Sunday afternoon Twister

Home made rullepølse

Rather a lot of fiddling around and spilling stuff, but it tastes great.

New Rules

I seem to be spending 2 nights a week in hotels at the moment and I am unfortunately a total idiot when left alone in a hotel room with a television.

Last night I was taken out for dinner in Paris with some colleagues. It was a very good meal that took the whole evening (as it should) and we left the restaurant at about 22:30. My Swedish colleague wanted to see some of the sights so we walked quite a long way to see Notre Dame, the Louvre and finally the Eiffel Tower. By 23:30 we had seen what was necessary, but there were no taxis to be found as many are still on strike so we had to take 3 different metro lines to get back to the hotel at around 00:30.

That would be fine, but I then watched TV for a while and therefore didn’t get anywhere near enough sleep for the second night running. The problem is that I do this every single time that I stay in a hotel. I am a hotel idiot.

So from now on I will NOT turn on the TV when I get into bed in a hotel room. I will only allow myself to watch TV early in the evening or in the morning. I will also start bringing a book with me to read whilst travelling and in the hotel instead of watching tv. Should be a win all around as far as I can see.

Bienvenue à Paris

Some things don't change. I arrived at Orly airport last night with a young consultant from Stockholm who hasn't been to Paris before. 

The taxi drivers were on strike.

No worries, we figured out how to get the metro to the hotel without much trouble and all was well. Apparently the taxi driver strike continued this morning so my colleagues who are staying in another hotel had to walk 4km to the office whilst we voluntarily walked the 2km from out hotel to the office.

We got to the office at 8:50 to find more or less nobody here and nothing ready for the workshop we are running.

On the plus side, lunch was good and healthy and I am sure we'll get something good to eat tonight.

Bienvenue a Paris

Some things don't change. I arrived at Orly airport last night with a young consultant from Stockholm who hasn't been to Paris before. 

The taxi drivers were on strike.

No worries, we figured out how to get the metro to the hotel without much trouble and all was well. Apparently the taxi driver strike continued this morning so my colleagues who are staying in another hotel had to walk 4km to the office whilst we voluntarily walked the 2km from out hotel to the office.

We got to the office at 8:50 to find more or less nobody here and nothing ready for the workshop we are running

On the plus side, lunch was good and healthy and I am sure we'll get something good to eat tonight

Notebooks

Including:
Waterproof ones for noting boat rigging settings and trying to figure out what is fast and what is slow for given wind conditions.
Coloured ones for planning our vacation away from internet access and phone coverage.
Boring blue ones for work.

Yes

Something to lift the spirits. A new belt.

Argh sinus pain

For once I went to be early in a hotel because I was absolutely shattered. Unfortunately my body didn't want me to sleep. I was full to the brim with a cold so that my sinuses were hurting too much for me to be able to get to sleep. I ended up sleeping on my stomach, which I never ever do, but that only worked until 3:30 when I woke up stuck to the sheet with dried mucus. Nice.

I had an hour or of blowing my nose and trying to get comfortable before I managed to doze on and off until my alarm went off mercifully late.

Now I am looking forward to a particularly uncomfortable flight home and then back to bed to try and get some of that sleep back.

Sometimes

Little boys want painted toenails too.

Can you guess who's they are?

On a brighter note

MK got new crossfit shoes that are the colour of summer.

Winter commute

Not the best photograph, but I think you can see that winter is here.
That is seawater in the harbour under the bridge, not another road!

Fighting back

I think it was the combination of Crossfit, heavy front squats and fetching firewood in the snow on Sunday that did it.

I felt a bit under the weather on Monday, I was decidedly crappy on Tuesday and downright ill on Wednesday. After a couple of feverish nights and some serious sofa time, I am getting better today and I expect to venture as far as Copenhagen tomorrow to see if everything has survived my absence!

Maybe I'll be well enough to do some exercise again by the coming weekend.

Winter has arrived

It's been below freezing since last Thursday and there is an icy wind blowing snow around all over the place at the moment.

