On Falling in Love with Iceland
A memory of the Blue Lagoon, 2011.
February is here. All the snow has melted into brownish muck, and I’m sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself as I cough my way through a nasty flu and look through old travel photos, indulging in a bit of pain-relieving nostalgia — heroin for old people, as that great sage of our times, Dara O’Briain, once said.
It is in this melancholy spirit that I’d like to tell you about my favourite place on this Earth. A place that kindled my most enduring love affair — thirteen years and counting — but which I can only ever truly revisit in my memories. And not just because it remains closed while the authorities nervously wait to see if it’ll be destroyed by an exploding volcano.
I’d like to tell you about the Blue Lagoon.
Not the Blue Lagoon that exists today. That is still a fabulous time — a splendid collection of blue hot pools set against black lava — but for grumpy old me, it has been forever spoiled by the corporate upgrade it got when it grew famous. No, this is a tale of the Blue Lagoon clinic circa 2011, harkening back to the days when your friendly Hag was still a lawyer — a rare period of financial solvency, though seasoned with far too much stress and a good dose of anxiety, panic and misery.
