Well, I understood it..but only because it was an abstract piece!!

Hi..yes, I appear to have actually enjoyed the theatre more than Toti as it was more my thing than his and I could interpret it anyway I wanted because I understood about 3 sentences in the whole play! It was about the domestic and emotional situations women find themselves in and was based on some short stories written back in the olden days (which according to T's 8 year old cousin is the 20th century!!). It was lovely to go out and we got to visit both Amma's too, which is always good.
Eli B has been stuck at home with Mummy again today, as our childminder has been poorly this time. He is practising his walking at every opportunity now and has finally mastered the art of pushing his little trolley and not falling over as soon as he takes the first step and pushes it too far, too fast !(he looks really cute!). J has been enjoying theme days at school and they have all been trying different healthy activities and Daddy has been working hard in the 'big city' (to us out-of-towners). The wind is really strong here at the mo' so I have been battling with the weather, which is about as challenging as I get at the moment. I am meeting with the intercultural centre next week, to talk about doing some voluntary work to help other foreigners like myself. It will be good to get out and into a new routine. Especially as I have now unpacked the final box, we have put up pictures on the wall and the spare room actually looks like a bedroom.
Tomorrow my mum and dad will have been married for 48 years..congratulations!!J is going to stay with them in July so is looking forward to catching up with all good friends. And we are too.
Off to more internet stuff now
Love to you all from us all, Byeee! xx

not much to report..!

Hi again..just a note to let you know we are still here coping with all life throws at us.
J has a new friend called Johann (not sure of the spelling) and this has helped him cope with interpersonal difficulties between himself and a few girls in his class. He has learned to ignore them and hey!what-do-you-know..they´ve stopped teasing him, which is really good news. As Derrien said in her recent eml, the same girls will soon be beating a path to our door, for other reasons!
E has has a rotten cold and teeth problems so hasn´t been to his childminders this week. We have been stuck together like glue-walking alot, in the absolutely freezing cold winds. He has started to cruise along the furniture now and practises his walking, with a lot of encouragement (I think he´s quite happy to carry on crawling).
I am still pursuing work but nothing to speak of yet. I have unpacked nearly all the boxes tho!!T and I are thinking of starting our own business in Keflavik but it is still in the thinking, talking and perusing stage.
Our house sale in Mossley is going slowly still-typically our solicitors sent off contacts 2 weeks ago and they never arrived!Why can´t things just not go smoothly for once??!
Still a lot to do in our new house and seemingly little time..the electrics are still a nightmare and drive me to distraction on a regular basis. Its not that they are unsafe..more that half the sockets don´t actually work. We are still plugging everything in with the one adaptor that travels around the house on various appliances!
Off to the big city tomorrow for our night out at the theatre..lets see if I understand more than I did when we saw Cabaret last summer??
Have a lovely weekend everyone and don´t forget mothers day!!
LOVE Joanna and boys xxxx
PS still no pics or webcam stuff..wireless router not working with our PC!!!sorry!xx

just another quickie..hello, that is!!

Hi and hello to you all..the reindeer rocking horse is now complete and Eli B is not in the slightest bit interested in it! He has been into his books in the last few days, which is always a good thing. Jolyon started scouts last night and is ready to go again next week. I have emld lots of people and T has out me in touch with his old GP who is involved in a mental health charity..keep watching this space! I have decided to carry on with my language course once this one finishes in 2 weeks, so T and Jolyon will have to cope with me saying "oh!do I have to go again?" for a few more months. But I always enjoy a challenge and it is good for me (and never as bad as I imagine it to be!!).
This is what my Pops said (says Jolyon who has just returned home)..if you are reading this Pops, it will be a laugh!"Put the dog in the oven..see those..they are called white cabbages". We will never forget that one Pops!!
Off to do more unpacking and more DIY..T and I are actually going out this weekend..not sure I remember what that means..will be fine if I have a piece of bubble-wrap to snuggle and T brings his tools!!
Take care and love to all from Joanna, Tóti, Jolyon and Elijah xx

PS..the answer is 3..

..one to attach a vital piece the wrong way..one to repeat "I have done woodwork you know, Dad" and one to unpack yet another box and think "thankgoodness, thats not my job"...xx

how many Burton-Freysson´s does it take to build a reindeer rocking horse...?

