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Continue reading →: Back to the European mainlandSeyðisfjörður is one of my favourite towns in Iceland, with its colourful wooden houses, hotels and cafes nestled around the head of the fjord with the curtain of steep snowy mountains almost surrounding it. But it gets wild weather, though fortunately not while I was there. There was one fine…
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Continue reading →: Round the fjords, to the ferry portI met a German couple in their own self-converted van in Djúpivogur heading for the same ferry as I was, we have a lot of travel in common, and are a similar age. They wanted some information about the Faroes, as they will stop off there on the way back…
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Continue reading →: Into Eastern IcelandSnow fell pretty much continually from Monday morning onwards this week. There was much more than was forecast, though I think weather forecasting here, especially around the coast, is a much less reliable affair. On Monday I drove from Vik to Höfn along Highway 1 in my first experience of…
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Continue reading →: Codex 1962 by Sjón
translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb and published in 2016 This is my last of Sjón‘s English translations and I’ve greatly enjoyed every one of them. Sjón is my favourite Icelandic writer. I’d saved this until I was in Iceland, and it went down particularly well. Though at 530…
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Continue reading →: Heimaey – Vestmann IslandsThere’s two ways to look at my decision to travel around Iceland at this time of year; adventurous and exiting or foolhardy and ignorant. Older now, I tend towards the latter of those views. Though the Dylan words (‘older then, younger than that now’) reverberate in my head it’s seems…
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Continue reading →: Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland edited by Lavinia Greenlaw
published in 2011 – a collection of journals William Morris (1834 – 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, socialist activist, and, of course, writer. He was greatly influenced in his love for Iceland by his University languages tutor Eiríkur Magnússon, who became a close friend. He is recognised…
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Continue reading →: In The CityI wrote in the last post that I thought 95% of the campervans on the Iceland roads at the moment were rentals, but it’s more than that. I’m at the Reykjavik campsite at the moment and there’s about a hundred vans here each night. They all roll in between about…
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Continue reading →: Fall, Bomb, Fall by Gerrit Kouwenaar
translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison & published September 2025 Kraus’s ambitious novel is based around her own childhood in 1960s Connecticut, and then later in her life in the north of Minnesota. It’s in three distinct parts. In the first, Jasper and Emma Greene and their daughters, Catt…
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Continue reading →: The Four Spent The Day Together by Chris Kraus
Contemporary American Literature published October 2025 Kraus’s ambitious novel is based around her own childhood in 1960s Connecticut, and then later in her life in the north of Minnesota. It’s in three distinct parts. In the first, Jasper and Emma Greene and their daughters, Catt and Carla, move from the…
To live more widely
supera superiora sequi
SafeReturnDoubtful is my alias.
Where is Andy?
I was so much older then…
Quote of the Week
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, ‘What road do I take?’ The cat asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it really doesn’t matter, does it?’
Lewis Carroll
Safe Return Doubtful 