We are stunned and shocked about the disaster in Asia. We were worried about a dear family member who phoned yesterday to tell that he was fine, having been on the east side of the tai peninsula. If you read this, Assad, know, that we thought much to you in the last days.
Otherwise life has been easy here, for me at least. Reading, sleeping, eating and missed one kilo(?). I can’t imagine how I will be able to go to work again next week.

Our Christmas

So, Christmas has come and Christmas has gone, nearly, the house is quiet again, the candles have burnt down, and there is peace in our hearts, yes, there is. There are still lots and lots of food, only the bread is finished.
The 24th is always an exciting day, but this one was special, as the electricity went about two o’clock, just in our house and we could not find the source. We killed all electricity like lamps and fridge and so on, but nothing helped, we got a blink of light and that was it. Never before did I have so many candles burning in my house, in the spirit of the day. But finally, after a cry for help people from the city came and restored our life to normal and the cooking could begin. The reason: Water had leaked into the main electricity intake and we were happy not to have burned our house down. My thoughts drifted to me crunching waterdrops in form of snow and ice, was this the revenge of the Ice Queen? We will never know.
Christmas eve was slow and sweet and peacefull, like it should be.
The 25th however was exciting. Jakobína and Gudmar came from the country with Ómar, Smári, Grétar, Alisse and Mareike, two young german women who help on the farm taming horses and, of course, the dog Rosa, neatly dressed in her yellow overall. Further Ragnar, Gerdur and Ottar, Margrét, Gisli, Júlíús and Sebastian. Marinó was already here and Monika and Tryggvi came later in the day because Monika was working. So there was a opening of presents once again and with all these kids paper went flying, sweets were crushed on the floor, soft drinks got spilled and everybody was very happy. We ate: Graflax (home catched and home made) and smoked salmon (home smoked, of course) each with it’s sauce, two kinds of smoked leg of lamb, sliced, cold, smoked pork, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rófur (?), laufabraud (which I made in school the other day), cookies, cakes, sweets … quite tradinional and always good. So the days went by, eating and laughing.
Now grandpa and grandma are alone again and happy with that, too. It is quiet inside and outside, everybody full and resting, I suppose. And tomorrow back to work but we lucky teachers.
I hope you had a nice Christmas too!

I added a new section to page 5

Today the day was 5 seconds longer than the shortest day. My husband feeds me with information as such.
Been buisy. Added a section about "touching" an homepage, page no.5.

Thinking while ironing

Housework:
Washing the same towels year after year, again and again… ironing the same sheets… taking the same dishes out of the dishwasher… Sartre’s view of hell was a dinner party with the same few friends for eternity or were they stuck in the elevator? Whatever, we won’t invite him to dinner, will we?

When I went in the morning in my car there was this crunchy sound under my tires, ice and snow, I liked that sound, is was like popping pop corn or driving over peas. But then I got this idea: Maybe the snowcorns are yelling, oh, please, don´t crunch us! Then I thought about how many manifestations of being such a tiny drop has. A drop of water, shiny, wet and tranparent, a snowflake, white, dancing from the sky like a ballerina, as icekristall, glittering like a jewel. And, holding hands and tucking in their little heads, they become hard bits of hail. And they don´t complain, at least not so we would know about it. Still, maybe, who wants to get crunched?

I tell everybody that I have started summerholidays. And Gerschwin´s “summertime” is dancing through my head. An allergic reaction to all the christmassongs? But I do like Rudolf the reindeer with the red nose and ..and but not all day long, everywhere but in my oh so sweet and quiet house. Here you only here the dishwashing and the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner and me singing ”summertime”.

Monika, I am still in the first room of your new game. I killed the spider, I got up from the chair, I took the dart and had some Tequila. I even picked up the worm. I found some stupid vase. I looked at and tried everything that had a name. You said it was easy! Does this say something about my brain?

The shortest day of this year

The shortest day of this year is behind us, so now we start again and soon summer will be there and the longest day..
The sun was up today for four hours in Reykjavík, they said in TV. So, up at eleven, down at three. Not that we would have noticed it, being cloudy and rainy and dark even through this four hours. But that's fine, everywhere the decorations are glittering and even we got a white plastic tree with a lot of tiny bulbs outside in front of our door.
Just to who is interested, I wrote one more page in my homepage. Now you can have fun.

What a lovely day this day was.

I wrote letters, let my computer produce gifts, calenders and the like and packed in presents. I love packing in, I've got all kinds of papers and bits of strings and pearls and what so ever and then I got the brilliant idea to print out a picture of the reciever instead of the name and it looks really nice. I look forward to see all this under the christmastree. I went with my little post, so I can make many crosses on my list today. After two days of rest, a long hot bath and a nice massage down town my back is also happy again. Even the weather was nice and calm, a little bit frost, though. As always on fridays, Marinó came home for dinner and watched TV with us. What this boy can eat! Now, with the xmas cookies around, he is happy.
Watching TV: On one channel there is crime, the next one warmachines, crime again, then sick dogs.. I give up and go to bed now.

Could it be, that I am getting old?

