Easter

We're all (more or less) back from our Easter break. DK had to have a swab taken this morning to check for MRSA bugs before being allowed into a Danish hospital to have his casts removed next Monday. Apparently it is necessary to make sure that he isn't carrying any super bugs having been into a British hospital!

We spent the week relaxing, sleeping a bit more than usual and eating nice food including 2 legs of lamb, home made hot cross buns and an Easter lunch of various Danish stuff from Eddy's in Gumsø (not Ambridge)

Real snow on our real car

There are times when the wife needs a desert even though the chef is still dieting

Still taking it easy on the sofa

I've cycled, cooked, slept and relaxed and enjoyed spending time with (and without) the family. The weather has been sort of OK, some sun and the odd shower with a bit of snow thrown in for good measure. The presence of snow is perhaps a give away that it has not been at all warm and we have had the fire lit several evenings.

Relaxing

I suppose some of you may be wondering where I am. Well, I am using up my last few days of holiday to have Easter at home with the family over the Easter school break. So far it's been pretty relaxed with some bike rides, birthday parties for J and general family stuff. Now we have 4 public holidays in the next 5 days so there is little to do other than take it easy and get some jobs done around the house.

Mobile purchase

Sometimes modern technology is really cool. MK and I agreed that I should have a bike that I can just use to ride with the kids, take J to school and pop to the shops. The first 2 bargains I found online sold out before I managed to buy them but I have just ordered on of these from my phone whilst on the train to Copenhagen. Pretty impressive eh?

There's no need to comment on my apparently oversized collection of bikes. I am going to offload one or two when I have a few spare minutes next week.

Nearly there

Boy this is turning into a long week.

Today was a mad dash to Sweden, a long meeting and then a dash through Copenhagen to deliver some Easter  eggs to a customer before coming home in bad traffic.  Now I am just left with a whole load of things to sort our before finishing tomorrow afternoon.

The boys seem to have stopped using the toilet, preferring to pee in their pants instead. DK got through his clothes and the 2 spare sets and then a borrowed set as well until MK gave up and let him wear just pants. J had an unusually bad day too with 2 accidents and food all over the third set of clothes.

Feet back on the ground

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, hence the absence of blog updates.

Firstly, Congratulations to K&L who yesterday took delivery of 2 new members of the family. Both girls and mum are doing fine and we are looking forward to meeting them at some point next week. In the meantime, we are looking after their eldest this afternoon.

DK is back on his feet and walking around on his casts. He seems to be slowed down very little by them and was even playing football in the garden with J on Sunday (albeit somewhat Frankenstein-esk). The first week has been pretty easy and it has been great having Grandma visiting to help with fetching, carrying and general housework duties. The housework was not expected, but greatly appreciated. The house is now so clean that we cancelled the cleaner for the week!

We have 2 public holiday days next week so the whole family is having the week off. We haven't decided what we are going to do with the time, but J has plenty of birthday parties to attend and we are entertaining some other peoples kids along the way. I have a few things that I want to do, firstly is to get some good solid training in on my bike and the second is to spend a night camping in the woods with J if the weather continues to be as nice as it has been this week.

Let us hope that the sun shines on the righteous and that I prove to have been sufficiently so!

Mobility

DK

We are all back home along with Grandma and getting back into the swing of things. DK is enjoying being in plaster for now as he is the centre of attention and rolls around the house in his wheelchair with surprising ease. I'll post some photos when I have time, but for now I have been very busy at work.

Ready, Steady, Go

I'm just getting ready for the final stage of a rather busy and stressful week.

I have been flat out at work this week so far. Tomorrow morning, we all (that is the entire company) fly to Oslo for a kick off and the announcement of a new name for our company. There will be around 4500 of us in total with the remaining 1500 from outside Scandinavia not invited as far as I can see.

There are some knowledge sharing sessions on Friday to talk about our subject areas and then some events on Saturday with a big party and unveiling of the new name and logo on Saturday night.

Party Location: Telenor Arena, Oslo 

On Sunday morning I am flying back to Copenhagen and then MK, DK and I are off to Manchester for DK's operation on Monday morning. We'll be in Shustoke on Monday evening and then back home on Tuesday in time for work again on Wednesday.

