Trabia Garden

I've been a little quieter than usual lately, at first for slightly unfortunate reasons - I went down with an unpleasant stomach bug - and then for very good ones; I've been having adventures in Iceland with my dad! My mum found Iceland an unappealing prospect, so Dad asked if I wanted to go with him instead.

I wrote this entry while repeatedly listening to 'Þú ert stormur' by Una Torfa, an Icelandic song I heard on the radio during our holiday.

Iceland is a land of strange contrasts. I've seen landscapes there so beautiful they didn't seem real; I've seen some of the most offputting scenery I've ever come across. It's like being on another planet sometimes, when there's nothing but flat black sand or strange bulbous stone shapes all the way to the horizon. We were driving for forty minutes from the airport before we first saw a tree.

It's weird when it never gets dark, too; it never entirely feels like a new day has started. You go to bed when it's light; you get up when it's light; it's light if you wake up at one in the morning. The sun did technically set (11.30 in the evening) and rise (3.30 in the morning), but it never went far enough for true darkness. When I glanced out of our hotel window at half past midnight, the scene was cast in a half-hearted twilight, like someone had just thrown a light blue filter over the world. I'd occasionally find myself thinking 'what if we have to find our way back to the hotel in the dark?' and then remembering that that just wasn't a concern.

But I saw such cool things in Iceland! I'd never seen geysers before, or glacial lakes, or ice-strewn beaches with black sand, or a waterfall on the scale of Gullfoss Falls; I'd never relaxed in a hot spring. On the drive back to the airport, we caught tiny glimpses of distant erupting lava out of the car window.

We passed through the perpetually foggy Vik, which apparently boasted a lava show. The website gave the alarming description 'LAVA SHOW recreates a volcanic eruption by superheating real lava up to 1100°C (2000°F) and then pouring it into a showroom full of people.' We decided not to attend the lava show.

There's so much about Iceland that you can't really capture in a photograph. I can take a picture of some big rocks, but I can't convey the sense of looking up at these boulders and knowing that they are so big and you are so, so small. But here are some photographs nonetheless!


( A handful of photographs from Iceland! )


( Talking about the birds I saw in Iceland. )


In conclusion, Iceland is a really interesting place! I'm glad I went. It's good to come back to the things I previously took for granted, though, like 'trees' and 'getting dark at night' and 'summer temperatures of over 10°C'.

I'm back in the UK!

Umbria was beautiful, and I was a little worried London would feel claustrophobic on my return, but I'd forgotten how much I love this weird ugly city. I look out at the graffiti and the mismatched architecture and I go, 'Ah, yes, I'm home.'


Having spent a fortnight unwinding in Italy, I decided it was high time I stressed myself out again, so I got home and promptly finished playing The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope.

Little Hope is a horror game I was playing with Tem at the end of last year, but I was compelled to take a half-year break from it because it was scaring me too much. It kept giving me nightmares, and I caught myself shaking during play sessions.

The extended break from playing was a good decision! It gave me a little emotional distance, so I was able to come back and finish the game in a calmer frame of mind. Tem and I also took the sting out a little by singing 'Call Me Maybe' over scenes where it got too scary.

Tem called the Curator 'Professor Butt' and I am delighted about it. I still don't understand why sixty percent of the game's budget went into modelling this one character's arse.


( Full spoilers for The Dark Pictures: Little Hope. )


I still definitely want to experience the remaining Dark Pictures games - it's an imperfect but fascinating experimental horror series - but I think I might have to resort to Let's Plays, rather than playing them myself. I can't play Supermassive horror games; I just don't have the constitution.

I'm on holiday in Italy! Felt a bit perverse to be writing Lost fanfiction on the plane, if I'm honest.

The sky in Italy feels bigger than it does in England, somehow. It's a feeling I get in America, too; the sky seems huge. Maybe it's because being able to see far-off hills or mountains gives a sense of scale and distance, and much of England is relatively flat. Maybe it's just the awareness that you're standing on a huge continent, instead of a small island.

I played badminton with my brother while the sun set over the hills in the background. We'd found a bucket of cheap falling-apart shuttlecocks, and our game was half actual playing and half just watching in fascination as the shuttlecocks increasingly disintegrated.

Lots of little lizards around the place, which are always exciting. Apparently the UK does have lizards, but I don't think I've ever seen one at home.

I saw a little glowing creature hiding in a crack in a wall! A firefly larva, maybe, or a glowworm? I'd never seen any luminescent creature outside an aquarium before and was so puzzled to see a little green light in the wall; I was very excited to realise it was a living thing, rather than, say, a camera spying on us. Extremely cool!

Later, my brother pointed out that there were adult fireflies about! Little bright flashing lights moving through the dark! Again, I had never seen fireflies and actually seeing them in action is incredible. How can living things light up so brightly?