The kids had friends over to visit yesterday afternoon so I was very glad of the chance to rent a trailer and fetch a load of firewood. We were down to our last 3 logs anyway so there wouldn't have been much of a fire last night without and nothing left for today.

I dearly wanted to work from home today, but my conscience made me come to Copenhagen anyway despite the weather and a cough and MK going out early and everything. I suspect that I am some sort of hero!

Stimulants

I am still having trouble getting to sleep quite often. I am trying to cut down on the coffee by nit having any after the post lunch cup. I do sometimes have a cup of tea after work, but I am loath to believe that this is the problem.

Dark chocolate seems to keep me awake if I eat more than a couple of pieces in the evening as well. Last night I went to be around 10:00 and it took  me a good hour to nod off. I guess it must have been either the cup of tea at 5 or the (paleo) chocolate cake at 8 after crossfit. Maybe it was the Crossfit that did it? I don't know, but it's really annoying being in bed and wasting valuable sleeping time staring at the ceiling!

Perhaps I need to work on some meditation exercises.

By the way, yesterday's mid blue cords are replaced by a rather natty kingfisher green/blue today. I was about to say that I am the only one wearing them in Denmark today, but DK has almost identical ones on. They are certainly unique in the office.

Tweed and corduroy

The slightly sartorially eccentric Englishman's office attire of choice this week!

Bags packed

My new suitcase is packed and waiting for me in the car boot whilst I am at work today. I'm off to Holland again this evening for a couple of days.

I spent the weekend getting over DK's cold so it was fairly lazy. We had friends for a dinner and sleepover on Saturday night which took a bit of preparation. I made a paloe-ish Moussaka with rice flour thickened sauce on top and then a cardamom rice pudding for desert. All good.

I went to crossfit on Sunday morning and did the workout in the second fastest time for everyone that day and then did 5 x 5 100kg deadlifts. I think my technique is getting better thanks to Lars as I don't really have back ache today, just slightly tired legs. I think I can easily add 10kg next time I do that set.

Tomorrow will be a hotel room workout in the Holiday Inn Express in Papendorp. Urgh.

Foam Rolling

I got one of these last week to help massage out some aches and pains and it's fantastic.

You sit, lie or prostrate yourself over it and basically roll backwards and forwards to massage out any knots, aches and pains. It is pretty uncomfortable at times, but it really helps, especially on your lower back.

It also seems to help avoid getting cramps if I spend a few minutes working on my calves before going to bed.

Sweden again

I really have nothing at all to report today having spent the day in the car and an office in Malmö, Sweden. All I can say is that I have a new suitcase on the way (it's the polycarbonite one, not the aluminium - nice but too expensive):

Rimowa Salsa

Cold windy beach

On Sunday morning before we came home.

Time to relax

We've been busy having fun all weekend. Friday night we had sushi and champagne to celebrate MK's birthday and then the rest of the weekend was spent preparing and recovering from the birthday party.
Saturday morning had the usual swimming and crossfit combo followed by heavy supermarket shopping and a bit of cooking from me before I took the kids to the summer house for the night.

MKs fondue party was apparently a big success with the last guests leaving at 2:30. I was amazed that they could stay up so late!

We got home around lunchtime on Sunday to find a sparkling clean house and a tired Mum. T&B came over for coffee and cake in the afternoon and everyone hit the sack early. I had unfortunately spent too long looking at a screen or had too much coffee earlier in the evening so I had terrible trouble falling asleep. Tonight I am avoiding screens and caffeine in an effort to finally get a REALLY good nights sleep.

Happy Birthday MK

I hope it's a great day.

New tweed

I huge box of M&S sale shopping has been delivered whilst I was in Holland.

I was very happy to find that it all fitted me well and I don't need to send anything back. I got a new suit, a dark blue tweed jacket and 2 pairs fairly unusual (and very non-danish) cords. I am looking forward to many sarcastic comments when the kingfisher coloured pair get an outing.

The big event of the week is tomorrow when MK turns 29 again for the 12th time. See if you can figure that one out... We are celebrating tomorrow night at home and then she is having a party on Saturday with some girl friends whilst I take the boys away for the night.