Hello everyone and welcome to one of our more frequently written blogs..all down to Toti chaining himself to the vodafone counter, so it is claimed...I reckon its because he has plugged his other woman in and she is mithering him again, at long last..(she is called hewlett packard..funny name if you ask me but all support in the fight against faffing is welcome.)
So today we have all finally had a day at home together..Jolyon took us to the swimming pool. It is very nice but I am greatly perplexed by the lack of rooves on Icelandic swimming facilities. Elijah too was a bit baffled, especially when it started to rain. Toti reckons it is all quite normal and us anglo-saxons don´t know we are born, swimming in the warmth and under cover..hmm..Later, Jolyon and Toti squished hundreds of boxes and I unpacked another. Aside from the ones staying in the garage, we are now down to the final 3. I don´t think that ís bad going after 10days and 185 items. So our house feels more like a home-albeit one with a lot of DIY lists.
The work situation is frustrating for me at the moment..Reykjavik is just starting to set up community mental health services so I am hoping to make contact with the movers and shakers and actually influence practice. I am hoping to do some voluntary work at the intercultural centre too, but everything moves sooo slowly in Iceland and it is disconcerting to know what one could do and not always be able to create the opportunities to fulfill it. And I have to remind myself that we have only been here 4 weeks. But watch this space-I am not destined to be a housewife for too long, I sincerely hope. ...
On a travel front, we are all looking forward to friends and family visiting and ourselves returning the compliment. Jolyon had a nice chat with his friend Josh this pm..stretched out on the floor, with the phone pinned to one ear..a teenager in the house!!There was even talk of girls at one stage but I had better not go there for fear of recriminations!!...
So keep smilimg :-) folks..we miss you all, as always. Lots of love J and 3 boys xxxxxxxxxx
PS will post some photos soon and will eml all those farewell ones that I have promised everyone..however, everything has the wrong plugs on, the electrics are a bit strange and we have only one electrical adaptor-I´m sure you see my point...! xx

Hopefully it'll stick ...

We've got the equipment fixed. The phone company asked Tóti to leave it with them over the weekend but Tóti refused and chained himself to the counter ... after that it was sorted in 10 minutes. We should be connected by tonight. We're all looking very much forward to a quiet weekend together at last and plan to relax, try the pool, go exploring etc. We'll let you know how it goes.
Tóti, Joanna, Jolyon and Elijah

This isn't funny anymore

We're offline again I'm afraid. The equipment that the phone company gave us broke down so Tóti has to go tomorrow (Friday) and get it replaced. Hopefully we'll be back online by Friday night. This is actually quite funny ... isn't it ... Keep those e-mails coming though.
Joannas' interview yesterday was all very positive. Although she won't start work yet they recognised the knowledge and experience she had to offer and have arranged to keep in touch as well as giving Joanna more contacts to get in touch with. With it being a government funded University, money is tight and things need to be planned well in advance so we're hopeful to have some more news on that front at the start of the next (academic?) year ...
Love you all,
Tóti, Joanna, Jolyon and Elijah

Welcome to the 21st century, folks ...

Yippee, we're connected ... only two hours after the last diary entry, we were finally connected to the net. That simply meanst that these diary entries should become more frequent and you can all start sending e-mails again, safe in the knowledge that they will reach there specified destination ... over and out ...
T, J, J, and E

Still no internet ...

Oh, it all goes so smoothly. Al least the unpacking is going well and we've all got our bedrooms sorted. There will however be at least 368 trips to the tip with empty boxes and used bubblewrap.
Emotionally we're hanging on in there, it's not always easy though. Joannas got an informal job interview at the University of Iceland tomorrow so lets all keep our fingers crossed. Jolyon sometimes gets frustrated by the fact that he doesn't yet speak the language (he's got very high standards for himself ... I wonder which one of us he gets that from ...?) and also that things like maths he's way ahead in, so he gets bored. The teacher is going to give him some harder stuff, though.
Elijah is enjoying childminders and doing very well, no language issues there ... ba, ba, ba, da, da, da and ma, ma, ma is apparently universal as well as eeehhhaaa goo goo dat dat ...
We got our beloved Citroen Picasso yesterday but Joanna says Tóti can have it, she's taking the Beast.
A million things to do and another million things to pay for but we're getting there, one step at a time.
Love to one and all,
Tóti, Joanna, Jolyon Isaac and Elijah Benedikt.

the IT famine continues..but hey!at least we have a kettle!

