Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Bjarki Plays @Nótan, Ion Hotel & Visits

2022-03-19Guitar, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 19 – 25 March 2022, posted online 20 July 2022. The two living room walls are now painted, but I’m thinking the new white border around the little windows needs to go… Waiting for Finnur to opine. Have moved my focus to painting parts of the kitchen, and touched off by a broken dimmer knob, am replacing all the black electrical fronts with white ones.]

Every spring the music schools in the country host a series of concerts, dubbed Nótan (The Note), and each school sends an act to perform at one concert. This year, Bjarki’s school asked him and his play-together group (that had met like 5-6 times) to play. He was super nervous, but got through it in one piece.

Straight afterwards, Finnur and I drove out to the country to stay at a hotel out in the boondoggles, to make use of a gift-card I’d given Finnur for Christmas. It looked like 75% of the other guest were also there redeeming the same gift-card, hehe.

We managed to visit grandma on her birthday (very rare occurrence), there was some exercising, Emma got her classroom laser-tag birthday wish, Anna got started on summer plants, and people came for dinner, in our house!! (50-ish images total)

Saturday 19 March 2022

Bjarki outside the music hall, called Salurinn.

Concert, Gym-Meet, Hike, Dress-Up & Snow

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[Photos taken 11 – 18 March 2022, posted online 19 July 2022. Still working on the living room, the white wall has now got five coats of paint, six if you count the wrong white. This was not supposed to take four days!! Meanwhile, Finnur & Emma are in Laugarvatn, he’s helping his dad build a new deck.]

Slowly but surely, the covid-postponed events started actually happening, and life in general got busier!

First up was a Damon Albarn concert in Harpa. I’d bought two tickets in January 2020 for a June 2020 concert with a gift card I got from work on my 5th work anniversary, but hadn’t really decided on who to take with me (Finnur is not a concert-enthusiast). Not surprisingly, the concert got postponed to March 2021, and then 2022.

Happily, my cousin Ríkey was up for a cultural outing, and we even tried the new restaurant Hnoss, on the first floor of Harpa, which is run by people that were/are in charge of the cafeteria at work (Marel)!

Then it was time for a non-masked team-gym meet, there was a bit of shopping and gymming, Bjarki’s hair got cut, I went for a hike by the sea, Anna got dressed up for an outing with friends, snow kept falling, but at least the days were getting noticeably longer. (50-ish images total)

Friday 11 March 2022

Celebrations, Ice-Removal & Recovery

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[Photos taken 01 – 09 March 2022, posted online 18 July 2022. Summer vacation has begun, and I’ve spent the first days painting the living room. Got the wrong white and ugh, lots of wasted work!]

We slowly but surely shook off Covid as the big domestic wave of infections began receding, and all restrictions were lifted. The vaccination campaign was a huge success, as very few people landed in hospital. However, the jury is still out on how Iceland’ll do with regards to long-covid.

We birthdays and our wedding anniversary, cleared away a lot of ice, went to house #2 in adventurous conditions, and I tracked my post-covid progress on the rowing machine at the gym. (30-ish images)

Tuesday 01 March 2022

The number of covid-19 cases in Iceland from 13 February until 14 July 2022 from covid.is. In late February the testing analytics system basically caved under the sheer number of tests that needed analyzing, and official PCR tests were replaced with official antigen tests. By March the wave began receding

Winter Break, Snow & Covid-19’s Second Coming

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[Photos taken 17 – 28 February 2022, posted online 16 July 2022. I’m finally on vacation and celebrated by staying up until 4 am binge-speed-watching a whole season of a show on Netflix.]

With Covid-19 exploding around us, we didn’t make any grand plans for the two day winter-holiday, as I fully expected us to be sick in bed. Instead, we tried to do a few things locally with the kids: I was in charge of Thursday, and Finnur took Friday.

That weekend, three of us went to house #2 to hang out with friends (who’s children are also getting too old to want to tag along), but then Covid-19 caught up with Emma according to a home test, so I drove her to town for a formal test. She was all better the next day.

Two and three days later, both Finnur and I got Covid-19. Finnur was basically panting and horizontal for 3 days, while I experienced a slow decline, bottoming out at day 3 or 4 before starting to get better. All in all, every one of us had a different covid-course, go figure.