So far I am mostly looking forward to the following Saturday most of all! (although I am also looking forward to a chance to walk around Oslo on Saturday morning as I haven't been there before)

Record Collections

It's a long time since I last bought a CD, or a cassette or a record. That is not a great surprise given the march of technology. I have bought some music on-line and burned some of it onto cds to play in the car, but most of what we have bought is sitting on my computer and the ipod.

It seems like a fair guess that in the future, most music will be streamed directly from the internet and nobody will keep copies of music either as discs or on their computers.

So where does that leave the idea of a record collection?

I think it will be a very sad development that kids will no longer be able to search through their parents record collections looking for something funny, interesting, embarrassing or new to listen to. If young people don't get the chance to experience Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Doors, The Beach Boys, Queen and hundreds of other interesting and influential musicians, that can only be a bad thing.

Sjællandsmesters

A few weeks ago J's football team qualified for the finals of the Sjælland football competition which took place this weekend. 

He and DK had slept at their grandparents house on Friday night so that MK and I could go out for a (somewhat disappointing as it turned out) mean. MK fetched J in the morning so that he could go to a short football practice and then took him to the competition which was held in the middle of nowhere.

I was to cycle to the venue and watch the later games.

The good news is that J's team won. That was fantastic.

The less good news was the 4 flat tyres I had on the way there in the rain leaving me soaked, filthy, cold and having missed the football altogether. However, it wasn't a bad ride really and we were invited back to the grandparents for dinner and to collect DK and we all got to celebrate J's teams win.

Breaking the news

We haven't told DK about the trip to Manchester or his operation yet. We don't really know when we should do it either.

I am sure he has no memory of the plaster casts the first time around so he won't understand what is going to happen anyway. I think we'll try to explain it all to him next week and hope that he isn't too confused or upset.

This seems like a very long time ago.

RAB Inifity jacket

I got tired of being cold this winter. I have more than one coat, but none of them was warm enough and I ended up wearing a couple at a time which is something of a nuisance. As the winter season stuff is now pretty heavily reduced, I did a trawl of the internet looking for a thinker down coat than the Patagonia down sweater that I bought last year. I found a real bargain on this Rab Infinity jacket at Cotswold Camping.

The coat has a boxed construction on the front to avoid the cold patches that you can get where the front and back of the coat are stitched together and it is generously filled with goose down. The fabric is a new, very light weight rip-stop affair call Pertex Quantum so the whole thing weighs next to nothing but is still very warm as I found out this morning when it arrived.

I doubt that I will wear it many times before next winter, but I love the fit and colour and am rally happy with my choice. The added bonus was the price.

Stress

I seem to have a lot of stress at the moment. Too much to do and too little time is something I can cope with, but at the moment I have loads of things to do that I don't really know how to do and not enough time to figure out what to do.

I am fumbling around with both hands trying to find my a$$ without too much luck!

Somersault

Gymnastics

DK really enjoyed the experience

J in full flight

Leap frog

MK on stage

Serious concentration

Spring in the air

The sun is shining.

The snow drops are out and the daffodils are poking their heads out of the ground

I am pretty sure that spring is on it's way.

Busy and back in training

I have finally kicked myself back into action this week and got some cycling done. That has lead to cramps during the night, but I need to get moving if I am ever going to get fit this year.

J has lost his first front tooth but is waiting to put it out for the tooth fairy until he has shown it to T&B.

This weekend is the gymnastic display for J, DK and MK. I can't wait and there will certainly be some photographs to follow. We are also having a tree cut down in the garden at the weekend so there should be plenty of photo opportunities.

Ear there any everywhere

DK was supposed to see the speech therapist today, but that was postponed for a trip to the ear doctors for a hearing test. Amazingly, we have never had a 100% conclusive hearing test for him, instead having to settle for "he can probably hear fairly well" as an answer.

Of course the hearing test was another wash out. The drain has fallen out of his right ear so he will have another put in on Monday next week (with yet another general anaesthetic) and the speech therapist will go ahead as planned tomorrow.

