Christmas in Iceland - 15.12.1940, Síða 33

tfleios from Iceland
Continued from Page 6.
Just when you are dreading the necessity of skating again either it thaws or the local
ice-company comes and cuts practically all the ice from the surface of the lake for com-
mercial purposes.
And there are all sorts of other attractions. Beauty treatment for example. Do you
require mud baths? Here, hot mud baths are always available at some selected points
and cold mud baths practically always available everywhere. Beauty itself? Northern
lights, glamourous sunsets, storm affects, all on tap. Exitement? Snow blizzards or sand
storms, whatever you wish. Where else can you see a lovely surise when taking a late
breakfast or watch the colours of the sunset on the hills over your coffee after lunch?
In short, we can provide practically every Inconvenience modern civilisation insists we
do without.
And, ofcourse, if you like mutton — or fish — or fish — or mutton?
But enough of these sordid commercial considerations. Let us think about Christ-
mas. Shall I survive as long as I did last Christmas (three o’clook in a battery mess,
finished by three glasses of gift champagne)? Or not? On past standards I should be
dead by now, but then my resistance has been increased, I should hope.
But, what I should love would be a nice old fashioned childrens party. The children
here are very beautiful and, if I may lapse into sentimentality for once, I should like
to hear Nuts-in-May in Icelandic, to teach a small child how to play Hunt-the-Slipper
for the first time. Do they have crackers here? Dothe children wear paper caps and eat
chocolate biscuits and trifle simultaneously? Do the small boys stand about shyly and
little girls run screaming to and fro in acothe detriment of their party suits, and the
little girls run screaming to and fro in acompletely selfpossessed manner? And is some-
one always sick, or tired too soon, or prepared to weep for his or her nurse on the
slightest provocation?
And the preparations, the hectic excitement in the kitchen, hanging up the paper
streams, moving the furniture —, I can remember nothing more exciting than the first
moments of anticipation as one arrived, clean, excited, and ready for anything. The house-
familiar, yet strange, all the other children one knew so different in their party frocks.
Ishould like an old-fashioned childrens party and we shall have another — someday.
Your loving son,
Harold.
Lapse in Iceland
An officer, well known in political circles
and a great lover of Iceland, was lost in the
beginning of December. After he had been
absent for three days he was sighted from the
air sitting in his underclothes on the very
top of the biggest glacier in the interior.
When eventually a rescue party reached the
remote and desolate spot, after many days
of weary wandering, the first question they
asked him was, “Aren’t you cold?” Whereup-
CHRISTMAS IN ICELAND
on he jumped to his feet with a large block
of ice frozen on the seat of his “Aertex” pants,
beat the air frenziedly with his arms and
uttered a long warbling note similar to the
mating call of the Cow-eyed, crested Cockatoo
which is heard only in Iceland and Nova
Zemlya.
“We-ee-ee-ee-ee”, he wailed, and then
scornfully spitting an icicle he shouted incre-
dulously” Cold? Have you all gone cazy?
I’m absolutely blistered with heat and I’ve
come up here because its just a trifle cooler
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