Easter Staycation

2020-04-07Uncategorized Standard

[Photos from 07 – 11 April 2020, posted online 03 October 2020. Fall colors everywhere where the wind hasn’t blown them away, frost on windshields. Covid-19 is stubbornly sticking around, the current restrictions are keeping it at a linear growth. Expecting restrictions to be tightened soon.]

The chief police of the Covid response asked all Icelanders to stay put during the 2020 Easter vacation, as the hospitals were stretched to capacity with Covid patients, and they didn’t want extra traffic-accident patients showing up. It was turned into a public campaign of “Ég hlýði Víði” or I obey Víðir.

Being the obedient type of people we are, we thus stayed put, and tried instead to do the odd spring-type job at home. (60-ish images)

Tuesday 07 April 2020

April gave snowing one more shot, and covered the ground with a bit of snow. Emma rushed out to make a new snow-person, but there really wasn’t that much snow to work with.
Her view through the window.
Every April, the sun finally rises high enough over the horizon to make it through our downstairs windows, which are otherwise shaded by the hill above us. The sun makes it painfully obvious that the winter has left the windows incredibly dirty. Thus my first task was to clean the patio door windows.
Feeling adventurous, and on vacation with nothing better to do, I moved on to the living room windows.
A flower hiding the magnetic contraption I was using to the clean the windows.
Emma sunbathing.
Anna made good stuff!
Finnur out running. As football/soccer practices were shut down, he valiantly went out for a run every two days to keep in shape until they resumed. Being clever, he got me to drive him a ways away from the house, so he’d be forced to make his way back. No cheating!
I went on a post-dinner walk.
It was a lovely evening.
Podcasts are the best.
Mount Esja off in the distance.
The Moon was big and low.
Good old “Buddha”.
There were plenty of people milling about.
Some blocks of flats on the boundary between Kópavogur and Reykjavík.
The path that runs between the two towns.
Goodnight Moon.

Wednesday 08 April 2020

Anna baking some more delicious things.
We kept doing little (spring?) tasks around the house like cleaning the fridge.
More than half way done, and I’m not showing the before image 😉
Finnur had picked up a new toy for me, which I thoroughly enjoyed using.
Some strawberry plants, still alive after the winter.
Quite a few cut branches later…

Maundy Thursday 09 April 2020 (Skírdagur)

I went to the store to pick up lollypop pins for the cake-pops Anna was planning to make.
That day wasn’t the cake-pop day though, it was…
… tiny cookie day. (Emma got a hold of the big camera.)
Emma’s art corner is perpetually a mess. But it’s in nobody’s way so it’s hard to complain too loudly.
Emma is using the same piano book that Anna did when we arrived in Iceland 10 years ago…
Bjarki in his natural habitat with his gadgets.
My book shelf, I’ve read most of the books there, but some remain mostly unread. Not sure if that will change from now on.
All a girl needs to work from home.
Finnur worked from the couch all through the covid-work-from-home. I don’t know how he did it.
The perennial task of deciding if broken bead-art can be mended.
Next on the list of home improvements was washing the windows in the stairwell. They were borderline-not see-through any more.
A harbinger of spring.
Collecting the branches I’d cut off the day before.
Emma came outside to help.
Actually being helpful.

(Good) Friday 10 April 2020

These two found the bean-game, and I played with them for a bit.
By late afternoon, I made my escape from the house by going on a walk down into the valley.
Proof it was me.
Hidden rest place by the river.
If there’s one thing the town we live in is good at, it’s underpasses for the non-driving crowd.
I passed a group of folfers, who’d were attempting to retrieve a disc that had ended up in the river.
A reminder that it was Good Friday (föstudagurinn langi).
Anna had made quite a detailed cake-pop plan.
The cake-pops needed a stand. We were lucky in that we had a piece of wood in the garage that would work nicely, so out I went to shorten it, and drill holes for the pins.
Cake-pop stand ready, and cake-pops ready for their chocolate shields.
One ready!
More being added.
Getting the technique down.
Moving on to dark chocolate.
Oh yeah!
Emma watching carefully.
The full result! All the different colored sprinkles signified different kinds of cakes. Next stop: The Fridge.

Saturday 11 April 2020

The siblings tried playing the bean-game with each other. It was not a total catastrophe.
I kept playing with my new toy. The target that day were the darned roses that are no fun because they sting!
I always feel slightly guilty removing the dead leaves, because they’re really food for the plants, but ugh, they look so bad… (The real guilt came when I realized after the summer that I totally failed at putting down fertilizer because I was never sure wheeeeen to do it.)
The curse of darkness lifting, by about six minutes per day. This is at 21:38.