Strange name! But it's the name of one of my favourite flowers. I like the different colours and shapes and lucky me, Ingólfur's dad likes those flowers, too. So there is quite a variety of those in the garden, some in places where they're not supposed to be, but well, that's something to work on later. For now I enjoy the beauty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After 7 years Fjördís left us today. Her owner has been thinking about exporting her to Austria and getting a bit of refreshtraining for her until then. Sjarmi, Fjördís' son, is at the same place and they'll move to another country together. All the best for you and have a safe trip!

 

 

 

 

... your horses? you might ask. 
Well, they are having a perfect time without us in the big field with enough food. They are happy to see us but even happier when we leave again without going for a ride. Sigtýr wasn't that lucky today, but I think he liked the exercise.
Whilst Ingólfur and Sigtýr went for a ride I saw some sheep strolling into our meadow. There aren't any sheep supposed to be roaming free in Húsavík land, so these were clearly trespassing. Looks like the horses didn't like to have them around either as they just ran as fast as they could and chased them out of their meadow. Haven't seen anything like that before and don't think the sheep will be back anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gleðilega Þjóðhátið! It's the Icelandic Nationalday today and of course you have to raise the flag when you've got a flagpole in your garden!  Nice change and the weather was fantastic.
We were lucky enough to get an invitation from Atli, Sigga's dad, to come and watch when the cows were allowed outside for the first time this year. That's always interesting to watch and the cows definitely love to get their freedom back. They run, buck, fight and run a bit more. There are always a few young one which have to learn to walk through the tunnel under the road and don't always get it with the first try. They need to be driven through if they don't follow the older ones. Got quite some nice pics.
Later today I started my gardening project, taking plants out, moving some, giving some away. There'll be enough to do for me the next weeks... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The big day's here! We are moving. Last things to take with us from the old flat are my cacti and our budgie. Then we cleaned everything, not going to leave a mess behind. Strange feeling to say Goodbye, but a good one to finally move to our new place. There's still a lot of work to do there, but the biggest things are finished. We still have to wait for our kitchensink and 2 chairs for the living room, have to decide which countertop we want to have and so on. But that's just something to work on. And of course I have to rearange a few things in the garden... Think I'll leave the guys to the indoor stuff and work outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearly finished! Now it was time to dig up my flowers, especially my roses which were supposed to come with me. There are already some roses in our new garden, but there's definitely place for more. And I'm not going to leave any behind, they would just been thrown away by the new owners. So best to dig them up and move them to the new place. Got some big buckets and will keep them in there with some water until I can put them to the ground again. Hope they'll survive. All of them got a nametag so no chance to mix them up at the new place. The flat's nearly empty and we'll probably sleep at our new place this night. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I got a message that Snilld finally gave birth to her lambs and guess what, it was 2 white rams! Which is a pitty as these will be her last lambs, she's getting too old for having more. Well, hope she'll enjoy the summer in the mountains!
Laufey and Óli lent us a hand and helped with packing and moving stuff. The guys put up the dinnertable, chairs and sofa at the new place whilst we stuffed things in a lot of boxes. Won't be fun to unpack again... But it was actually nice to start putting the furniture in place. 
In the evening we went to have a look at my lambs, but Snilld wasn't too eager to meet us. Got a glimpse at least. When arriving back home we saw that Hugleikur was busy trying to repair the fence on his own. Maybe we can train him a bit better in this and use him as a fencing helper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the paintjob finished it was time to finish the flooring on the groundfloor. Ingólfur and his dad did a great job there whilst I started to pack our stuff at the old place. Started with the glasses in our bar. Didn't know we had that many and I had to pack each and every of them into a sheet of paper and then into a box. No fun, but I think it'll be even worse unpacking them again. My hands were black from the printing ink and I fear the glasses have some black fingerprints which means I'll have to wash all of them. Well, I'll manage! 