Let' see if she still thinks he is somewhat retarded or if she is impressed by his 29 word vocabulary.

Pippi and the Ninja

Yesterday was the the Danish equivalent of Halloween where the kids dress up and take it in turns to hit a barrel until it breaks and a cat gets out. The cat has now been replaced by sweets but the pagan roots remain.

J went as a Ninja

DK was Pippi

Congestion Charges

When the current government was elected in Denmark, there was a fairly determined commitment to implement a congestion charge ring around Copenhagen modelled on the one in London. I was not very happy about that as I have no realistic alternative to the car unless I want to double my commuting time to 1½ hours each way.

There is some congestion in Copenhagen, but relative to London, it is insignificant and the prices being discussed were rather high. The general feeling seemed to be that nobody really wanted the congestion charge and it was far from clear how much it would cost to implement, how much revenue it would generate and what the overall impact would be on the economy. As usual, the statistics were being manipulated to support the people using them and nobody knew what it all meant.

Then the good news came. Firstly the decision was delayed whilst the areas around the proposed ring considered the impact on them and then on Wednesday the whole plan was dropped with smug grins and red faces liberally scattered around the coalition government. It was a rather unusual turn of events, but one that I am thankful for. I understand that on 29% of people commute by car within Copenhagen and I would happily use the train if it didn't take so much longer than driving. Until that problem is sorted out, I think the congestion charge would be little more than a straightforward tax.

Fastelavn

I am away overnight in Viborg this evening. It's not the most interesting town in Denmark and it has been something of a frustrating day, but never mind.

Yesterday MK bought a fancy dress outfit for DK to wear to the Fastelavn party this weekend.

I can't say I am too impressed to be honest, but it is apparently exactly what he wanted.

This isn't DK, but he looks frighteningly like this with the costume and wig on!

I'll take some pictures of him for future blackmail and general embarrassment! J wants to be a Ninja, but apparently every other little boy in Denmark does too so it's proving a little tough to find him an outfit.

Tenotomy

Before starting to write this, I did a quick google image search to try and find an appropriate picture. I wish I hadn't. But I did find this:

We now have a date for DK's operation on his feet. The plan is to lengthen his Achilles tendons so that his heel bones point down as they should instead of up as they do at the moment. He will then spend a month with both legs in plaster from his toes to his hips and we will spend a month running around after him and entertaining him (thankfully with some help).

I'm sure it will all be fine in due course, but we are not looking forward to going through it and the travel element adds to the frustration of it all.

Livigno

We got home late on Saturday night from a lovely week skiing in Livigno, Italy. We all skied (except Grandma), ate well and enjoyed the change of scenery. It was extremely cold for the first few days - between -10C and -20C but then after a storm on Wednesday which closed almost all of the lifts, it was not far below freezing point for the remainder of the week.

They say a picture says a thousand words so here are some.

J won the ski school race at the end of the week 

DK loved skiing and insisted on hitting the slopes every day

We took J to the top of the mountain

Lunch in a restaurant - Pizza for the kids and beer for Morfar

We even managed to have some time skiing without the kids.

Thanks for the company, baby sitting and lunches.

Deodorent

Some time ago I read that we shouldn't be using deodorant with aluminium in it. Apparently

• Its been shown to be associated with both the plaques and the tangles in the brains of Alzheimer's victims.
• Aluminium accumulates in nerve cells that are particularly vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease.
• Many experimental studies have been done on animals and cells that show that aluminum has a toxic effect on the nervous system.

I assumed that it would be easy enough to find a brand of deodorant that is free of aluminium salts, but it is not. I have tried 3 or 4 different types. The first was good but too expensive and none of the subsequent ones really seem to work that well. One from the body shop doesn't work, another which was the active ingredient "crystal" which doesn't work and a Sanex version with minerals that was actually OK, but I can't find it any more.

I guess the search will continue and in the meantime, I continue to become just a little too aware of my own scent by the end of the day.

Life...

Thankfully the cold was not quite so biting this morning as it was just below freezing instead of the double digits below zero that we've had for the last week or so. There is quite a lot of ice in the sea and winter is very much in the air.

