The bad news from Elding the night before had confirmed that our whale watching boat trip for the morning was cancelled. We had new plans to make. We spread out the city map on the breakfast table. “Look at this Tessa” I showed her the weather chart on my app. The weather map for our area in UK usually maxes the wind chart at 50mph.

“Those gusts yesterday were 90mph,” I said “and last night with wind chill it was -5? Doesn’t look much better today.” Tessa looked happy. She loves cool as well as stark. (I had to watch she hadn’t surreptitiously sneaked the room thermostat down when I wasn’t watching.) Last night, while we sweated in our layers and waited to see the light in the mini-van Gunnar said “coaches and mini vans aren’t allowed by law to go out on the roads when the winds are over 50mph.” Interesting. Also interesting is that our instincts about the Jimini jeep looking like it might get blown over were spot on. I’ve since been told by a petrolhead friend Jiminis had a reputation for that when they first came out.

We weren’t surprised our whale watching trip was cancelled. Neither of us would have wanted anyone to risk taking a boat out in the weather we were experiencing, and I suspect if they had all we’d have seen was our own vomit. I’ve seen Fin whales (60ft long, the Formula Ones of the ocean) and the incredibly rare Right whale but I’ve never seen a humpback so it was still very disappointing.

“Maybe we could go and see the Whales of Iceland exhibition instead?”

“I’d like to go to at least one of the galleries in those amazing modern buildings” said Tessa.

I don’t share Tessa’s love of brutalist architecture. I wasn’t sure I could be bothered to schlep all the way over to the concrete block housing the Kjarvalsstadir art gallery which, though still a bit of a trek, was the closest.

“I thought I might make my way to the Penis Museum by the harbour while you do that,” I said.

“I think that might actually make me physically sick,” she’d said.

However, not really wanting her to have to set off on her own, I decided the Penis Museum could wait. We got lost trying to find the Kjarvalsstadir (of course we did) blown off course several times, but isn’t that how you learn about a new place? Or, in this case, come across places you’d wanted to go to anyway.

“Look Tessa, that’s the Sundhollin, that’s the spa we wanted to go to tonight. ” We went in to ask if we had to book. Whilst we are both ‘wild swimmers’ (how I hate that term) and happy to plunge into water of 8 degrees (ME! yes, I know!) and Tessa 12 degrees and up, the thought of lolling in an outdoor pool heated with natural thermal water to 38deg from the oozing lava beneath the entire island excited us both.

Mostly all we heard was the roaring of the wind, however in the suburbs on the way to the gallery we kept hearing birdsong. Flocks of redwings feasting on berries had moved into the city. I didn’t have my binoculars on me, but as they flew off there was the telltale rusty colour under their armpits.

At the Kjarvalsstadir I learnt a sharp lesson in the benefit of ‘giving it a go’. I normally am a person who likes to say ‘yes’. And now I can’t think what got into me – unless it was the wind and cold – that made me hesitate to visit. Anyway, I can honestly say I enjoyed the work of Gudjon Ketilsson in his exhibition called Jaeja as much, if not more, than any in recent times. There was an actual Icelander on the desk. “Can you check my pronunciation?” I asked her. I was determined by the end of the week to get Eyjafjallajökull right – that big volcano that had all the news readers getting their tongues in a twist when it popped off in March 2010 disrupting air travel all over the world. Thought I’d start with the most difficult then everything else would be easy. “No, she said.”Not quite,” and rattled it off perfectly. “Tak,” I said (thanks) “bless,” (bye).

Jaeja an untranslatable Icelandic word that means nothing on its own but can be used for almost anything…like: here we are. Or: look at this. In Gudjon’s case he means a found object, or any, put in a different context giving it a value. A man after my own heart. “Oh my god look at that” I am prone to say when I see something like discarded rubbish, plastic caught on a fence or beautifully coiled dog shit for instance, in a different way. Plus he loves hats, so what was not to like? We were first drawn to what looked like black calligraphy on the wall. A closer look revealed it was a collection of black plastic jetsam he’d come across pinned to the wall.

Here are some hats, carved in wood.

We thought this was folded linen and a pile of bones – but they were all ceramic.

He is also a very fine draftsman.

We lingered a long time in the gallery, it was warm and out of the wind, but eventually hunger sent us off to search for the vegan cafe we’d clocked by happenstance on the way.

“My god look at those cakes.”

There was constantly a worry about how much everything might cost. We’d been warned by David at Rickshaw that a simple soup lunch might be £15 an evening meal £30…but that was before Truss and her crashing of the economy and sinking of the pound. This holiday was booked nearly a year ago in February when it came up on offer from Rickshaw Travel. Covid was still an issue. “Safest place,” said David “you won’t need to worry about Covid there.” Plus it is a relatively short haul flight so there’s less climate guilt involved. But then the £1 hit an all time worst ever low.

“That brunch looks incredible I said. Let’s have it as our main meal,” I said “and eat the sandwiches we assembled at breakfast for dinner tonight.”

I learned another lesson the Plantan. Tofu scramble can be delicious, and that it wasn’t necessarily going to be a week of Tessa eating fresh local fish (she’s a pescatarian) and me eating pizza every night. Reykjavik at least has heard of vegetarians, even vegans.

By the time we’d walked back up to the top of the city and down to the harbour the Icelandic Phallological Museum was closed. Who knows what I might have seen? It was nominated best local attraction in 2015 and looks like it is run by a real weir…I mean eccentric, I had so many questions I’d have liked to ask.

We walked around the harbour to the extraordinary new concert hall and conference centre, the Harpa.

By the time they, very politely, threw us out, it was dark, and time to go back to the Klopp, eat our sandwiches, grab our cozzies and make our way back up to the Sundhollim Spa. Exactly what we needed after clocking up another 22,000+ steps. It cost us next to nothing with our City Cards. Originally built in the 1920s it has been renovated recently. Lit up at night it’s a magical place. There are several pools outside, the smallest right on the roof top with rows of blasting jets. Tessa soon opted for a bit of time in the cool indoor pool but I spent most of the time cooking in the rooftop pools sky gazing. You never knew…. We reconvened in the shallow pool under a kind of mushroom thing which gradually fills with water and rains down hard on you every five minutes or so. (Best to turn on your front when it does this to protect your soft bits.) The pools were mostly filled with local folk. What a great thing to do after a hard days work rather than slump in front of the telly with a glass of wine.

We wound our way slowly back to the Klopp drunk on relaxation and warmth. When we arrived there we saw there was an excited huddle on the steps.

“You just missed them” said a young woman pointing excitedly up at the sky “right here, we saw them right here…red and green and curtains and folds and look, here,” she showed me her phone. “Can you believe it? Right in the middle of Reykjavik. Amazing.”

“Bugger,” I said, forgetting how much Tessa hates swearing.

“Must have been while we getting dressed in the changing rooms,” she said.

“Sod’s Law,” I said.

We fell asleep listening to the Archers. For goodness sake Chelsea, make your mind up…time is running out if you do decide to have an abortion. It’s a great storyline, what with Roe versus Wade and all that, but come on….