Ingólfur had started to put the kitchen cupboards together and the oven was put in place when I had some sparetime to come over and help. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kitchen was the next place to take care of and I had a rather bad headache about me probably not measuring right before ordering all the kitchen furnishings. Especially about not having a close look where the water connection and the sink pipe were located exactly. Well, too late to change things so we had to make the best of what we had. Ingólfur checked the sink pipe and decided to get help from someone actually knowing about things like that. That was a great idea as the tiny repair/change we wanted to do ended in a major repair. But the good thing is, now everything is in place and hopefully not going to leak anytime in the near future. Was quite interesting to have a look inside the old sink pipe... There was little room left for water, everything filled with old grease.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things are going fast now! The painter and decorator had spackled the wall in the living room and kitchen and even the ceiling where the kitchen island had been. So that was ready to be painted as the upperfloor was, too. Got great helpers from Akureyri, which were no time painting the ceilings, hallways and rooms. I had to speed up removing the rest of the wallpaper so the small room would be ready for the paintjob.
Then Ingólfur and his dad started to put out the flooring, which looks actually even better than I had hoped. 
Last but not least we had to cast plaster the kitchenfloor before we will be able to put a new flooring in there. 
Now on day 13 the upperfloor is more or less ready to be filled with stuff and downstairs we can start putting in the flooring. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good to be owner of a horsetrailer and have access to a smaller trailer, too. So we didn't have to collect all the waste in a big pile but could put it into the trailers straight away when moving it out off the house. Don't remember how many trips to the waste place we already did, but quite a lot and there will be more.
Whilst Ingólfur was filling holes in the walls I used the time to plant my potatoes in a brand new field. We'll see how that'll go this year. I usually don't use fertilizer, which has suited me quite well.
When back home our friend Bjössi had stopped by to help us move the plug from the middle of the floor to the wall. At least he tried. Will have to get an electrician to help us with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of lucky horses were moved to their summerplace to be today. Fjöður and Fjördís went to Hagi to join Vordís and Pandóra and the others down to the seaside, where they'll be so lucky to get unlimited grass for the time to be (we'll change that the moment we have actually time to ride again). 
And after a few days break Jón stopped by to help us again. Think it was rather difficult for him to watch us tear the things he made with his own hands appart. He used a quite unusual tool to rid us off the last pieces of cork.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whilst our horses are enjoying the great weather and the fact that we are not bothering them at all, we kept on working at our new place. Next step was to remove the cork flooring from the kitchen. As I said before, Jón was good at making stuff last and definitely not saving glue... It was awful trying to remove the cork tiles with a hammer and a chisel, getting stampsized parts off at once. Tiring and made me thing of giving up, but somebody had to remove that stuff. 
Today we good great helpers as Hulda and Jói stopped by and even came with their own tools. Hulda removed the mosaic tiles from the wall whilst Jói worked on the floor or helped Ingólfur with removing cupboards. We broke the kitchen island down and will have to move the electric socket from the middle of the kitchen to the wall where our cooktop will be. Next step order a plasterer and painter to smooth the walls that had a wooden panelling and the ceiling where the kitchen island was attached and try to get an electrician to move the socket.
Roughly 2 weeks to go...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we went to order some paint for our walls my phone rang and Ella at Hólmavað farm told me, there's something not the way it should be with my sheep. I was worried and asked if Snilld has to be put down, but Ella just laughed and told me we'd soon get lambs as her udder had more than doubled in size which is a sign of giving birth soon. The problem was, she was already outside for quite some time and we had to go and get her back to the stable. As we were going to move some horses to Hagi anyway we just decided to get Snilld on the way back home. 
Vordís and Pandóra were happy to get to the summer pasture. Have to monitor Vordís carefully as she's supposed to give birth in the end of July but usually is in foal for just about 10,5 months. 
At Hólmavað we went down to the fields by the river, called Snilld and then moved her in the horsetrailer. She wasn't happy about that, but it was easier to get her back home like this than trying to walk her there. No chance for her to escape ;) Now we'll have to wait and see when she'll have her lambs (probably rams again...)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the first 4 days are over and in my opinion we've managed more than I was hoping for. We removed the carpet from the living room downstairs, the staircase and 2 bedrooms upstairs, removed the wood panelling in the living room, kitchen and one bedroom, opened again inbetween the kitchen and living room, removed the wallpaper Ingólfur chose when he was 6 years old (sorry about that) and threw away a bunch of furniture, which wasn't any use anymore.
Ingólfur started to take down the old kitchen his dad built himself. Not easy to do so as at the time it was built (around 1963) chipboards weren't easy to get and expensive. So he made all the boards himself with 2 layers of a very thin, but strong material and strips of wood inbetween. Of course he used a lot of glue and he was able to hide the screws in the boards making it impossible to screw things apart. Well, the sledgehammer came in very useful...