Sometimes I really struggle to find something to write for this blog (and I guess that is evident to you readers), if I think about what I did yesterday is was basically, wake up, eat breakfast, deliver kids, work, fetch kids, cook, eat, clear up, ironing, TV, bed. That was it.
Today I get to add a couple of hours of driving into the mix, but there won't be a big difference.

One thing that I did do though was to begin the process of getting a cycling coach. He is the guy who gave me the diet tips that I have used to lose weight over the last year and as he used to be David Millar's coach, I am pretty sure he knows what he is talking about. I am looking forward to getting back into proper training after our skiing holiday to be ready for racing from the end of April.

Certified Scrum Master

I took my test yesterday after the 2 day course last week and I am now a certified scrum master.
As was pointed out somewhere else, this has nothing to do with Rugby at all and everything to do with agile project management.

The idea is that instead of running projects where you spend a couple of months planning, investigating and writing a solution description, followed by a couple of months building a solution and then a couple of months testing. You work in short cycles of 2-4 weeks which each involve a little bit of planning, some implementation/programming/building and then some testing so that at the end of each "sprint" you have added some usable functionality to what you had before. You keep repeating this cycle until you are finished or run out of time or money. Whatever happens, you should only ever be a short time away from having something that works with some defined functionality that was the most important at the point that it was made.
The scrum part is the daily 15 minute meeting where everyone states what they did since yesterday, what they will do today and what is getting in their way.

Sorry if that is dull, but I found the course very interesting and Í am in the process of implementing it in one of our product teams

Back to normal

Last week was insanely busy but I survived it and it appears that this week will be significantly more normal.

It has been, and still is interestingly cold with the temperature fluctuating between about -6C and -13C as the coldest so far. However, this hasn't had too much affect on us other than reducing the length of time we want to spend outside. J played in 2 football tournaments at the weekend. They won on Saturday adding another gold medal to his collection and came second on Sunday (despite winning only 1 game and losing the other 2). Anyway, the upshot was that they are invited to the Sjæland championships in March.

BUSY

I am stupendously busy at the moment, but feeling much better (thanks for asking).

I have already done nearly 6 days work this week and I'm not quite done with Thursday yet and tomorrow will be another marathon so I am looking forward to a lie in on Saturday morning and some down time.

Flu

I don't think I am really I'll very often, but I woke up yesterday morning with a fever and a general aching all over kind of thing going on. Unfortunately AI am booked on a course yesterday and today in Copenhagen learning about running agile software development project so staying in bed was not an option. The course is very good so far but it was unfortunate that there was no heating in the meeting room all day so I sat shivering and sweating all day. I then had the pleasure of spending my evening interviewing Bulgarian consultants.
Last night was, if anything, worse than Sunday night so there is a lot more sweating and shivering on the cards for the day. Hopefully I will either be better tomorrow or be able to take a day off sick.

Looks good for skiing

Montana

Part of the basement referb involves us moving the office furniture from the dining room into the basement. We need something to replace the storage capacity in the dining room for wine glasses, booze and cook books.

Despite our repeated problems with the biggest Danish on-line auction house (it's a real auction house, not eBay) we have again managed to win a lot and pay for some Montana shelves. Whether they turn up or not remains to be seen.

These are usually stupidly expensive and they are supposed to be brand new (presumably ex display) and also fitted with the mounts to hang on the wall and built in lighting (minus transformer).

I am already dreading trying to get them hung on the wall

Failing to Thrive

DK had a single drain put in one of his ears on Monday and he has been put on antibiotics to deal with the ear infection that he has. He basically didn't eat anything yesterday and he is lethargic and grumpy and sleeps a lot so I have kept him at home today whilst I work in order to force feed him and give him a little more time to recover.
So far it has gone reasonably well. 2 bowls of oats and raisins with half milk, half double cream. Thickly buttered toast with cheese on it and a bread roll with a slice of butter and raisins for lunch along with a chocolate biscuit, all washed down with full fat milk. We really need to get some fat on his bones and some protein in him but it is uphill as he has a tiny appetite and capacity for food.

Chopper

Well the cycling trip got postponed again!