Hello one and all..as T said on the last entry, sorry for lack of communication but we are still internet-less..much to our collective annoyance. We are promised it this week?
It has been an emotionally draining 3 weeks..at times I have cried and been desperate to go ´home´, at others happy and content and at others, I have how-did-I-get-here moments?. This usually happens when I drive back from my language class, sitting in The Beast, driving towards the Garður sunset and having only understood half (if I´m lucky) of my class.
But it is reassurring to see the boys settling. J is making friends but has tended to stick with the same ones so we need to expand his social circle. E is enjoying his new friends at Huldur´s (our dagmoður/childminder) and enjoyed an impromptu visit to daddy, grandad Freyr and Amma K, at various venues in Reykjavik today. T was very stressed yesterday-in fact, his evil twin Toti took over for a short while. Thankfully he only appears once every few years so we shoved him back in the box (along with all the packaging material we are now surrounded by). And as for me? well more ups than downs this week and looking forward to getting the house sorted, settling 3 boys and getting out to the gym, work etc, etc. And emls, texts and phone calls from everyone have been fab and really helped me keep going..thankyou!
As indicated, our stuff arrived yesterday. It was a usual bizarre Freysson-Burton moment. I went to collect Eli B from the childminders, filled the car with fuel, the garage wouldn´t accept my card so I had to call T from work. At which point, the removal company rang to tell us they were on their way!And we were 30minutes drive from home, with spare room to empty etc etc etc. Stiil, we did it..and the only minor trauma so far has been the temporarily-disappeared fittings for my beloved glass dining table. They are in a box somewhere..one of 173!!!!So if you plan to visit next year sometime, we may have located them!!Everyone else will have to eat off your knees.
So, there you have it folks..an intensive update but one of many in the future. Take care everyone, in the cold and snow and -8 degrees. We had lovely sunshine yesterday..after the horizontal hailstones of 3 inches in diameter! Lots of Love, J and 3 boys xxxx

'Bout time we kept you all informed

Things have been a bit hectic and we've not had access to the internet for a while, so we've not been able to do as much as we would have liked on the web and e-mail front. The move itself went well, aside from forgetting the screws to hold the cot together in Reykjavík so Elijah slept on a cot mattress on the floor surounded by suitcases and Tóti slept in the room with him to make sure all was okay.

Practically everything is plodding along, a bit too slowly though. That said, our container has arrived and is on the dock, waiting for customs to process it ... hopefully we'll have our own furniture and Joanna's beloved Citroen Picasso by the end of the week. It has felt a bit like living in a holiday home for the time being (boiling water in a pan for cups of tea etc. We've also bought another car, an Isuzu Trooper, which we have named 'the Beast' due to its size. It will fit seven people which is what we wanted for when guests arrive etc.

Emotionally things are up and down, as expected, maybe a bit more than expected. Jolyon is settling down well in his new school, has made friends and cycles and walks (runs) all round the village. Elijah is starting with his childminder tomorrow (as we can't get him into nursury until he is two years old ...!). That should give Joanna a bit more time to herself 'cos she and Elijah have been glued together for the last week. Tóti plods along at work which unfortunately means we don´t all get as much time together as we would like. The weekend was good though. On Saturday Elijah stayed with Nana Kristín and Grandad Freyr whilst Joanna, Tóti and Jolyon had a 'grown-up' day out at the shops. It was good fun. We also had a great day on Sunday with Joanna and Jolyon cycling to the lighthouse and climbing up, then playing on the beach for ages. It was good to have this weekend together. If the stuff arrives this week the boys will both spend the night at Tótis parents house whilst Tóti and Joanna unpack all 73 boxes and put together furniture.

From Iceland with love,
Tóti, Joanna, Jolyon Isaac and Elijah Benedikt