At this point in time the official PCR testing apparatus had gotten completely overwhelmed by the number of people needing tests, even as the authorities stopped asking people to test out of quarantine. Therefore it now took 3-4 days to get the result, instead of same-day.

This confused the whole health-system, because there had been a dedicated covid-center which had done telemonitoring and advice, but you only got into their system via the official test. Now it was taking so long to get results that the local health centers had to start taking on covid cases with what felt like very little preparation, and mid-week the covid-center essentially got disbanded. We muddled through somehow.

In addition, it. Just. Kept. Snowing. (75-ish images total)

Thursday 17 February 2022

It just kept snowing! On school-winter-break day #1, Emma went outside to play for a bit.

Emma’s 9th Birthday, Skis & Bagels

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[Photos taken 12 – 14 February 2022, posted online 10 July 2022. Sitting in rainy Borgarnes, on my way home after some house #2 time. Trying to get over feeling like a parental failure.]

Emma’s last single-digit birthday was super-legit, with a party and everything. Mindful of covid, we first had a party with just Finnur’s family, and then had some health-hiccups before we could get to mine.

The day after I went and bought cross-country skis for myself. It’s a thing middle-aged women do apparently. I even went out for a bit!

Snow kept falling in copious amounts, and Anna made bagels while on a school-break. (30-ish images total)

Saturday 12 February 2022

Anna made a cake for Emma, decorations and all!

Snowy Calm Between Covids

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[Photos taken 01 – 11 February 2022, posted online 09 July 2022. Five working days left until summer holiday starts… to survive I’ve taken to re-reading trashy novels…]

I kept not getting Covid, while Bjarki and Anna recovered. Dad said hi from the parking lot for five minutes before dashing to the airport, and at long last, after I got the final negative PCR result releasing me from the ‘be-careful/quarantine-lite’, Finnur and Emma moved back home.

I went on walks in the cold while waiting on music school lessons to be over, we went to restaurants, but the biggest drama was my car not handling the copious amounts of snow that kept getting dumped on us. In the end I caved in and bought actual winter tires (not all-years), which transformed the car from useless to useable. Phew!

The hiking group resumed operations after the December-January hiatus, and I went on a nice walk in the dark. (75-ish images total)

Tuesday 01 February 2022

February dumped a lot of snow on the capital area. I needed new library books, so I drove to the library in Breiðholt. Was shocked by all the bird-noises, while snow was falling in droves.

Covid-19’s First Visit

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[Photos taken 24 – 31 January 2022, posted online 02 Jule 2022. Two weeks until summer vacation begins. I can hardly wait.]

It had to happen eventually: covid-19 gave us a personal visit. At the time, anybody who spent extended time with Bjarki the Friday before the onset of his symptoms on Saturday, was required to quarantine for 5 days, and then exit quarantine via a negative PCR test. To make life a little easier, authorities did allow adults that were fully vaccinated and boosted to be infection-“cautious” instead of fully quarantining, which meant that I was allowed to go to the grocery store etc, but not into the office. Masks were still in general use and required in stores.

As it happened, Bjarki spent almost no time with Emma or Finnur on the Friday (they’d gone to house #2 early), so keeping in mind that Emma was only a week away from her second covid vaccination shot, we decided to split up: I would stay at home with Bjarki and Anna, while Finnur and Emma would move in with Finnur’s parents – yes, into the apartment on their first floor where we’d lived for five years a lifetime ago! They had their bags from house #2, and I packed an additional bag and Emma’s school stuff and left it outside for them to pick up.

On the Sunday evening following Bjarki’s positive test result, I had to navigate a flood of official emails and questionnaires, from the tracing team, and the health monitoring service, as well as a call from the school principal. She asked Bjarki which kids he’d mostly hung out with on Friday, and so 2-3 of his buddies got sent into quarantine.

But, as omicron was turning out to be relatively ‘mild’ in our highly vaccinated population (read: not a lot of people ended up in hospital), the rules began relaxing quickly in late January. This led to an explosion in case numbers, and by the end of the week, schools were ordered stop tracking exposures.

