Hot pots and horses

Well, this blog-entry is pretty late... but it was officially the First Day Of Summer on 19 March, which is an Icelandic National Holiday. As it happens, I had actually been working in the West Fjorður, but at the end of the day I dashed back to town (a 3 hour dash!) and then my friend Marí and I spent the next 4 hours in this hot-pot, or heittur pottur as is said over here. Not a bad way to celebrate the return of the sun, we thought.

And I really should introduce my new four-legged pal: meet Embla the Icelandic horse.

She is just being borrowed by me... but what a great horse, and how nice to ride again after several horse-less years! However, it´s not quite like 'riding a bike again' as over here there is a different style of riding: Icelandic horses do a rather comfortable 4-step gait called 'tölt', in addition to the regular 2-step trot that a horse normally does. Long and short of it is that tölt is tremendously comfortable to ride, (there´s none of this 'up-down-up-down', etc of trot), and the horses are - mostly! - sensible, relaxed and calm. The Icelandic horse has a 4 month holiday between September and January, which is really great for them. At this time they are just out on the land, doing what horses love best: eating and relaxing. It makes them very happy to work for the rest of the year, and sets them up well for the cold winter as they grow big hairy coats during this non-ridden time.

So, in a country where horses are both eaten and ridden, people here have much respect for their horses. In Stykkishólmur recently there was even a church service to bless the horses (no, the horses didn´t exactly go into church, but they all went to the church and ate some grass in the fields whilst the service went ahead...).