Lots of butterflies! Mainly species you'd see back in the UK - large and small whites, meadow browns, some beautiful little holly blues - but earlier today I caught sight of a scarce swallowtail in flight. Some sort of lovely fritillary that wouldn't let me get close enough to get a good look, but maybe a Queen of Spain fritillary? There was also a butterfly I thought was a meadow brown until it opened its wings and I realised its oranges were much more exciting; looking it up, I think it was a small copper.

(When I last went to Thorpe Park with RD, I kept exclaiming over the birds and butterflies we saw there - a wagtail! a brimstone! - and eventually she demanded to know how I knew their names. The answer is mainly my dad; he likes being able to identify birds, and we'll sometimes go out butterfly-spotting in the summer.)

Some lovely jays and swallows, and a magnificent pheasant strutting across the road in front of us. My most striking bird sighting of late was actually the day before the holiday, though; I was watching a family of coots when a heron swept in, grabbed one of the babies and flew away with it. 'Oh, Jesus!' I exclaimed aloud, involuntarily. I was so torn between 'that was a cool moment of nature in action and I'm lucky I was there to see it' and 'that was awful and now I'm sad'.

The weather is variable here, but that's no downside; it just means we can see the surrounding forested hills in different conditions. Right now, as I write these lines, I'm taking shelter from an intense downpour in the middle of bright sunshine, and it is astonishingly pretty.

Sometimes the rain falls so thickly it looks like static over the landscape, like we're in some sort of beautiful green Silent Hill. I very much hope we're not in Silent Hill, but, if we are, at least it looks good.

At the weekend I visited my aunt and uncle, who live in the middle of nowhere, or as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get in south-east England.

I looked up at a sky full of stars and picked out Cassiopeia and the Plough.

I saw goldfinches on the bird feeder, and learnt that they annoy my dad because they're not gold; he thinks they should be called red-faced finches.

I wandered the sunlit garden and admired the star magnolia.

I met four sheep, one of whom let me stroke her fleece and pat her horns, although I think she was disappointed that I wasn't offering food.

I went into the woods in search of wild garlic with my cousins, and saw a vast oak that had been blown over in the storms, its torn-up root system taller than I was.

I saw butterflies: two brimstones, a peacock, a comma.

I watched the chickens wreaking havoc on the flowerbeds, having broken into the garden.

I stood among the trees and watched ducks and geese flying overhead.

I cuddled a big black cat, who loves being picked up more than any other cat I've ever met; he was purring cheerfully and trying to nuzzle into my neck.

I love living in London, but I've barely left it since the pandemic hit, and I hadn't realised how much I'd missed seeing other places. It felt really good to be somewhere else for a little while, away from everything. I had a really nice couple of days. I just wanted to record that here.

I saw in the new year in Devon, with friends, which was a lot of fun! We walked through mud and admired sheep and played games. At one point we met some perfect little goats. One of them tried to eat my sleeve and it was a privilege.

Just after arriving at the place we were staying, we checked the guestbook. The most recent page said, The ambience left a bitter taste in my mouth. To express my disgust I have done a secret poo somewhere in the house.

We were unable to find the secret poo.


One of my friends had brought Outer Wilds (not to be confused with The Outer Worlds, a completely different space-based game that came out ten days after the PS4 release of Outer Wilds; it took me a very long time to realise they were two different games). He insisted that I play it.

Outer Wilds is an interesting little first-person space exploration game. Unfortunately, I am both terrified of space and very bad at first-person games. I was incapable of landing without wrecking everything on the ship.

Some of my space adventures:

- Ten minutes into the game, I drowned in a waterfall. I hadn't even made it to space yet. I got a 'YOU ARE DEAD' screen and a full credits roll. On my second attempt, I drowned again in exactly the same place.

- 'Am I about to fall into the fucking sun?'

- I got crushed in a tunnel by rising sand and it was extremely bad.

- I went to a planet that became zero gravity, and I floated up into the air, and then it abruptly became very gravity and killed me.

- At one point I fell into a black hole and got teleported across the solar system and went to great trouble to get back to the planet my ship was on, only to discover, with fuel and oxygen running low, that my ship had fallen into the same black hole and had also been teleported miles away.

- On the plus side, I toasted a marshmallow to perfection, thus winning the game.

(I have not actually completed the game and I'm not sure I'll ever manage it.)


Worst exchange around the dinner table on this holiday:

'Rei's wondering whether it would be appropriate to tell you that I once came while thinking of Bowser.'
'Rei's reticence on this was the correct decision.'
'I couldn't take it just hanging unsaid in the air.'

Had a week's break in Devon with my parents! It was very pleasant, but I don't have any particular shenanigans to report, so I'll just offer this picture of a chicken I met instead.




Holy shit, look at that chicken. It's the most magnificent bird I've ever seen. It looks like an alpaca.




Also, some cows who want to know what I'm doing on their turf.

Dartmoor reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy XV, actually: the wild, rocky landscape; the broad roads winding straight through it.

