Inflight

[shewhomust]

It was a long drive to Manchester, what with roadworks and traffic and - allegedly, according to the road signs - 'Animals on the road' (over a distance of several miles) and, most of all, simply being aware that we had a deadline to meet and a plane to catch. And, because this is how these things are organised, there was a long wait at the airport, during which we ate at a restaurant called 'giraffe' (as in 'I like giraffes, but I couldn't eat a whole one') good food and charming service and eventually we were called to the gate just as the setting sun was turning the hazy sky apricot.

We waited in the plane as darkness fell, then took off into a red sunset and flew over a countryside wearing black silk embroidered with gold sequins. As we flew northwards it grew lighter, until there was daylight above the clouds, and then sea below them. Our first real sight of Iceland was of a low expanse of black - what? There was nothng to give any sense of scale, but it could have been rocks, or treacle, with a pale scum (or maybe lichen) floating on top. (Turned out to be lava, and moss so thick it looked as if it had been oured on from a jug, but I would never have guessed that).

We landed at Keflavik by daylight, with a low sun lighting fires behind all the windows of the terminal building. The shuttle from the hotel drove us through the twilight to the Northern Lights hotel, past the sculpture of an egg from Bosch's Garden of Earthy Delights, through verges which - after that first sight - were astonishingly green, and thick with drifts of blue flowers: could they possibly be lupins?