Utrecht

I am now on day 2 of a business trip to Utrecht in Holland. So far it has been pretty good, the travel has been uneventful, the hotel remarkably unremarkable and the food typically Dutch on the whole.

That means that I have eaten the filling out of the sandwiches at lunch and ham and cheese for breakfast, but we did go to a pretty nice restaurant last night. It is a converted slaughter house that looks oddly like an old church or village hall. I had home smoked wild salmon to start and steak tartar with a poached egg on top for a main course.

Off home tonight and looking forward to a nap on the flight.

All systems go

That's one project given the green light to go live tomorrow whilst I am off to Utrecht tonight to get started on the next one.

I haven't been doing a great deal of business travel recently. but it seems that is about to change in the coming months so I have my bag packed and I am ready to hit the airport.

We were home all weekend. MK was a whirling dervish tidying things up whilst the rest of us tried valiantly to keep out of the way and not get into trouble. We managed reasonably well although DK seems to have talked without pause for the entire weekend. It got to the stage that we were happy he finally went to bed to give our ears a rest.

Photo Time

Click on the photos for bigger viewage

Christmas Day (or Boxing Day)

Kingsbury Water Park

New Years Eve

NYE

I haven't downloaded the pictures from the camera yet, I'll do that soon.

We got home around 10:00 pm on 29th to a cold house and basically went to bed. 30th was a mixture of unpacking, crossfit and then re-packing some clothes and food before heading to the summer house to see in the new year. We haven't been to the summer house as much this autumn as we did last year, but it is always fantastically relaxing to be there and not think about the odd jobs that need to be done at home like washing, ironing and other domestic chaff.

We had 2 nights with good food, a few games and some cold walks on the beach. On NYE, we set off the rockets that we'd brought with us, each of which were bigger than the kids. DK wasn't too happy about the dark or the loud bangs, but he survived the ordeal.

Now we are back at work, MK took the kids with her yesterday and today they are with T&B.

Happy New Year

Looking at the blog, it seems that I didn't post as many photographs over the holiday as I thought I had.

It's always a bit tricky to publicise the fact that you are not at home so travels are usually reported after the fact. We flew to Stansted on 23rd December and picked up a hire care, the travel went smoothly despite threats of storms and ad weather. As soon as we arrived at Hollylands, we were able to relax and get into the mood for Christmas. MK and I spent the 24th preparing food and doing some last minute gift wrapping so everything was ready for the big day.

Christmas day was very nice. It started with presents and an odd family tradition of pork pie for breakfast before we all went to Nether Whitacre church (some more enthusiastically than others) for the family service.

We got home to smell of roasting turkey and having done most of the preparation the day before, we were able to relax and enjoy a glass or two of bubbly before lunch. The lunch was pretty good although I suspect that the turkey would have been better with half an hour less cooking. The Christmas pud was good enough to overcome any of the turkey's dryness. It was great for MK and the boys to finally meet Auntie Ann, I hadn't seen her for almost 20 years so we had a chance to catch up.

If I remember correctly, we went to Kingsbury water park on Boxing Day for a walk and met a man walking his pet barn owl.

On 27th we went to Chipping Norton to see the Pantomime. I had neglected to tell MK what to expect, she hat translated it to some sort of mime and was quite confused by the first half hour of bad jokes, men in dresses and audience participation. She got into it at the end and both the boys absolutely loved it, especially DK who joined in very enthusiastically.

After another relaxed day, we headed home on 29th (wishing Grandad in America a Happy Birthday en-route).

Happy Christmas

Happy little boys

Van Gogh

Inspired painting of fallen trees by DK

Sneak Peak

Of the kids

Lessons to learn: When taking kids for photographing, check their socks

Grønnegade

MK and I had an evening off last night, we wandered around the shops and did a little bot of last minute Christmas shopping, we had coffee and then dinner at Restaurant Grønnegade in Copenhagen.
We ate half price courtesy of SAS Eurobonus but managed to spend a fortune on drinks anyway. The food was good, we had a couple of fish courses which were very nice, then an æbleskive (normally a spherical doughnut type thing) but this one was filled with duck and served with fois gras which was delicious, a bit like a stuffed Yorkshire pudding. The main was two different kinds of roast pork (dull fillet and fantastic belly) then I had cheese whilst MK had desert.

