When I began discussing the possibility of moving to Iceland five and a half years ago with my boyfriend at the time, husband at present, he asked me about the climate.

Understandably, he was a little insecure because of the rather frightening name given to my little island in the north.

I reassured him, though, that the winter climate was no different from that he was already acquainted with in London, albeit the Icelandic summers were less than ideal.

That was my little lie.

His first visit to Iceland was in 2006. He arrived on Christmas Eve after more than 30 hours of travel. It was dark outside and random patches of snow clad the ancient lava field stretching from Keflavík International Airport (KEF) to the Reykjavík metropolitan area.

At this time of year the days are as short as they get; the shortest day of the year is December 21 or 22 each year.

The concept of daylight is not entirely lost upon us during these darkest days of winter, but we know better than to expect more than three to five hours of daylight.

For the next two days he was too tired to get up in time for daylight and spent three consecutive days in the dark and cold, a period he still recalls as one of the strangest experiences of his life.

On day three he finally woke up in time to see the daylight and discovered the cold was as penetrating in the daytime as it was during the night.

And the cold was nothing like that in London. It was dry and made his skin dry up without the lovely humidity of the tropical climate in Durban, South Africa, from where he came.

Thankfully, he was mostly amused by the fact that I’d forgotten just how cold it can get in Iceland in the winter. These days he has grown used to the cold’s immediate shock factor. 

What had happened is that in the years I’d spent in London, Paris and the Greek isles, I mistakenly perceived the cool winter climate in London and Paris to be as cold as the Icelandic one; the winters in northern Europe seemed so strikingly different from the beautiful summer climate of the southern part of the continent.

These days I know better. I warn people visiting Iceland for the first time that the cold is dry and the temperature is often cooled by strong winds. Only rarely is the air still.

Thursday last week was one of those rare days when we woke up to a clear and still day. Not even the usual breeze moved the air.

It was the perfect winter day and the low-sitting sun even made its appearance. What I found the most interesting was that it was already a bright partly-cloudy day at 10 am and the sun’s orange hue lit up the sky an hour later.

It was unexpected considering the cold air that chilled the bedroom in the morning, and prevented me from getting out of bed until I absolutely had to.

As I drove my husband to work, the moon was in a state of waning crescent and the dark blue skies transformed to a beautiful azure.

It was the first day in a while that I didn’t see gray clouds hiding the sky from view, and the first day it wasn’t raining or snowing either.

It felt like the first day of better times and the preview to my favorite month of the year, February, when the skies are more often than not a perfect azure blue. 

Up until that Thursday last week, January was rather insignificant, and the only good thing I had to say about it was the fact that it was still snowing in between the brief rainy meltdowns.

The start of the New Year is truly a little intimidating. The holiday season has come to an end and been replaced by the nothingness of January.

To Icelanders and other local residents, it is also the third month of short days and long nights, and the anticipation for brighter days grows from day to day.

It’s cold. It’s dark. It’s long.

For a little while, the gloom of January contaminates the human spirit with a sense of fatigue. It is the month many people promise to battle their post-Christmas bulge, while struggling to get up on time in the morning to fulfill that promise.

The afternoons aren’t much better. The thought of going to the gym for an hour or two is equally exhausting.

Resisting the temptation of ordering a home-delivered spicy Indian-Pakistani madras curry with a delicious butter naan on a Monday night, or a cheesy pizza on a Friday night is harder than ever.

For travel agents, it’s the best time to sell winter holidays to the Canary Islands as the Icelandic middle class is more desperate than ever to enjoy the little bit of warmth available in the European continent. Even though the temperature there is only in the low 20s (°C; 68°F).

For those who can afford it, a trip to Florida or a cruise is an even better option.

In the last two years, I have been fortunate enough to visit my in-laws in Durban, a beautiful coastal city in the state of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, for three to four weeks in December and January.

This year, however, I didn’t go. So, the January blues struck me harder than usual. It’s so much easier to fall into the trap of disillusion when life is made harder by one stormy day after another.

After months of isolation in a cold and dark bubble, we long for better days. A day like last Thursday gives us hope that the reign of darkness is coming to an end.

February is around the corner, a month in which we bid farewell to high winter, and the anticipation of spring gives rise to enthusiasm once again.

The rays of the distant sun are finally starting to break through the gray clouds and even the North Atlantic Ocean changes from a gloomy gray to a sparkling diamond in the days and weeks to come.

Júlíana Björnsdóttir – julianabjornsdottir@gmail.com