No go

In classic TravelSkite fashion, I have missed another milestone. This time it's the half-million views total, according to Blogger's counter (which I view with some scepticism, as well as with the sure and certain knowledge that a hefty chunk of those views are my own). 

I have no excuse. I've just been ticking along quietly here, not doing anything much, merely existing in New Zealand's weirdly almost-normal bubble with everything pretty much like the old days, apart from closed borders and no tourists. FYI we've currently got 18 active cases, all returnees from overseas, all in isolation, and no-one in hospital. Our death toll is, thankfully, still only 22, and Covid-19 reports of the hellish dramas happening overseas are relegated now to the second section of the evening news, after more important local (non-)events.

I should try harder to be actually thankful - but currently I'm just sad that I'm sitting here at home and not at this moment seated on a plane heading for Iceland. Next week I should have been setting off on a cruise with Seabourn (Silversea's great rival, and new to me) from Reykjavik via north Iceland to Greenland and then the Shetland Islands, Scotland and England, finishing in Southampton. It would have been so good. Small ship, high-end, with all the treats that that means; but mainly yay, Iceland again! And Greenland!

I watched The Story of Fire Saga the other night, which was predictably silly, but with some good music. It was mainly a quiet joy for me to recognise the Reykjavik locations, the classic woollen jerseys, the Einstök beer glasses, and see the new-to-me scenery around Hüsavik, which I would have visited on the cruise. I would have been so happy to be there again - it's such a special, interesting, spectacular and homely place to visit. I bet the locals are even actually keen to have some visitors now (instead of being overwhelmed by two million of them annually, to a country with a 300,000 population). Sigh.