It was a very nice meal and it was nice to be out alone for a change.

Earlier in the day, DK had a check up with the doctor who removed part of his bowel. She was very happy with his progress, he has grown 10cm in the last year and gained 2½kg.

Travelling again?

I just had an internal job interview for a position as a group program manager position. It might be interesting to get back out on the road again and earn some air miles instead of spending all of my time travelling on the train. I don't know yet but it could be interesting...

Another busy weekend with some exercise, cleaning, shopping, changing car wheels, more cooking and not quite enough sleep. Tonight, however, I am going out for dinner with MK for the first time in a very long time. The kids are staying with T&B as DK wants to be taken to nursery by Morfar and whatever DK wants from Morfar, DK gets (as does J for that matter!)

Outliers

I am listening to an interesting audio book called Outliers at the moment.

It turns out that being a professional ice hockey player or football player has more to do with which month you were born in than skill and the same goes for many other areas of life like academic success.

If you are born in January (or September in the British system) then you will be the oldest, biggest, most mature and developed in the group when talent based selections are made in the early years of life. It is these people who get selected and then given the most training and the best opportunities for development during their schooling, lives and careers. It simply snowballs from there.

Interesting stuff and it explains why MK (birthday 10/01) is so good at ice hockey

Mastery and learning

So I have so far found out that it takes 5-10 years with 10 000 hours of concentrated effort to become a master of something, but as little as 20 hours to learn to just do something.

Learning to do something involves 5 steps:

1. Chose what you want to learn to do and set a performance target
2. Deconstruct the skill into specific skills 
3. Research it
4. Remove the barriers to practicing
5. Pre commit to at least 20 hours of specific and targeted practice

It's apparently as simple as that. My challenge will probably be the time on the water, but I'll try to work on that when the spring comes.

So where am I in this process?

1. I know where I want to be and how high I am aiming
2. I've broken this down into the following points
1. Physical fitness and strength
2. Racing skills
3. Starting
4. Upwind
5. Downwind
6. Boat setup and trim
3. I am already reading as much as I can on the subject
4. I can't really do much more here, my boat is by the water and ready to go, I just need time and appropriate weather
5. I need to make sure that I get out whenever I can and stay out on the water and work on specific skills to make sure that I am getting better each time I sail.

More barefoot goodies

I'll soon never have to wear normal shoes again.

Learning

I have read a few books on sailing since I got my boat at the beginning of the year. I have digested and understood a number of things and try to apply them when I am out racing with the other guys - who are pretty good sailors, it should be noted. The problem is that I don't seem to be making much progress.

I have the fundamentals in place and that allows me to be in the game, but I don't know how to get better. Sometimes I go well and others times I am slow, but I don't really know why. There is some understanding missing about how to set and sail the boat in different conditions - mast rake, sale shape and how to sail with or through the waves.

Apparently experience is the key to improvement, but I am impatient so I want to find out how to get better faster. Reading sailing books hasn't helped much because the advice is to general, ideally I would like to have a coach, but that is difficult and expensive so I am going to try another option. The plan is to spend some time and effort to learn what I have to do to learn to sail better as fast as possible. There is a lot of information available about the skill of skill acquisition and that will be my starting point. I'll be reading, watching and listening to podcasts in an effort to find out how I can become a good learner and then put that into practice over the winter and into next season.

Bison

It's been an odd weekend. The water went off at 10 on Friday evening so we had to arrange some odd workarounds to get MK a shower before having her hair cut on Saturday morning and the boys swimming was cancelled.

This weekend Peberdalsgaard had an open house and a sale of meat. What is a little different is that it is a bison farm. We stood in the freezing rain for a few minutes looking at the motionless, cold miserable animals before retreating to the barn to get some meat. The spegepølse (smoked salami) is excellent and we will report back on the sausages, mince and stewing steak that we bought. The steaks and better cuts were eye wateringly expensive so we'll have a go at these first before investing in a feast worthy piece of meat.

