Happy New Year

After a relative quiet saying farewell to the old year and welcoming in of the new last night, today we decided to go to the beach and walk along the sands at Troon.  We both really enjoy the beach in the winter time and today we weren’t the only ones to have the idea, with the tide high even Troons long sands seemed busier than usual and as if to prove that it was cold there was even ice on the beach. 

One of my Christmas presents came along with us, a camera, the sweetest little camera I have ever seen, it is a digital Leica M3, yes that iconic camera of the 1950′s has been born again in digital form a stunning 1:2.5 scale.  I had been itching to try it out, and although there was one point when I missed not having an optical zoom, it was by far a better camera to have today as usually after a couple of miles of walking I am complaining of the weight of the other one around my neck!

The New Year Saga

One of the big reasons for going to Iceland was to experience their New Year.  Hubby made the trip in 2000 and has talked about it every New Year we have shared, so this year I was too see rather than just hear what he was going on about.

First order of the day, before any celebrations could begin was getting Hubby into his kilt.  Dress was to be smart casual so no Bonnie Prince Charlie jacket, and the lack of kilt pin was my fault, I totally forgot to pack it.

 

Then it was off for our New Year’s Eve meal, traditionally lamb.  Then on to a bus to travel to a point overlooking the city to see the fireworks, this is what Reykjavik is all about at New Year.

Fireworks are only sold at this time of year and only sold by the fire service and there must hardly be a home in the city that doesn’t set them off.  It is hard to describe the amount of fireworks, and unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me and Hubby’s camera wasn’t able to catch the displays, but every inch of sky above the city had not just one or two fireworks shooting into the air, but dozens.  The air become thick with the smell of cordite and despite being some distance from the fireworks themselves the sound of them was unceasing.  Try doing an image search for New Year fireworks in Reykjavik, the pictures you will see are not just some lucky snap shot of when everyone’s fireworks happened to go off at the same time, the sky is like that for at least an hour is not more.

The answer to the question by the way is – thermal longjohns, we were in Iceland, it was the middle of winter, the wind was howling!