Saturday was a real winters day with sleet and snow and general grey unpleasantness outside. J played football in the morning and we hid from the weather inside with a fire and home made spotted dick for pudding in the evening. We also moved some of the furniture into the basement and started moving into the "old cave".

Sunday was a much more reasonable day weather wise so I agreed to meet Lars at his parents house to chop wood in the forest to sit and dry for the coming couple of years. There were 4 of us working hard for a few hours and we managed to fell 2 big trees, one of which we also split into firewood whilst the other is awaiting the attention of some axes.

Despite it being cold and snowing a little, it was really nice to be out in the fresh air getting some exercise and my axe which I got as a birthday present is a magnificent tool despite not being quite as big as some other others that were being swung about. I think I could chop tougher, knottier wood with this than the heavier, blunt axes. Back again next weekend for some more wrist jarring action.

Getting Ready

I am really excited about our skiing holiday this year. J wants to try snowboarding which will no doubt be fun for us all and we are taking 2 grandmothers with us for baby sitting duties so there should be ample opportunity for skiing. It even looks as though there is plenty of snow.

This webcam image may update automatically in which case it will be dark at night!

Having bought skis last year, I did't really need much gear this year, but my long underwear was too big when I was 10kg heavier and I wanted a new ruck sack, so the underwear is on it's way along with one of these.

This weekend I am planning on getting back out on my bike for the first time in a while. Not surprisingly, this coincides with the arrival of the winter. I guess I just have to MTFU and get on with it!

I've been driving in my car

It's not quite a Jaguar!

I did the 6 hours round trip to our HQ yesterday in heavy rain and completely dark both ways. That's a long way in a silly little car and I didn't enjoy it at all. On the positive side, the "profit" on the expenses will cover the new thermal underwear I have ordered for our skiing holiday and we have managed to leave both of the kids at their respective daily entertainment establishments today. DK was deeply unimpressed at being left at nursery after many days of one to one entertainment at home but sometimes life isn't exactly what you want!

Everyone's sick

DK has had a fever since last Wednesday and has developed a rather unpleasant cough. I am starting to think that it may be pneumonia (probably just bronchitis in reality) and MK is also suffering with the same thing, but she is much tougher than DK. I have been working from home to take care of him quite a lot, but MK arranged to work from home today so that I can go to some meetings in CPH.

On top of that J has been up all night throwing up all over the place so I must confess to being quite happy to leave the house this morning. I suppose it is just a matter of time until I come down with something, but for now I am the only one in good health.

It's typical that the kids get ill as soon as the regular baby sitting service goes on holiday.

Winner!

No not him!

J's school took part in the local inter-school football tournament on Saturday morning. Normally he plays for the club so this was the first time that the school has had a team together and given that there are only 7 boys in his year group and one of them is on holiday I was not particularly optimistic about their chances agains the bigger schools.
Well to cut a long story short, despite losing one of the group matches, they went on to win the tournament (as did the girls team from his school). They got gold medals and a whole page of the local paper on the competition and we were all very proud of him and the team. He scored about 6 goals along with the other star of the team (V) who got about 7.

Here they are getting their gold medals

Day off...

Eating!
I didn't eat for 24 hours between Tuesday night when we celebrated MK's birthday and getting home from an evening meeting at work last night so that was 24 hours without eating. It was actually quite easy and I think I should try to do it once a week and see if it helps with controlling my weight.

Roof Box

Last time we went skiing, the other half of our party was travelling in a transit van so they had plenty of space to take our skis (they don't fit in the car). This time we don't have that luxury so I have been considering possible solutions. We have a roof rack already so it wasn't a big leap to get a ski box for the roof which also gives us extra capacity for carrying stuff around.

MK spotted this ex demo model in the Toyota dealers a couple of months ago and it was still there when we called yesterday and appears to have never been fitted to anything. That saved us a third of the price and it wasn't even that difficult to get it home hanging out of the back of the car.

Happy Birthday MK

It's MK's birthday today.

Yesterday was a busy one. I picked the kids up a bit early as they were not on top form in the morning. We went and bought wrapping paper and then wrapped MK's birthday presents and made cards for her.