Imagine it looking cold and wet and standing in mud

Yesterday evening's stew was a hit and the shepherds pie that I made on Saturday was also one of the best I have ever made (thanks to the lamb gravy that I had frozen) so the home cooking is riding a pretty good wave at the moment.

Survived the storm

There has been a huge storm over Scotland and Northern Europe over the last 24 hours. We have had very high winds and apparently there have been surge tides hitting the coasts on either side of the north sea.

Having been stick in Copenhagen a month ago, I decided to head home at lunchtime on the train. That worked out pretty well, the train was full, but I got home without problems only to find that garage roof felt was peeled back so far that it was almost in the neighbours garden. I climbed up onto the rather rotten roof, folded the felt back and nailed it down. BHP then helped me with some buckets of stones to hold the edges down. It seems to have worked overnight, but we definitely need a new garage in the spring.

This morning there is some snow on the ground and it is still very cold, but I decided to stay home given the trains being in a mess and the roads being unpredictable. Hopefully the forecast snow will not be too great and not here for too long over the weekend.

Slowing down

After a couple of  months of extremely long days and a lot of work, things are finally slowing down to a steady pace that seems almost too slow now. I am unfortunately still having to come to Copenhagen every day, but I am not crazy busy all day, I don't have to work at home in the evenings and I don't have trouble getting to sleep. (Although DK likes to wake us up very early and then I can't get back to sleep for him snoring)

It seems strange to not be so busy, but I'm getting used to it and I'm able to leave work in time to help with cooking for a change although I can't quite manage to get home in time to fetch the kids because I'd have to leave in the middle of the afternoon to get back in time.

Christmas has started

I have managed to avoid a hangover, but 3 days later, I am still tired and a bit grumpy after the works Christmas party.

Friday night started at an Italian restaurant with pretty good food and wine and then continued in a night club until about 2:30. I haven't been in a club for many years and I quickly remembered why when we got there and it was full of middle aged men in black suits. Later on some women did turn up (mostly dressed head to toe in black as well) but it wasn't an experience I found myself longing to repeat despite the boss buying magnums of champagne and bottles of vodka.

I managed to stagger home using trains and taxis and was in bed by 4 only to be back up at 7 having been woken by the kids and terrible cramp. I staggered around the house for a while smelling awful and still quite drunk but after a shower, I went back out the door to go to another Christmas party, this time with the Finn sailors.

This party started at 2 in the afternoon and we had a much more traditional Danish party with herrings, schnapps, pork based stuff and a lot more schnapps followed by rice pudding and cognac. I left there at about 9 and was home by 11 expecting a hangover to arrive during the night. Thankfully that didn't materialise so we had a fairly relaxed Sunday with a trip to Crossfit in the morning and visitors in the afternoon.

Now I just need to work on catching up on sleep for the rest of the week.

So long and thanks for all the fish

It's been fantastic having a house guest for the last week or so. We have been spoiled by having the kids fetched and entertained, dinner has been made, the house has been cleaned and our clothes have magically been washed and ironed each day. Truly spoiled.

This morning we were up at 5:30 to deliver our Mary Poppins substitute to the airport and I was at my desk by 7:20.

Now a busy day awaits and then we'll have to figure out how to make ourselves something to eat this evening.

Thanks mum

I'm getting bad at remembering this

I seem to have fallen out of the habit of blogging a little.

We have been busy as usual. MK took 3 grand parents and the kids to the theater in Tivoli on Friday afternoon before I met them at Mother for pizza. I worked and got my phone fixed but was rather too early at the restaurant and they were late which was a little frustrating for me. The restaurant was packed and the service was VERY slow. The food was good but I think the overall result is that I can't be bothered to go there again especially given that MK and I had stomach ache after eating so much pizza!

I sailed on Saturday morning in Vallensbæk, the Finn club had arranged for a coach to be out on the water with us and to give some feedback afterwards. It was a really nice day with very little wind and we concentrated on doing a lot of starts. I wasn't very good as I am always very wary of hitting the new shiny boats that the more experienced and better sailors have. I enjoyed it but I don't think I learned very much.

