What a superb gathering – musically; the location with all Iceland had to offer; and meeting and making friends old and new.

The accommodation was perfect for our needs. We could play late into the night without disturbing anyone and sleep in as long as you needed in the morning to recover. Iceland has a stark, austere beauty with the most amazing sights – the hot springs at Geysir exploding water and steam every 4 to 6 minutes; the incredible double waterfall at Gulfoss; swimming in the Blue Lagoon geothermal pool; the pretty little churches dotted all over the island; the golf courses carved out of the most unforgiving landscape with thermal vents belching steam on the hillsides right above the fairways and greens; and, of course, an active volcano which was changing even as we were there. For me, it was a toss-up between: standing at the foot of the volcano, looking up at the ash cloud and clouds of steam generated by lava under the ice; or swimming in the milky blue waters of an open air geothermal pool set in the midst of the volcanic rocks.

There were some very special musical memories: walking slowly up the hill with our instruments, to be overtaken by a couple of young Iclelanders also carrying a guitar. We started chatting about who we were, Mudcat, their musical interests and the like, and they came with us to join our session for an hour or so. This same session had what seemed, at first, to be a large, noisy group in another part of the bar. They joined in singing and dancing to some of the well known tunes. They turned out to be a choir from the Faroe Islands, on tour. They requested a song and the whole pub went quiet as Letty, who is Dutch, gave a beautiful rendition Siúil a Ruin in Gaelic for a bunch of Faroese in Iceland. We, in return, asked them to sing and they gave us two songs full of wonderful harmonies. The night ended with all of us and the Faroese dancing in a big circle to a traditional Faroe Island song

Skarpi & Gunna invited us to their house for a barbecue where we had whale meat (delicious) and also to meet some musicians who brought some Icelandic instruments - langspil or langspiel, similar to a bowed dulcimer - which they let us try. I think managed a fair approximation of the tune they were playing.

Our final evening saw a ceilidh for the neighbouring families, with Bill successfully explaining all the dances even though he did it in Geordie. As Letty, Andrea, Skarpi and myself were required to make up the numbers in the dances, Ray gave a sterling performance, mostly solo, on the accordion throughout the evening.

It was great to meet up again with Skarpi, Wolfgang, Letty and Bill again and lovely to meet Andrea and Ray for the first time.

Thanks Skarpi for organising a very special gathering.


Doug