Where are we?

We arrived at Gatwick airport yesterday morning with that specific gnawing hunger you get when you get up too early in the morning! 

Our flight’s check-in was, rather bizarrely, in an area of the airport almost exclusively reserved for flights to China. And, of course, China, as a result of the Coronavirus, is a place where people are presently a little wary of travelling. The check-in zone was a somewhat eerie sight, almost empty but for a few people wearing face masks. I was a little perturbed that the area felt so hot. The woman behind our desk was fanning herself keenly. It strikes me the one thing you don’t want from an area where a virus might be trying to transmit and mutate is a hot, moist environment. Maybe I’m being paranoid? 

Funnily enough, on the way to the airport, I’d watched a series of terribly moving images featuring hundreds of people in the Wuhan district frantically shouting messages of support and encouragement to each other from their tower block windows. Each apartment, of course, is a prison cell. They shout “add oil” to each other, which I assume is a way of saying “have courage.” It must be absolutely terrifying to be quarantined in your own flat, helplessly peering from your window into a potentially disintegrating world. 

I bought a camera case from Dixons, reluctantly acknowledging that mine has fallen apart. It’s been a hugely expensive month. The man behind the counter seemed rather shocked when I declined his demand to provide him with a boarding pass which I’m pretty convinced is just a cynical attempt to collect more data about me. I recently discovered that handing over one’s boarding pass in these situations is not actually a legal requirement, so, because I’m a contrary bugger, I’ve stopped doing so! I would rather tell the world via this blog what I purchase in airports! 

The ludicrous internet Social Justice Warriors have moved on to their next targets in the crafting world. It is no surprise to me, sadly, that both targets are men. One of them has been torn apart for designing a pattern called Spice Market. I assume his crime is cultural appropriation or insensitivity to those who work in spice markets.

The other “education” work they’re selflessly carrying out is a peach of an own goal on their part - and absolute proof (if any were needed) that they are not just fuelled by rancid misandry, but that few of them actually bother to find out basic facts before their addiction to outrage forces them to wade in and comment on a rumour based on a half-fact based on a prejudice-fuelled lie. 

The brief headline is that a guy called James wrote a book filled with knitting patterns and recipes for cake. The book came out last year and was successful. A couple of weeks ago, James and his husband (a doctor) were interviewed on a Channel 4 show called How To Lose Weight Well, and asked if knitting could actually help you lose weight. Their response was that any weight loss would be negligible but that, if you lived a sedentary life for whatever reason, doing something with your hands would almost certainly be better than doing nothing at all. 

Before the show was even screened, the SJWs moved in and James was accused of fat-shaming. Before long, a rumour started to circulate that his cake recipe book was actually a diet book which told women how to live their lives. Just like in Nathan’s case, if it hadn’t generated such a damaging tidal wave of vitriolic hatred, their uninformed response would have been funny. And actually, now that I understand the motivation and tragic modus operandi of the SJWs, my sense of humour about them has partially

returned. 

Obviously it was mere seconds before James’ gender was brought into proceedings. Words like “mansplaining” “misogynist” and “bully” were bandied around gleefully. There were even threats of violence towards him. But don’t take my word for it before becoming incensed on James’ part: get out there and read the actual facts. Do what no self-respecting SJW would do!! 

Of course, there’s a great deal of pain lurking behind my flippant remarks. The experience we lived through over the summer nearly cost both of us our lives and it’s certainly the reason why I don’t write this blog very often. The sense of helplessness I felt as Nathan was torn limb from limb was utterly crushing and still, six months on, I feel my stomach clenching. 

For what it’s worth, the radio 4 documentary about Nathan’s experience is being broadcast on Sunday, so you can hear all about it in his own words. It was recorded whilst we were in the thick of the hell, so heaven knows how we’ll come across. But here’s the link. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d70h

But that’s enough about that! 

Where did the flight from Heathrow actually take us?

Iceland. ICELAND!! 

Seen from the air, Iceland is a white tundra. Hills and mountains dusted with icing sugar rise from deep blue lakes. Huge plumes of white steam burst out of the ground. It’s deeply other-worldly and like nowhere I’ve ever visited. 

We were picked up from the airport by Karl, the husband of Thoranna, with whom we are staying. The sun was low in the sky as we touched down. It turned everything a glorious shade of orange. 

Karl told us that there’s a huge amount of tectonic activity on Iceland at the moment, including, to my surprise, earthquakes. I don’t know why this information surprised me so much. Iceland, after all, is known as the land of fire and ice. 

Karl drove us back to the house he shares with Thoranna and their two wonderful children, Ysold and Isak. Thoranna and Nathan were in a production of the Rocky Horror Show some twenty years ago and she’s been trying to get him to come to Iceland ever since. 

They live in what the Brits might call a Scandinavian-style house. From what I can gather, most people over here do. Big, open, communal bungalow spaces seem to be the fashion, with light pouring in from all angles. 

Obviously we came to Iceland because we’re desperate to see the Northern lights. They’ve been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember, and, after seeing Monument Valley, a ghost town and a total eclipse in America in 2018 and then meeting Björn from ABBA, I’ve got the bug for ticking off more! 

We we sitting around the kitchen table when Ysold ran in to say that the lights were in the sky, so we ran out into the street to see a feint green arc stretching across the night sky. It wasn’t dancing or morphing into different shapes and it was competing with the street lamps and the general glow of Reykjavík in the distance, but it was there. I saw the Northern Lights. Yay! 

We had supper with Thoranna’s wonderful mother and father. The mum is a highly talented knitter and she and Nathan were able to have long, nerdy chats on the subject.

We have a Northern Lights app on Nathan’s phone which suddenly started glowing red, suggesting there was a 30% chance of seeing the lights where we were - if there were clear skies. 

A quick look out of the window assured us that there were, indeed, clear skies, so Thoranna bundled us into her car and drove us to a peninsular on the very west of Iceland where she (rightly) said there’d be no light pollution. And suddenly the Northern Lights were there in the sky. Another ribbon of green, but this time wider and far clearer. 

A small gathering of people had their cameras fixed on the sky, and long exposures were generating very lovely results. I just wasn’t set up to take anything decent on my own camera. I didn’t have a tripod, my hands were freezing and I couldn’t see any of the buttons or controls because it was so dark! 

Thoranna then decided it might be good to drive to an even darker location: a golf club she knew in the middle of nowhere... and that’s when the light show kicked off in force. To put what we saw into context, the Northern Lights do not appear to order, they weren’t really predicted to appear at all last night and yet, Thoranna (an Icelander) said it was one of the best displays she’d ever seen. 

The sky was filled with milky ripples and flashes. A glowing staircase suddenly appeared, with scalloped edges, and then fiery ribbons of mint green started dripping down from the heavens, dancing, bobbing, rolling. Sometimes the lights were mere smudges. Sometimes they were sharply-defined spears shooting upwards, directly above our heads. And then, almost as soon as the glorious display had started, it faded, firstly into a gossamer haze and then into the blackness. We felt truly blessed. 

It’s funny: I knew we were going to see them and I knew we were going to see them in a spectacular way. Perhaps I threw this desire out into the universe. Perhaps it’s just because I believe in magic. But magic, we saw.