Niceland is waking up to an alarming problem. Now that all the students are going back to school, it seems there are a lot more jobs to go around than there are people to fill them. Which as you can imagine is not a happy state of affairs. As early as Monday, day-care centres run by the city of Reykjavík will have to close down because there just aren’t enough people to work in them. And just last night an email came through from AAH’s school, appealing to parents for help because they’re desperate for unskilled workers to monitor the corridors and such. There are huge gaps in the social fabric of this country and the children – the ch-children! – are falling through the cracks. [Somebody pass me my medication please? Pop. Swallow. Ta.]

Hm. I wonder if this is in some way related to the fact that the girl working in the reception at the Laugardalslaug pool this afternoon spoke no Icelandic, only English.

OH AND IT IS GETTING COLD…
It’s that damn wind again. The bane of Icelandic living. Right now it’s 8°C and daybreak on this first day of September was at 05.17; nightfall was at 21.36. And you know the engulfing dark winter is approaching when I speak of both daybreak and nightfall in the past tense.