10/12/2024 – The Rambling Sloth 🦥

I barely slept a wink…. 🙄 I think I was wired on caffeine, either from the food or alcohol free beer, last night.

I had my earplugs in and I heard every single car that passed, every plane that took off from Reykjavik local airport, every street sweeper and every single noise that my husband made as he slept.

I was plugged into something all night.

The alarm was set for 2.30am and it went off all too soon.

I have been pre-sad for 11th December for a while now.

I have been so lucky to have so many amazing trips in the latter half of this year.

Today was my last trip of 2024.

All packed and ready to go.

The reception of hotel is an extension on the side of a traditional Icelandic building. Our hotel was great, very central and very comfy.

This beautiful blue tree outside our hotel.

We only had to walk around the corner to the aptly named, bus stop number 1. This is situated at Reykjavik City Hall.

The water around City Hall is now ice and the ice is breaking up and moving.

It’s even pushing the bricks up.

It’s about 3.20am.

I scooted round the side of City Hall to the big lake and the view was beautiful!

We got to the airport about 4.30am.

Thought Craig had found his twin 😆 he said it looked like me being really grumpy.

We had some food once we were through security and were boarding for 7am. It all went like clockwork to be honest.

I feel like you can learn a lot from someone’s personality, by their footwear. This pic was to show the legroom we had thanks to Craig being the tallest person ever.

But back to the shoes… Or boots.

I’m a worrier.

I need to be able to hike in them, have dry, warm feet and for them to still look good, despite all the functionality. I watched women get on the flight in trainers and uggs. I laughed at my reaction. How did they cope when it rained? When it was cold? When it was icy? When it was muddy? 😆😆😆 do they even consider these scenarios when making footwear decisions?!?

It started to rain as we left but it was still much milder than it was when we arrived.

I was freezing on the plane. I was right next to the emergency door and there was a draft… is that even a thing?!?! Well it was…. I was soooo cold!

Sunrise was beautiful!

As we reached Scotland, the mountains started to appear above the clouds… firs the Isle of Skye and then Glencoe.

Then further down towards Loch Lomond.

And here is beautiful Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond to the right. It was a stunning view.

As we came into Glasgow, the fog appeared.

Here are some tower blocks about the fog.

It was pea soup when we landed. I didn’t realise we would still land in fog that dense.

Apart from the cold this morning, we are really impressed with IcelandAir. We would highly recommend them and also to use a a layover for a trip to the States or Canada.

It took about 15 minutes to get off the plane. Either the fog affected things or it was like they weren’t expecting us.

It took about 10 minutes to get the steps up to the plane… then they had to grit them and grit the walkway into the terminal building.

We passed through passport control seamlessly.

Then we got to the baggage hall… and waited.

And waited….

20 minutes later, while we all wait at the Reykjavik baggage reclaim belt 3… watching it go round and round and round empty, they announce that actually it’s going round on number 1!!

Our lovely neighbour Jim had come up to collect us and he’d had to drive around in circles for the best part of an hour!

We are so grateful to our neighbour Louise for moving in while we’re away and to her mum, Holly, for walking them when she is at work!

Without them and our lovely in-laws, we wouldn’t be able to get away together.

I’ve been cleaning and unpacking since we got back until we sat down, by the light of the Christmas tree, to catch up on the shows we’ve been watching. We will crash soon!!

Iceland was every bit as good the second time, as it was, the first.

Some pics to finish off….