SPRING- VOR

Spring arrived, one face of spring. The kind that is sunny as hell, dry, cold and windy. There has been a prevailing northern wind which means that the moisture, in this case snow, has stayed in the northern part of the country and has arrived cold and dry to the south. Which is fine if you like skiing in sunshine and dressing for winter. As I do but there are limits. Golden plovers and other birds have not been able to flock up north because the ground has been covered with snow and if no snow the ground is dry and frozen  as it is here in the south and there is not much feed. Golden plovers, whimbrels and other birds have stayed a lot in sheltered gardens where the sun has reached the frost and thawed the ground so the poor little larvae of various insects have been maturing only to end as protein rich food in a birds stomach. Such is life it ends with death. Death is life.
 
Went for a lovely skiing tour with Hélène Magnússon. Her husband had offered to meet us as we skied from Bláfjöll to Selvogur. Around 15 km. Of course there were cairns on the way and a tea brake at the foot of a cairn. There are not many ghosts in these parts, on the old foot road Selvogsgata contrary to the heath Mosfellsheiði where there are several. The skiing was great as long as there was snow!  We heard a whimbrel sing a serenade, met a pair of ptarmigans that were madly in love. The male ptarmigan was as if  strung on a thread with his raised tail and fiercely red eyebrow. The female pretending to be aloof was really turning the male on. Didn't catch them with the camera.
The sky was blue, the wind in our backs, and the VIEW was FanTastic. Snow, lava, moss, ocean, islands, mountains and hills.

 Surely a great inspiration. 

The last few km we had to mount the skis on our packs and walk. At the end was a steep hill that ended at a lake where Hélène's husband waited with the car. She plunged into the lake but I had a chat with her husband and daughter about ducks and old farmstead ruins, on dry land.