Then after dinner and clearing up, MK went to gymnastics so I made a birthday cake and painted the door frames, skirting boards and floor in the basement. That took me up to 11:30 and left me rather sick of painting on my hands and knees. The floor paint isn't really the colour we were expecting, but it costs a fortune so there is very little chance of us changing it. Tonight we will be celebrating a bit and I have a guitar lesson so it should be a less tiring evening.

Condensation

Having just spent a lot of money on having the roof fixed, it was, at the very least, disappointing to find a puddle on the living room floor last week. Admittedly it has been very windy and rained hard, but the roof should be completely watertight, not just fairly watertight. Having been in the loft to investigate, I could see that there are a few places where water has been dripping onto the the boards up there. I suppose the builders will have to take a look at that.

What is more concerning is that there is condensation on a lot of the underside of the roof. I suppose that is the effect of having had the ventilation gaps (leaking holes) filled in but I suspect that the insulation also needs to be moved from the edges of the roof space so that there is more breathing room. I guess we'll have to consult the builder when he comes to check out the leaks anyway.

The cause is simple, hot damp air in the loft space. The solution is not so simple - Dehumidifier, more insulation, new moisture membrane??? I don't really know

All told, it s a bummer and will no doubt end up costing money one way or another.

Århus

I have had two bad nights sleep wise and I think I've only slept 8 hours in total. This morning I was out the door at 6:00 for the 3 hour drive to the head office. I was then in meetings until 6 and now I am sitting in a very dull Scandic hotel room having eaten a supermarket salad and working on a bottle of wine.

Now I need to get some work done because I will be in meetings all day tomorrow and then driving 3 hours home after dinner so I won't see the family until Saturday morning. I hope the weather improves for the drive home as it was very windy and rainy this morning and was snowing on the way to the hotel this evening.

Anyway, enough moaning.

Doesn't add up

So we were advised that we would save money by changing our oil furnace to the district heating and then when the first meter reading was due, we had used double the expected amount of energy. We now apparently need to put more insulation in the loft which will cost about £1000 for me to do it myself and £3000 for a builder to do it. I suppose that will also pay back over about 20 years. We're going to be laughing when we retire with all the energy savings we are making!

Any smart ideas how I can get £3 per roll insulation delivered to Denmark from B&Q to avoid paying £35 per roll for it over here?

Walls

The walls are done and I have the skirting board that I need to replace the rotten stuff in the main room in the basement. Tonight is guitar night and I am away overnight on Thursday so I only have Wednesday night this week to work on the house. I am hoping that will be enough time to get the radiator pipes painted and the skirting board repaired and painted. Then I can spend a bit of time at the weekend doing the last job - getting the floor painted.

I am convinced that the builders have done something to the insulation in the loft as the house seems to get cold very quickly since they were working up there. There isn't much insulation and we were told that it should be replaced. The insulation itself is not expensive and I don't think it is difficult to put it in, but I know if will be a time consuming and dirty job and there are a couple of areas that I don't know how to deal with. How do I get the insulation under/over the walkway and on the loft hatch for example???

I don't suppose I'll get around to doing anything about the insulation before the end of January but I know I have to do it at some point.

Happy New Year

I (obviously) took a break from blogging over Christmas and the New Year. We have been busy with guests and general festivities and I have been working hard getting the basement sorted out.

It was lovely to have G&G visit for Christmas and the kids really enjoyed having them stay despite, or perhaps because we had to move them into the same room together.

New Years Eve was a quiet event as usual, we always seem to end up having an evening in with some nice food and a bottle of bubbly. This year I knocked up a quick beef wellington to eat after the fois gras that we shared with the kids and we demolished the (almost) last of the Christmas chocolates before midnight when I had to get back into weight loss mode. I managed to gain about 5kg in a week by eating lots of chocolates and cake. I aim to get rid them and more before the end of the month so it is strictly slow carb for me in January.

The basement is going well, I hope to get the main room finished this week and then move on to the rest of the basement as well as changing the insulation in the loft and putting a new floor down in the hall. It's going to be a busy time until Easter.