Ash

Well, Judgement Day was a BIG disappointment. Honestly, I'm starting to think Jesus is never coming back. Here in Iceland we got a volcanic eruption instead. This time it was at Grímsvötn, which is easier to pronounce than Eyjafjallajökull, although I expect that foreign newsreaders are either getting it wrong or not even trying. For reference, 'í' is pronounced as 'ee' and 'ö' is like the vowel sound in 'learn'. All the consonants are as you would expect, except you have to make the 't' really soft, almost like a 'd'. Now you can impress your friends and family. I assume it has been on the UK news? It is sort of affecting air traffic, I think, which is what they tend to be concerned about. The airports here are closed at any rate.

There is not much ash that made it all the way to Reykjavík, but you can see a thin dusting outside. We all have to close our windows and turn the heating up to stop it getting into the house. We also should avoid being outside too much, especially if we are young children or have a lung condition, because most of it is still floating around in the air. Mostly this is bad for Icelandic farmers, because the lambing season is in full swing and the spring grass has only quite recently come through properly. Now a lot of farms are covered in ash, which is not good for sheep (although they apparently quite like it because it's sort of salty). So they have to be brought in and fed on hay just when the winter hay is running out.

Speaking of Icelandic farms, I went on Friday with the three-year-old on her playschool trip into the countryside, to some farm in Hvalfjörður. First we walked about a bit in a freezing-cold gale, and I'm not really sure why. Then there were pyslur for lunch, and I spent a lot of time trying to stop the three-year-old covering herself in tomato ketchup. Obviously this was not actually possible, so I shouldn't have bothered. I managed to get most of it off in the toilets afterwards, and then we all went up to the sheep-shed to see the newborn lambs. There was rather too much blood and leaking for my tastes, although the cleaner of the lambs were pretty cute. Some horses tried to eat my coat, and then we went back to Reykjavík, smelling exactly like the sheep-shed.