Nýársdagur 2025

Our New Year's Day 2025

We had really nice weather on New Year's Day yesterday. Bright blue sky, sun, not much wind... simply wonderful!

In the afternoon we picked up our dear visitors at the airport in Keflavík.

However, we wrapped up warmly before we left the house as it was rather cool. The car thermometer showed -19 °C (-2 °F) when we drove off. But the car started without any problems, yay! This can quickly become difficult in such temperatures if, like us here, you don't have a garage.

But everything went well, the car drove off, the path was passable, we were even able to throw our rubbish into the containers at the public rubbish point without any problems. There were trails through the snow to each container. However, there was a relatively large amount of rubbish from the fireworks batteries next to the containers. (There was then a somewhat angry posting from another homeowner in the residents' FB group.)

In bright sunshine and bitter cold we set off across the Hellisheiði to Reykjavík and on to the airport.

Greenhouses next to the road in Hveragerði

Road over the Hellisheiði

View of Reykjavik

As we drove towards the airport on the Reykjanesbraut, the sun was setting and we could see the plane with our visitor already approaching to land.

Bannað að gera þarfir sínar - no human waste

It is forbidden to relieve oneself. As far as I know, this sign this sign has been produced by an Icelandic sign company since 2015 and is increasingly being placed in places used by tourists, such as here at the short-term stop near the airport. Although I definitely find it worrying that it is necessary to put up such signs.

Shortly before we arrived at the airport, however, we had a problem with our car:

The fuse on our heating failed. At first we thought, well, it's going to be a bit cold... we'll just have to get through it. But the problem wasn't the cold, but the failed ventilation. This caused our windows to fog up. And then the wet froze on the cold windows. The side windows were even less of a problem; we were always able to scrape them free, even when it was "snowing" in the car. But if the air you breathe freezes on the inside of the windshield and the driver can no longer see properly - then it becomes dangerous. It doesn't work at all.

It's good when you know someone who can really help you - luckily the problem was solved with a new fuse for the heating.

The drive home in the increasing darkness across the Hellisheiði went smoothly - and we even saw the beautiful Northern Lights that kept dancing over the car. Even around half past five, when it was still relatively light. That was a great start to our visit!

At Kambar we stopped briefly at the viewing parking lot next to the ring road for a quick photo stop.

This photo was taken by the girlfriend of child no. 2 - Northern Lights over Hveragerði. Just beautiful!

We then arrived home safely.

Well, the fact that we had the problem that the water pipe to the house was frozen during the day at -2 °F (-19 °C) is another story.

And it's not like this was the first time we've had a frozen water pipe...

But:

We were prepared and had at least two large bottles of tap water in the house in case of emergencies. And we basically knew what to do - heat the shed vigorously where the water connection comes in. So - after we got the shed door open again. Because unfortunately the door lock was also frozen. And unfortunately my husband couldn't defrost the lock with either the door lock de-icer or the hand warmer. But with an extension cord and a hairdryer it worked. So into the shed, turned up the two electric heaters, which are actually hanging in the shed as frost monitors. The heating pad wrapped around the water pipes. And then the old electric oil heater on wheels was pushed in front of the water connection and switched on - oh no, that didn't work. Unfortunately, the mop was lying in front of it and was frozen on the floor and couldn't be pulled away. So we couldn't put the heater directly in front of the water pipes. At four o'clock in the morning nothing had happened, but at least my husband managed to get the mop off the floor so that he could push the heater in front of the water pipes. And when I woke up just before 7 and ran into the bathroom - I could just turn the faucet and the water came back. Yay! These are the real moments of happiness...

We won't talk about the fact that the hot pot didn't work properly today and suddenly only had 68 °F (20 °C) instead of 104 °F (40 °C).

It won't be boring!

[Translated from here.]