Here's a video from saturday's sailing on facebook

Dinner with all of the outlaws on Saturday evening was delicious and Sunday was a day for crossfit relaxation, a walk and I have also changed the cartridge in the bathroom tap so that works again.

Poor Host

I am afraid that we are abusing the good will of our house guest.

The first evening I left her to cook dinner whilst I went to Crossfit. Wednesday evening she was left to make dinner again by herself and then had to put up with being shushed repeatedly whilst I tried to watch a film (that continued last night as well!)

At least someone else cooked dinner last night and we are going out to eat tonight after a trip to the theatre in Tivoli.

Shoulder Press

I squeezed in a cheeky Crossfit session last night which was great, but it was pretty tough. The first set of 50 times 50kg overhead presses was hard, but then getting back round to it again after running, 50 push ups, 50 pull ups, 50 medicine ball sit ups, 50 squats was really hard.

I managed 13 in the second round before running out of time at 25 minutes.

I also found out that I can quite easily do a 50kg snatch :-)

Scared

Another hectic weekend.

On Saturday the Finn club had arranged for the Danish national coach to be at the sailing club for a training session on the water. I hadn't sailed for a few weeks but I was looking forward to getting back out and hoping for some constructive help from the coach.

I am always a bit rusty after a month off from sailing, but nothing was working properly. The wind was blowing reasonably hard from the land which makes it shifty and unpredictable. We were also sailing close to the shore so the consequences of capsizing could well have been a broken mast (and the water is rather cold).

I was far too tense and terrified of capsizing which I nearly did 3 times. I wasn't enjoying it. The aim of the training was to have us all sailing close to each other so the courses were short and we had 3 starts for each actual race. I made the first 3 starts and finished the first race fairly close to last. I made the next 2 starts, but then somehow lost my nerve. Nothing I tried to do was going how I wanted to and I just wanted to get back without breaking anything. I sailed back a forth a bit in an effort to calm my nerves, but in the end I just went in. I was embarrassed. One of the guys out there was well into his 60s with an artificial knee and he was doing better than me and there weren't even very big waves.

I'll try again next weekend when there is another coaching session, but then I think I'll pack the boat up until sailing starts again in the new year.

Long day, late night

I know very well that I am not the only person who works long hours, but I am getting tired of it at the moment.

Yesterday I left the office at 7pm, worked all the way home on the train, went to crossfit from 8-9, ate dinner and then worked until midnight.

Tonight I am leaving on time (in the car because the trains were a mess this morning) and when I get home I am going to drink most of a bottle of wine before watching Jack Reacher.

Rhythm

MK was electioneering yesterday afternoon so I inherited the task of taking DK and his friend to their weekly music class (with J along as well). I was pretty lost to be honest,  everyone else knew the songs and what they were supposed to be doing, but it was actually quite good fun.

We then are an enormous piece of roast pork between us. It isn't very long ago that we would have laughed a the idea of eating over a 1kg of pork (before a gallon of fat came out) for dinner, but last night we had to find some other stuff for J to eat afterwards because he was still hungry. He generally eats as much as I do these days and always more than MK.

Getting better all round

DK is much better, he is still tired from the antibiotics, but the mark on his leg has pretty much gone and his cough is much better.

I seem to have slightly less to do at work as well at the moment so MK and I managed to watch a film together last night - Friends with Benefits or F%#k Buddies as it was translated in Danish. She loved it (I suspect she had no idea that it was Justin Timberlake or who he is but that's OK)
I thought it was pretty terrible to be honest, it was supposed to be taking a snide view of cliché ridden rom coms, but it ended up being one. It doesn't really matter because MK thought it was good and next time we'll probably watch something less like a romantic comedy.

Oops

I didn't sail because it was too windy for me. Of the 8 or so that did venture out, 2 broke their masts so I was very glad that I stayed on dry land.

Last Regatta of the year

Tomorrow is the last formal regatta of the year. We are only sailing for 3 hours instead of the normal 6 hours and there is roast pork afterwards instead of sausages.

