localized memory loss

Last Thursday night the first real autumnal weather arrived, a howling wind that spattered rain on the bedroom windows and tore leaves from the trees. It roared all day Friday, bringing with it a strange high mist that blurred the edges of the landscape. Along with rain, this wind blew in the memory of Iceland when it's not summer.Every year as soon as the darkness disappears in late spring, the

in the name of science

Yesterday was a perfect clear sunny spring day, so S decided it was time to see if he could collect samples of the volcanic ash for his research institute. We headed south along the ring road, passing the cars collected at Hellisheiði, and all along the road pass Selfoss who'd pulled over to gape at the plume that was so crisply visible on the horizon. From 70 km away it seemed surreal, beautiful

hot views

By now I'm sure everyone's heard of the latest excitement to reach us here on the island. The volcano at Fimmvörduháls has even been covered by the revered news service at Fox to the delight and amuseument of most people here.So yesterday when the weather was clear and spring-like, S and I skipped out of the office early to see what we could see. At Hvolsvöllur we turned on to route 216,