Personal info

I was born on April 29th 1962 on a farm called Staðarbakki in northern Iceland and grew up there with mountains on both sides of the valley.

My parents are Sigurður Birgir Skúlason, born there on September 26th 1941 and Jóhanna Margrét Halldórsdóttir, from Langanes, born on November 8th 1941. They have lived on Staðarbakki since 1960. I have two younger sisters, Helga Margrét is born on January 9th 1967 and Erla Elísabet, born on September 17th 1968. They both live in Akureyri. My sister Helga Margrét has two sons, Jón Birgir is born in June 1995 and Hákon Þór in June 1997, and one daughter, Margrét, born in January 2001. 

Staðarbakki is in a valley called Hörgárdalur. The farm is the at the end of the road up the valley but you can see the fjord, Eyjafjörður, and the mountains on the other side of it from our house. The main road from Akureyri to Reykjavík is in Öxnadalur, which is the next valley.

Akureyri is the biggest town in Iceland, outside the Reykjavík area. It's population is a little over 15.000 people. The town is very beautiful and nice and known for how good the weather is here. Here you can find everything you need, a professional theatre, a movie theatre, swimming pools, cafés and restaurants, enough sports clubs to make a fight, one of the biggest and most complex firms in Iceland, KEA , which now has split up into many smaller companies, owned by that company and others, and lots of other things.

For a long time I didn't know what to do with my life and I've tried different things. When I was 19 I went to Sweden, where I spent one winter in a school there. The school is in the region Småland, in a small town called Vimmerby, but the famous author Astrid Lindgren, who's written so many books for children, was born there. I studied languages there, Swedish, English, German and French and had a marvellous time. Two years later I worked as au-pair in Germany for 8 months. I worked for a German/French family in Tübingen in southern Germany. Not quite as great as my time in Sweden, but at least I learnt German!! After that I thought of going to school again here at home and for the next five years I took a 4 years worth of study in evening courses in a school here in Akureyri. It gives you the right to go to university so it's similar to college in the States, except that you usually start when you're 16 and finish at 20. I graduated from there on our national holiday, June 17th, 1989. During that time I worked in the sales department in KEA. The next winter I went abroad again. This time Luxembourg was the promised land and I worked in a hotel there for 6 weeks. I'd planned to stay longer but things don't always work out the way you want. I still had enough time to find out that Luxembourg is a very beautiful country and this stay also made me want to learn French better. So, in the autumn 1990 I went to France where I stayed for one winter, with unsatisfactory results. I stayed in Caen in Normandy in northern France and during that time I got the chance to travel around a bit and meet some of my pen friends. After I came home from France I went to school again for two years and worked for KEA during the summer and during that time I finally figured out what I wanted to do and in 1993 I went to The School of Computer Science in Reykjavík. I graduated from there in May 1996 and started working in the computer department in KEA. In November 1999 the department became an independent firm, called Þekking.

In March 2000 I met the love of my life. His name is Bob, is born on May 24th 1956 and comes from a town called Tavistock in Devon in south western England. In November 2000 we went to Orlando together, my first trip to the States, and in February 2001 he came to Iceland for the first time. In December 2001 he then moved over here and about a month later started working at a chicken plant in Dalvík about 40-50 minutes drive from Akureyri (depending on the weather). He will start a new job in September 2003 though. In September 2003 we are also expecting our first baby and I can only imagine how much of a change that will be for both of us.

As for my interests, I like nature, team handball, photography, music, movies, computers, languages, corresponding... I'm still a country girl in my heart and I've always taken 2 or 3 weeks off work during the lambing season to help out on the farm. They have sheep on the farm (close to 600), some horses, dogs and a cat called Móra. The horses are kind of wild most of the year but we can ride most of them and we use them during the autumn for rounding up the sheep back home, but they stay wild in the valley and mountains during the summer. 

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