Tuesday 7th July
Today is my birthday. Today is the day Maggi died. He had gone fishing on Sunday in the trawler and for some reason on Monday night it sank. The crew had time to don immersion suits….. But Maggi didn’t survive.

We’re finishing the last 2 gardens today. So that’s 5 gardens in 4 days – approximately 40hours of mowing and strimming!!
Ása is with Maggi’s son Bjössi who was also on the trawler when it sank. It’s a sad day and the flags in the village are at half mast. Ása’s cousin and his mother come back to the village, they were only here at the weekend. We’re expecting Ása’s mother, brother and her sister. We’ve offered to run the B&B for the next couple of days so we need to be available in the evening for booking in and at breakfast for ‘local’ knowledge of the area.
Wednesday 8th July
Today we – well Daz – puts together some Ikea furniture that Maggi brought back from Reykjavik on Saturday and I do the laundry and strip beds so Emmalea can get on with other stuff. Normally Ása would run breakfast from 8ish onwards and Emilea would start cleaning rooms but without Ása here, Emilea is stuck in the kitchen until after 10. Daz and I bicker for about an hour as to where the shelves should go and even about whether he should leave them for later.
Then we go back to painting our staircase, which we stopped when the weather turned nasty. Ása is off to Isafjordur with her sister to see Maggi before he’s moved to Reykjavik for an autopsy.
Thursday 9th July
Ása has gone to Reykjavik to see Maggi’s children. She’ll be gone a couple of days we think so we get on with the usual chores: more painting, more laundry but today we have a shopping trip to Patreksfjordur planned – the B&B is short of supplies.
Friday 10th July
Today there’s more laundry, more painting, and just checking all is ready for our guests. Some guests last night asked for an early breakfast. We agreed and text Emmalea to let her know. Fortunately we managed to drag ourselves over there just as thecguests were going into breakfast – Emilea looking at us – like ‘WTF?????’ – she’d given us an old number so had no idea what was going on. Later on we’re painting (again) and the famous singer of Bíldudalur starts talking to us in Icelandic. We told him we didn’t understand but he persists and continues gesticulating. We didn’t have a clue what he wanted but there was no sign of him leaving. Finally I called Emilea out to translate – bless him he only wants his ladder back. But clearly Emilea was not to be trusted because he sent someone else over to tell us to return the ladder. But we ain’t finished with it yet!!!
Saturday 11th July
Emilea is doing breakfast with Katerina. We’re there too to do the laundry and for Daz to do his ‘tour guide’ bit – he’s getting pretty good at reeling off ‘best places to visit’ locally. Ása should be back today and Maggi’s funeral will be next Saturday. We have a film session to wind up the day whilst Daz pops off occasionally to greet guests. We watch Magic Mike and Jurassic World.
Sunday 12th July
B&B duties today. The dirty linen is stripped and the beds remade by 1030. Laundry is on the go. It’s looking good – just the cottage to worry about. Ása got back late last night and once all is in order we take some time off. We take a packed lunch and plan a walk up some of the local mounts, in particular Lonfell and Klakkur. Lonfell according to legend is the place where Iceland got its name. But when we get there the cloud cover and imminent rain puts us off. Instead we drive around the Flokalundur nature reserve area for some exploring and walk up to look at a Waterfall and later a river gorge. We then take the coastal road past the ferry to the Snafellnes peninsula and on to Patreksfjörđur.
Monday 13th August
Today we have a full day off and we have a plan. We’ve had breakfast and made our packed lunch and we’re on the road by 0930. We drive to Látrabjarg. It’s the bird cliff. Last time we were there, there was a strong wind and it was really cold. Today it’s warm and barely a breeze. We’re going to walk East along the birdcliff and then down a river valley, turning West when we hit the coast and then back to the car. A 15km walk we think. The bird cliff is amazing as ever with puffins, razorbills, fulmars and their chicks and others we can’t identify.
Down the river valley we’re walking on moss so deep our feet sink several inches.
When we reach the beach there are more birds to watch; dunlins, sanderlings, turnstones and Arctic terns – if we’re identifying them correctly. It is not without a reason Iceland is sometimes called the bird watchers paradise. Up to 250 different species have been spotted and over 70 of them nest here regularly.
Once our walk is done and we say farewell to the puffins, we make our way back to Patreksfjörđur. On the way we spot an Arctic Tern nesting site and stop and spot their chicks.
At Patreksfjörđur we visit ‘World’s edge’ – TripAdvisor’s top restaurant here ( but there are only a handfull to choose from). We try Minke whale for a starter and have foal for our main. I’m sure many of you are throwing up your hands in disgust but these are Icelandic delicacies. However, the whale was overpowered by the sauce although the texture was nice, and the foal was rather bland and a little disappointing.
Tuesday 14th July
Today we’re back to B&B duties. All seems routine until the guests arrive. The family in the triple room want another bed/mattress in their room so we have to go to our house and bring another bed. Then the single occupancy, isn’t single so we need another duvet etc – that’s another raid on our house. And we’d already had to turn a double room into a triple. So we have 17 guests tonight.
We also finally manage to get rid of the wood / cladding we ripped out of house no 2 a couple of weeks ago. We thought the skip man came Wednesday and Saturday. We kept missing Saturday because it’s our day off and when I went to find skip on a Wednesday discovered we’d missed the collection because it’s a Tuesday. But today we finally get it right. The driver brings a big skip to the harbour and waits there for 2 hours, whilst people get rid of their wood and glass. Two truck loads later and the wood pile is gone.