Iceland.
After that Jason, Jeannie and Heidi left for their long drive home, and then Gary left to go back to Hollis, taking the oldest dog with him. Elisabet and I decided to have a quiet day in, and just rest up after the frantic running around of the last three days, I had a nice long shower and washed my hair got all the hairspray out of it, and tried to soothe my itching bites, I made the mistake of looking in the mirror when I got home from the wedding, I wouldn’t say the wedding hair had done me any favours, it was just one frizzy mess by then, which is very unusual for my hair. Yuk!
We were then delighted to welcome the Bride and Groom for a short visit before they started their long drive home to Chicago, they were in extremely good spirits and we talked about their gifts, in particular the cookbook that Elisabet had put together for them with contributions from the family, recipes in Icelandic and English, and photos of the family. I was very happy to have contributed as did my brother It was a lovely book and they were so over the moon about it.
They left us about an hour later and we decided it was time for a drink and to sit outside on the veranda with the amazing view in the sunshine. At the salon the day before the girls had been telling us that they had had no summer up until just recently, so it looks like we were very lucky with the weather.
Then a text message arrived from Amma Stina, could they come and visit with us after they had been out to eat? They turned up later and we did the whole dog introduction thing, bark bark, but eventually she settled down again. It was a lovely visit and once again it drove home to me that I really need to get this language thing sorted out because even though I understand some things, I miss so much! After they left we had some dinner and a couple more drinks, watched a daft movie and had a much needed early night.
But not before being scared out of our wits for a minute or two, when the dogs both started barking like crazy. They have exceptional hearing and had barked long before cars arrived outside the house. We had been warned that there were bears in the forest, and to make sure that the veranda door was locked before we went to bed, because bears had been known to try and get into the house. I was convinced we were going to see a bear on the veranda. It was very funny looking back on it, needless to say there was nothing we could see out there….. but it took us a while to settle down again and the dogs didn’t have a repeat performance, so it was probably something from a little distance away.
The house we stayed in was just wonderful, full of character with a wraparound balcony and a great space outside with hammocks and seating areas as well as access to the woods and lots of potential for walking. And the view was just phenomenal.