I have come to a point in my life where ist becomes seductive to flirt with my age. “I am getting old”, I say and expect everybody to say, no, you look so young still, or no, that can´t be, you are a grandmother already? But, alas, they don´t really say it all the time anymore. So I should stop telling about my age and color my hair (which I already did) and try to look young and fit – long way to go. To look fit, at least.
Today I had difficulties with this young image, my back gave way and, already at work, I couln´t straight up anymore. I took the offer of a walking stick, but it was a joke, they didn´t have one. So I went home, craweld into bed and stayed there the better part of the day with a lot of blankets on and painkillers inside me. I can still go and have my smoke, so that´s ok. But a bad back really doesn´t have anything to do with old age, does it? And anyhow, what´s bad with age? I get happier every year I get older. So, happy back into bed, then.

Global Warming

These days I worry about global warming. We do make our jokes, like, my sister can have orange trees in her garden and a boat at her front door. Even for Iceland it does not look so bad in the next hundred years and my husband has been talking about buying a house in Spain in case of the next iceage.
Listening to the politicans these days, there is a big probability that this will really be necessary. In Iceland we can see the glaciers getting smaller year from year. In Austria as here in Iceland there is no more snow for skiing. After hundred years my grandchildren will probably still be alive and will witness the floods everywhere around the world. Southern India and Bangladesh will dissapear. New York, London, North Europe and many seeside cities with a less than 7 meters waterlevel will be flooded. The weather pattern is already changing. And nobody does anything. 100 years is tommorrow, not the day after.

New photos

On friday afternoon Jakobina came into town with children, one dog and Alissa and went straight shopping christmas presents. So grandma and granddad went babysitting, what was very nice. Untill - ma came back from shopping, then everything went berserk. Everybody slept here, the next morning we got rid of the children and had a really nice shopping spree in the mall. I am nearly through with shopping for presents. I decided not to give any toys but every child gets a book and some clothes. Hope, they will be happy with that. So, a week is gone by and and sunday still has to show what it got.
On thursday I got a oxygen shock: I and others went with children from school to the house animal zoo and I was two hours outside! But I got payd for it, so that was the bright point. No, it was quite sweet, really. Somebody in our school got the bright idea to connect with the children in playschool next door from our school, so we went there and every 11 years old schoolchild got a little friend he had to take care of. And they did that very nicely and sweet and the little ones were so proud!

weather and silence

Yes, the weather in Iceland is an issue, every single day. Yesterday it was summertime, today a storm is shaking our trees and Monika said that it would be okey if it either snowed or rained, but together at the same time? That is our tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, we get every bit of weather the gods can think about, on a daily basis.

If you read “..and they sat together in comfortable silence,” you can guess that a man has written the sentence. Reading the book “Why Men don’t listen and Women can´t read Maps” by Allen Pease, 2001, I have learned that my husband isn´t as unique as I thought. On the other hand, I am great at reading maps and things like that but it is true, if I would have to back into a parking place, I would rather find another one. But comfortable silence… is that’s why so many women blog?

The chicks are gone

Last weekend was a very nice weekend. On Friday I got pleasant guests, Marinó stayed overnight from Saturday til Sunday, I talked to my mother on the phone, looked through my christmas decorations, got more guests and they all liked my cookies, in short, had a pleasant time. I even got a new haircut and haircolour which you can admire in my photos (Christmas is coming). And on Monday morning, the 6th. 12., St. Nikolaus had put wonderfull christmassweets into my boots!! What a morning.
But sorry news: a mink got into our henhouse in the country side and killed most of the chicks. Dolores, Angelika, Light Foot, all gone. One rooster and two ducks are left. The mink dug a hole under the water inlet and crawled in. This morning he was still inside, feasting on his bad deeds. My daughter rushed in her fourwheel drive through mud and water to the next neighbour and with his help and gun the intruder got his deserved end. Poor chicks.

Slow times

7 new pictures.
This week has been kind of exhausting. I don´t know why really, there must be something in the air. Teachers have gone home in the middle of the day, feeling sick but come again the next day feeling better, people who usually burst of energy have been dragging their feet… We shall hope that the next week will be nicer to us.
I have much fun at school with the children, they are so clever and work so well and I have the feeling that I do something worthwhile.

I’ve been reading:
“The Messianic Legacy” by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. The first half was exciting, once again the origins of the christian church, who was Jesus, what was his mission, what was made of it and why. The second half, discussing Jesus’ heirs, his bloodline into our time, forgeries or not, didn´t catch my interest so I laid the book aside, for now at last.
Dan Browns “Angels and Demons” in no less exciting than the “Da Vinci Code” and who likes a nice thriller with an interesting background is well advised to read the book. It is well written and I have found no loose threads. For my taste the hero is too much of a hero, by far too clever and surviving impossible situations. But that is probably what makes a hero.
“Tears of the Giraffe” by Alexander McCall Smith left me a bit disappointed, it is a nice, easy to read book but does not reach in far “The First Ladies Agency”, not in depth nor in poetic.
What else? It has been very slippery outside, raining on frozen streets and walkways and I “kissed the ground” once, but with little consequences. As for today it is quiet and white outside. So I will dare to go out (drive out, really) and maybe look if I see some Christmas present and fill up my kitchen cupboards with stuff to eat. We are rather low on these items at the moment.