Haddock

Old anthurium, pavement paw marks, Sorrento and rough seas.

Another loop around the hill. I went down to sea level thrice and back up to the top of the hills. I was on a dinner mission, headed to Robert's in Dalkey to get some haddock, and took the opportunity to make it a 10 km walk, on Trump's 100th day.

Early on, I met a family of five at the top of the Cat's Ladder, where they asked me for directions to the nearest DART station with emphasis on routes with the least traffic. The adult accents were foreign, I presumed tourists, so I showed them the way with Walkmeter on my iPhone before I headed down to Coliemore Harbour. The youngest of the three kids fell over and the kids and I exchanged a bit of banter in perfect English as the eldest told me their ages to lend weight to the need to get the howling five year old to a train. On my way back up from the sea, I met them at Khyber Pass; they had changed their plans and were consulting a paper map. I carried on back up to Telegraph Hill and then went back down again, cutting through Sorrento Park where I met them a third time. I crossed the road, heading back down to sea level in Dylan's Park. And of course, I met them for a fourth time as I left the park. From there I went to Dalkey to buy the fish. And wouldn't you know it, I met them again 20 minutes later for the fifth and final time on Coliemore Road. Which is when I heard the 9 year old use the word 'stalking'. I wondered about that (a lot) on the last two kilometres walking home.

Once home, relaxation in mind, I decided a bath was better than a trip to the jacuzzi in Fitzpatrick's hotel. Best not to dwell on why there's dog shampoo in our bathroom? It was hidden under the anthuriums that have lived there since the Sydney Olympics. Plus a zinc pot of them that arrived two years ago when colleagues in America kindly sent me 'get well' flowers. In a strange coincidence, a local florist chose potted anthuriums, not understanding that a near death biopsy infection, followed by a diagnosis of prostate cancer was why Interflora got involved in the first place. There are three pots still thriving in the light at the top of the house.

Reykjavík

There's something about the grandeur, the isolation and the simplicity of Iceland that reminds me of things I saw in New Zealand. The outdoors is the lifestyle, perhaps. Or maybe the tin rooves are common.

There's also something ironic about having your heating on and the windows open - is it because geothermal energy is so cheap? And water conservation isn't high on the priority list either.

We went to the Perlan revolving restaurant on a water tank but the revolving restaurant was closed because the geothermal hot water storage tank is being upgraded to include a museum. This is a practical nation, people who are finding novel ways to entertain the tourists who outnumber them by 4 or maybe 5:1. And it must have been such pragmatism that guided them to build the bejewelled Harpan Concert Hall during the worst of the 2008 recession.

Overheard at breakfast, an Irish contender for Private Eve's Pseuds Corner - "O'Donnovan Rossa was bourgeois."

Not puffin or minke or foal but tomato juice, carrot juice, double espresso, miso soup, pickled herring and a boiled egg - breakfast buffets are fun, especially after a 6 km sunrise walk on Reykjavik's icy Saebraut seafront pathways, in April snow flurries. I was happy to see a large flock of Eider down on the sea below me and a pair of Whooping Swans flew past, birds I don't normally encounter.

People had placed inukshuks along the coast and the snowy mountains on the other side of the bay dominated the view, just being there, like this sentence. 

"Independent People": how excited and proud were Icelanders when Halldor Laxness won the 1955 Nobel prize for literature, just eleven years after independence from Denmark? Sixty years on, it seems that beating both England and Ireland in soccer have assumed more importance to their daily lives.

PS Here's a tip for managing the expense of Iceland - budget for a seven day trip and stay only three.