This was my first visit, in the film. The last was with Iceland Writers Retreat and the weather was equally dramatic in a different way. The sky was cloudless blue but a ferocious wind came stonking past the geyser, making us battle against it, arm-in-arm, or run uncontrollably downwind. I was like a bouncing bomb on the return to the coach; bursting through hysterical tourists and flying past gentlemanly author John Vaillant at neck height. He rugby-tackled me and bundled me onto the coach.

'I'm like Mary Poppins,' I shouted in my prim English voice to a bunch of Americans and Canadians.

It must be the aerated air and climate extremes that make you laugh so much. That, and the sheer joy of being in what still feels like the edge of the Known World. And sure enough, on the way home a blizzard swept in and in minutes we had to push cars out of the way.