Bjarki’s brush with covid wasn’t too terrible, he was knocked out for about 24 hours, and then spent the rest of the week slowly getting his energy back. I somehow convinced him to attend a remote music theory class on Wednesday, but when I went to check in on how it was going, I felt a little guilty as he was clearly still low on energy.

Anna was the one who was physically closest when Bjarki’s symptoms were blooming, so it wasn’t very surprising when she too got covid a few days later. She got quite winded, but didn’t quite get knocked out. I tried to control my exposure to both of them, as I kind of wanted to get mildly infected, but not overwhelmed by viruses. Thus I ventured into their rooms occasionally, and we sometimes all ate dinner together.

On the Thursday I was certain I was falling ill, got really tired, napped for a couple of hours midday, but no: According to the PCR tests I took Thursday and Friday and Sunday (!) covid didn’t get a foothold. Outside of those tired hours, I ran on adrenaline, not sure how things would turn out. This I channeled into finishing a list of odd jobs, some of which I’d tried to pawn off on Finnur for months, but he hadn’t taken the bait. Sensible man.

Be warned, there will be dust! (50-ish images total)

Monday 24 January 2022

So, this may look like a no-brainer, but both Finnur and I had looked at that hole in center of the drain and thought it was perfectly circular, and thus not removable. Unfortunately, the sink had been emitting a seriously stinky smell for quite some time, bad enough for me to muse out loud if we could just chuck the sink out, and install a fresh one. Finnur had gone to town cleaning the pipes, but we both thought that drain was stuck in place. Well, as I peered at it once more, I was like… wait a minute… and lo and behold, it opened as by magic.

Hello 2022!

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[Photos taken 01 – 23 January 2022, posted online 17 June 2022. May disappeared into a whirlwind of activity! So far in June, Anna has been on a graduation trip to Mexico via NYC, and Finnur is off in the UK on a work-trip! Today marks 28 years of togetherness for Finnur and myself!]

My goodness how time has flown since 2022 began! Covid-19-Omicron put a bit of a damper on things in the beginning, but when the excellent vaccination rate was coupled with lowered hospitalization rates, authorities gave Covid free reign, almost everyone got it, and now the herd immunity is pretty good. (Buuut, it’s not gone, as the hospital system begun requiring masks again yesterday, as infections and hospitalizations are again on the rise.)

As a result, social activities exploded, and there has been precious little time for blogging. But here goes anyway…

January was spent recuperating after the annual Christmas stress. We ate the ginger-house, I went to the gym, Emma got her first shot, little tasks got worked on, and we visited house #2 twice with friends, because we’d all been vaccinated, and kind of didn’t care as much any more, but … then I had to cut visit #2 short as covid-19 came knocking…! (70-ish images total)

Saturday 01 January 2022

A relaxed start to the year, playing the Turing Complete game.

Goodbye 2021!!

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[Photos taken 31 December 2021, posted online 07 May 2022. Went to see Trevor Noah last night in a packed auditorium. Been a while since I laughed so hard!]

We all tested negative on PCR tests for Covid, so the New Year’s Eve party at Finnur’s parent’s place was ON!

However, as the day wore on, I began feeling more and more poorly, and in the end I decided to stay home, reading a book in bed, only venturing out at shortly before midnight to join with the others for a few photos and some fireworks.

And thus endeth 2021, may it never come back! (30-ish images)

Friday 31 December 2021

Yule 2021, Anna’s 18th Birthday & Self-Quarantine

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[Photos taken 24 – 30 December 2021, posted online 01 May 2022. The past week included two 20+ km e-bike rides and two hikes, and I’m still mostly standing, if a bit stiffly.]

Finally, finally (!!!) yule arrived! To lessen tensions while waiting for the clock to strike 6 pm, and the formal start of Christmas, I took Emma out on a walk up to the observation point on a nearby hill. It was a little colder out than we expected, but it was a nice walk.

Mom and baby-bro Bjarni joined us for Christmas dinner, and opening of presents.

The following day we met Finnur’s extended family at his parents’ place for a yule day feast, and celebrated Anna’s 18th birthday! Late the following day one of the guests tested positive for covid, so we went on a self-imposed quarantine, with Finnur and Emma hunkering down at house #2, while the big kids and I whiled away the days in town. (85-ish images total)