Last night I stuck my own sail numbers to my good sail that I got with my new mast. It took a while to figure out whether the number should be parallel with the battons or the bottom of the sail or if they should be perpendicular to the back edge of the sail. It seems that the the latter was the case.

I think it looks OK, but its hard to tell on the floor in the basement. The weather looks like being rather boring but at least that minimises the risk of swimming in the rather cold sea.

Lovely

DK has been ill the last couple of days and then we noticed a big red ring on his leg (the black line around it is my doing to see if it is growing or not).

It turns out that it is all related to an infected tick bite so now he is on antibiotics for 10 days and we can hope that it doesn't developed into Lyme disease

Oh Bother

I dropped my phone on sunday and broke the glass on the front. Thankfully I can expense the repair, but it's a real pain in the bum to find the time and place to get it fixed.

Schaeffergaarden

I've been away from home again in Copenhagen, but this time it was planned so I had a toothbrush and some clean pants.

We are having a workshop at Schaeffergaarden in the north of Copenhagen

It's pretty nice and the restaurant is good too, I particularly like the 50s decor that I think is actually mostly original from the period rather than being a retro re-fit.

8 x 8 year olds

The house is not quiet!

Half a pig!

Viking ship chocolate ship

Pig

I just heard that MK has picked up our latest half pig, but it isn't really chopped up much (so much for a cheap deal from a farmer)

Sounds like I'm going to spend the evening up to my elbows in pig and plastic bags.

Happy Birthday

Thanks for all the cards and presents.

Apparently J was up very early this morning, but he didn't open any presents until breakfast. He is delighted with all of the presents, but I am happy to say that he seems most excited about the radio controlled car that we got him (and me).

He is having a viking themed party on Friday with the boys from school and then I guess we'll use the weekend building and then probably breaking the Hornet

Breezy out

I thought he was asking for trouble when I heard someone on the radio yesterday morning declare that Denmark wouldn't have the same problems with the big storm that the UK were having because Denmark is better prepared.

I left the office a little after 15:30. I sat on a train until 17:00 at which point they said it would be 2-3 hours before the trains were running again so I decided to get something to eat and then see a film. So after a picnic and seeing Rush at the Palads cinema, I headed back to the station to find ALL trains cancelled until today.

Hmmm

I ended up staying in the Cabin hotel and I am not at work in the same clothes as yesterday and beginning to smell a bit.

MK has come to Copenhagen today on a course so I have to get home in time to collect the kids. That is still looking a bit challenging so I guess I will leave at lunchtime and hope that I get there in time.

BTW Rush was very good. It is about the rivalry between Niki Lauder and James Hunt in the 70's.

All 4 faces

Pumpkin #1

Life without glasses

After a week without glasses, I am getting used to the benefits and drawbacks of no longer wearing any facial furniture.

I had a terrible headache by the end of the day on Monday but since then it has been more or less OK. I am getting used to very slight blurriness on most things, both near and far and simply accepting that as being how I can see at the moment.

It appears to be inevitable that I will need some reading glasses in the future, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, at the moment I am just +0.75 in each eye, but the short shortsightedness is down to -0.5 and -0.25 which is pretty insignificant and explains why I was getting headaches wearing my glasses that were stronger than that.

On the plus side, I can now wear any old sunglasses again without problem

Today's tie

It certainly got some comments

Model boat

Made from business cards last week

Winter

As some of you may have read, we were in England last week for a family break and to visit the other set of in-laws.
We flew over to Manchester on Saturday and after a long wait for the hire car, set off for Shustoke. J spent the morning at school with KP on Monday to see what it is like at an English school. He apparently thought the maths was very easy but didn't say much about the English lesson. We heard from the head teacher that he was very personable and from KP that 2 of the girls and one of the boys really wanted to be friends with him.

Tuesday was a mammoth shopping day for everyone (except me for once). I had an eye test and found that I am not very short sighted any more, but becoming long sighted so I am now trying to live without my glasses again although today is showing me that some reading glasses may well be in my future.