In Torquay, I recalled that I'd been there as a young child, and my cousin had tried to teach me how to play Cluedo (Clue in the US). I'd refused, because the idea of a board game about murder seemed scary to me.

I mentioned this to my mother.

Riona: I just went, 'Murder? No, thank you.'
Mum: Yes, well, you're rather a fan now, aren't you?

I hadn't realised my mum was so aware of my fondness for murder. (Strictly in a fictional context, I should clarify.)


Every time I rewatch timeless masterpiece High School Musical, I'm surprised by how much I still love it. Troy and Gabriella are genuinely cute. Chad carries a basketball literally everywhere and it's great. So many of the songs are a delight to belt out. NO NO NO NO (NO NO NO), STICK TO THE STUFF YOU KNOWWWWW

(My attempt to render the chorus of 'Stick to the Status Quo' ('No no no no (no no no), stick to the stuff you know! If you want to be cool, follow one simple rule: don't mess with the flow, no, no') in fridge poetry:

no no no
be with what you have learnt
if you want to be jazzy say yes tyrant
do not meddle in the river)

Also, I'm constantly astounded and delighted that they got an entire film out of the question 'is it possible to like basketball... BUT ALSO SINGING?'

We were introducing the film to Rei's girlfriend.

Rei's Girlfriend: I can see how someone might like High School Musical ironically.
Former Housemate C: I don't think Riona's ever liked anything ironically.

I've been in Dorset for the past week! It was very beautiful and I'm glad I went. Largely uneventful (my brothers could only stay for a couple of days, alas, depriving us of the usual holiday anecdotes), but there were a couple of events of note.

Firstly: we stopped at a beach on the way down to scatter my paternal grandmother's ashes, and my dad threw a handful of her into my brother's face.

Secondly: I tried to climb over a gate into someone's garden because they had a pub table there and I mistook it for the dining establishment I was supposed to be going to.

The residents were at said pub table and gave me the most incredulous stare before informing me I was breaking onto their property.

It was extremely embarrassing.




(Editing this entry two and a half years later, because I've just rediscovered this message I sent to RD during this holiday and it made me smile:

Important bulletin: Dorset is beautiful and I have had a lovely day. I saw a rabbit and cows and marbled white butterflies and starlings, which are surprisingly pretty birds, and some magnificent cliffs, and I dug a hole on the beach and shored it up against the sea, but then my brothers and Eleanor destroyed it by throwing rocks at it because the true enemy was man all along. Also Joseph gave me a piggyback ride across a river because I'm a wimp who doesn't want to get my feet wet.)

I went to Wales with friends to see in the new year!


( Adventures in Wales! )


We all went down with norovirus on New Year's Day (I'm still recovering), but it was still really good to have a holiday.

The text message I sent to th_esaurus early on in my holiday:

The colours in Greece are very bright and warm, like someone's turned up the saturation. On the downside, today I had literal ants in my literal pants.

The message I sent towards the end:

I'M IN ITHACA, FUCK YOU ODYSSEUS


So, yes, I've spent the past week in Greece! On the extremely beautiful island of Kefalonia, specifically. I could swear the shore nearest us was the shore from the opening video of Final Fantasy VIII. The waves breaking on the beach looked exactly the same. I never thought the sea could actually be that colour, but apparently it can!

Here is the traditional write-up of things that amused me during the holiday. Cast: Harriet (me), Mum (my mother), Dad (my father), Joseph and Fred (my two younger brothers), and Eleanor (Joseph's girlfriend).


( Family adventures in Greece! )


On our last full day of the holiday, we went to Ithaca by boat. I wanted to go to Ithaca solely to stick it to Odysseus (I think Odysseus is a great character but don't much like him as a person), but I actually got strangely emotional looking at the island from offshore, thinking about him seeing it again at last after all those years.

(And then Poseidon sent a storm to batter us. That guy is really weird about people going to Ithaca.)

Here is the writeup of our family holiday, during which we passed through places with names such as 'Waterley Bottom', 'Giggleswick' and 'Wigglesworth'! The cast are me, my mum, my dad and my two younger brothers, Joseph and Fred. In case you're not sure who 'Harriet' is: that's my real name, which I'm using in this writeup because my family don't call me Riona.


Signs we saw in various pubs:

'This may come as a surprise to you, but your fellow diners do not wish to hear about your colostomy.'

'Husbands and wives do not hold hands or grope each other in public. People having a bit on the side do. It is obvious, embarrassing and silly. Please control your hormones.'

'Should a hand reach up out of the toilet, you are advised not to shake it.'


( Professor McGonagall, where's your monocle? )


By the way, if you ever find a golf ball in a blackberry bush in the Lake District, it is ours. Well, sort of ours. Fred found it in a cluster of trees next to a golf course. I suppose it's technically stolen.

(If you missed them and you're interested, most of the limericks we composed on this holiday are in an entry over here.)