Approach to Reykjavik

The view  from the stern of the ship as she approached Reykjavik, the pilot boat is heading to the bows to guide us in. This photo, perhaps my favourite of the holiday, sums up my conflicted feelings about cruises. It provides a perspective that one simply cannot get from land, the days and times on the boat are often more enjoyable than the days on tours on land. The tour around the tourist hotspots within range of Reykjavik were interesting but much too regimented for my liking, and I can't enjoy traipsing around with coach loads of my fellow travellers. I prefer my independence and freedom, even if it means not visiting the most iconic locations. 

But being on the boat took us to places that we would have needed to have spent a lot of time driving to get to. It was a sampler for what I hope may be future, more independent visits.

This is a back blip eighteen months after we there. The fact that it is only now that I am reviewing my photographs from then is indicative of how I was at that time, suffering from dreadful fatigue while trying to hold down a full-time job. The nature of my illness was then unknown, indeed I wasn't even aware that I had an underlying illness, I thought I was recovering from the particularly unpleasant infection I had contracted in May. My slide down from being physically fit and active had been so gradual over a couple of years, I had hardly noticed it. The recurrent infections were a defining feature of that time, but no-one twigged until later that they were part of a wider pattern that later could be traced to the progress of a type of chronic leukaemia.