Wednesday we visited the Manchester Childrens hospital for DK to have his feet checked. They are fine (he refused to walk properly insisting that he always walks like a robot) and he runs with nice straight feet. We don't need to go back for another year and he should keep running and jumping and playing as much as possible.

Thursday we had a day off from the car and just relaxed with a walk and I moved some kitchen cupboards around.

Friday was home day and we have spent the weekend relaxing and clearing out the basement to accommodate the new massive freezer. Now we are back at work and school and it's peeing down with rain.

New cardigans

Thanks to Mormor for knitting these for the boys. They look great.

Broken Record

This will just be another post like the last ones. I am too busy to do anything except work at the moment.

I'll try and get better at posting some pictures as life goes by, but the words will have to wait until I have some more time.

Sausages

Making Waves

I could feel this cold arriving on Thursday evening, a combination of tiredness and stress didn't help me fight it off so it managed to invade my body and fill my head with gunk.

I didn't feel bad on Saturday morning so I took advantage of my last free weekend morning for a couple of weeks to head out for a couple of hours sailing. I was rewarded with sunshine and waves, both of which I have learned to deal with as a sailor during my first season sailing on the sea.

This was planned as my birthday weekend, the kids went to T&B overnight and we had at some point considered an evening in Copenhagen but that got shelved reasonably quickly when we found some beef filet in the freezer and thought about the energy required to get to CPH and back.

MK and I had a wonder around the outlet village to stock up on work clothes for her (along with some orange trousers!) and then I made dinner - sweet potato fries cooked in duck fat and the beef in a green peppercorn, cream and Armagnac sauce followed by a box of chocolates. We also drank one of the very nice bottles of wine that we bought in Provence with it (that was before the cold took away my sense of taste).

Sunday was very productive as we made about 6kg of sausages and cleaned the windows, but to be honest, it's pretty quiet being home without the kids. It's fun for a couple of hours, but we soon get the miss them and it's nice when they come back high as kites on sugar and being spoiled by their grandparents.

Tired Eyes

I can't f'in' see what I'm doing at the moment. I think my prescription is probably only about 5% off, but I am struggling all the time and nothing is ever quite clear. Normally that's not a big issue, but at the moment I am working quite long days and the fatigue is making everything seem worse than it did before.

I think I'm going to end up having to go back to the varifocals and give them another shot. This time, I'm not scrimping on the ones with the limited focal area at the bottom of the lenses though. Oh no, I'm getting the best ones I can get.

Travel Cards

We have a new travel pass system that covers the whole of Denmark.You check in at the start of your journey and check out at the end and it calculates the price.

There have been a lot of problems making it work, but it had apparently been sorted out and as I am now using the train reasonably regularly, I got one.

Having checked my account last night I can see that I have paid 88kr each way to work whereas if I had continued with the old paper 10 trip card I would have been paying 64kr each way. That means that I have been paying 48kr (about £5 or $8) per day for the privilege of using my shiny new card.

I also found out that a 30 day pass for unlimited travel is only 1600kr which would pay for itself in about 9 days compared with the rejsekort.

No more. I'm cancelling it when I get home tonight and getting a monthly card when I am going to be in CPH full time in the future.

A funny day

It's been an odd day today.

The result of which is rather a lot of motivation to partake in somewhat destructive behaviour at other people's expense. That's not normally in my nature, but in this instance, I'll make an exception, after all, I've got the moral higher ground

B'day

It appears to be getting less and less exciting having a birthday once you reach your late 30s. I had a new mast for my boat a few weeks ago which counts as both Birthday and Christmas presents stretched out into one loooong gift, but I did get a couple of small things this morning. Thanks.

This is a Concept mast but it's pretty similar. Mine is a Wilke and is black all the way up!

However, it's nice to see some of the smaller things happening around me this morning. DK has been singing happy birthday to me non stop since I got home from work yesterday evening and J had made me the worlds smallest birthday card this morning.

This evening I will get to sit on a very small chair and eat my dinner at the nursery whilst we hear about DK's field trip last month.

The biggest surprise of the day came when I opened google this morning and found this