Bulls balls

For the second time in my life.
These are really good

Climbing trees

Crabbing

More pipes

Pipes

It's much colder than it looks

Cold water paddling

J actually had to be restrained from taking all if his clothes off and heading for a swim!

Leather strap for my Oris

Cold

I suppose that only an idiot comes to Norway without a coat in April and that makes me an idiot.

I was up at 04:20 having slept badly knowing that I had to be up so early.

Now I can look forward to meetings until 21:00 tonight before finally getting some sleep. Hopefully I'll find something worth eating in the vicinity of the office and hotel which is in the Nydalen area of Oslo.  I appear to be the only person left in the office now that everyone has gone home.

Maybe just a few more posts here...

I'm off to Oslo tomorrow morning on a 6:15 flight so I'll be leaving the house at 4:30.

That's too bloomin' early and I know it's going to be another very long day. I am doing about 2 jobs at the moment and it's going to get worse for at least the coming month as I am covering for someone's vacation for 3 weeks starting on Monday as well as kicking off a new project the last two days and another the next two days.

I'm moving

I'm starting a new blog over here at Primarily Primal Family which is something of an experiment for now, but for the time being, that will be my main blogging site...

Bristol

I have spent the last couple of days kicking off a project in Bristol with 2 Norwegians and a lost more Brits. It has been quite funny working with Brits again after so many years of working with Scandinavians and other international folk. I enjoyed the work, but the trip through Heathrow was a pain and the Hilton was somewhat reminiscent of an old peoples home in layout and decor. Thankfully there was no smell of chlorine, just bleach from the swimming pool.
We did find a nice pub for dinner and we will be looking for a better hotel next time.

The UK head office is a nice old building with some eccentric details inside.

Glowing Report

We had a parents evening at J' school last night. As I have said before, it is a very different concept than an English parents evening where the teachers see the parents and tell them how their kids are getting on. This one is aimed at the kids and the parents are allowed to sit in on the event.

When the kids are in the first couple of years, this seems silly, but now that he is getting bigger, it seems to work quite well.

J is doing really well. There was really nothing to add other than that he should carry on doing what he is doing. The only comment that was not so positive is that he tends to be a bit silly when they are doing work that is not their usual timetabled classes, for example, their maths classes last week were pretending to run a shop so that they could learn about money. Apparently he didn't take that too seriously.

We all left smiling.

French Food

What on earth has happened to food in France?

Last night we ate in a small restaurant close to the (crappy Ibis) hotel and it wasn't up to much at all. A very dull goats cheese salad and a really crap, tough and fatty steak. Not impressed.

There is also a quite reasonable canteen in the building that we are in, but the food is at best OK, and today was on a par with the restaurant we ate in last night. There also seems to be a new rule of chips with everything.

I seem to remember that it used to be difficult to find a bad restaurant in Paris, perhaps I'm unlucky, but it seems that there are plenty to chose from now.

Moderately Gay Paris

I am going to be spending the next couple of days working in the Tour Prisma in the La Defense area of Paris. It's an oddly futuristic area where there are 4 levels of roads and walkways on top of each other and few ways of moving between them. Very Bladerunner.

I slept somewhere near the blue dot and I am working somewhere near the red dot.

I hope that we manage to get into the older parts of Paris for dinner tomorrow night when the last member of our team turns up from Oslo. In the meantime we can carry on working away.

Working Hard

Life goes on, I am working hard so there isn't so much time for blogging at the moment. I am also being booked up for the weekends and travelling for work on the next 2 Sundays which doesn't leave much time for sailing or anything else for that matter.

We met with a builder to talk about replacing the garage this morning. I dread to think what his estimate will be, but there is little choice other than to replace it. I suppose, there is the option of not having a garage!

Probably not necessary

When I ordered the Ray Bans that are photographed somewhere at the bottom of this page, I sort of got carried away with the great prices that I managed to find online for these sun glasses. I wanted the Persol ones that you can see here (they're not broken, they fold up!) but I couldn't decide which to get. As I was buying from what appeared to be a Danish company, I thought I'd order both and send one back. In the end, one pair came from Italy and the other from Hong Kong although both appear to be genuine. 

I think I'll end up keeping them as the cost of returning either would be about 25% of what they cost and I rather like them both.

Kaweco Sport Pen and Pencil

I can't even remember where I saw these little pens first, but I was immediately taken with the pocket sized fountain pens and the clutch pencil. These are the cheap plastic ones that look rater retro, but in truth just feel a bit cheap in the hand. Nevertheless, I still rather like them and the pen writes nicely. Now I just have to explain to MK that I really ought to have one of the aluminium ones. that cost a bit more. 

It's also nice to note that they are made in Germany which is rather nice for a change from China.

Cheap hotel in Paris

Paris is an expensive city. When you get a cheap (140 euro per night) room then this is what you get. Plus the plug was stuck in the sink and the shower was crap.
Looking forward to going home again tonight.

Journalling

Yet another noun turned into a verb.

I am trying a 31 day journal thing. I discovered during day one where I had to write why I was doing it that there are reasons both deep and shallow.

The deeper and more worthy reason is that it is supposed to be a great way of handling stress and increasing general well being. Apparently it is particularly important to express gratitude on a daily basis and I know that is something with which I occasionally struggle. I have a lot to be grateful for, but sometimes it's too easy to concentrate on the things that are not quite how you want them to be.

The shallow reason is that I have a lot of notebooks and pens and I am struggling to find excuses to use them and therefore probably justification for buying more of them. I also want to carry on improving my handwriting.

It looks like I'll be able to get some more sun today as well before heading to the airport this afternoon.

Spring

Look what is in our garden.

After a sunny weekend, there are plenty of obvious signs in the garden that Spring is here.

I have even been outside getting some sunshine during the day today as I have been working from home.

I'm off to Paris tomorrow evening for a quick trip.

Ready for School

We had a meeting with DK's group leader at nursery this evening and she was very happy to say that he will be ready for school next summer and she has no real concerns about recommending him to start school. This is a significant difference from her recommendation that J should stay in nursery for another year. She may have been right about J, but we've got through that phase now and he is working well at school.

DK was very happy with the news as we were too. He is developing at lightening speed these days and it's great to see how much he learns every week. It's good that he is a determined and happy chap and I am sure that he'll do very well at school.

Oslo

It's still winter in Oslo, it's cold, raining and there is snow on the ground outside the city. I of course forgot to pick a hat up as I was leaving the house this morning so I was rather cold by the time I got to the office from the the metro station. It turns out that the office is more or less over the road from my previous employers office that I visited a couple of years ago.

Lunch was quite good, but I can feel that I was up very early this morning and I'm going to be rather tired by the time I get home again this evening.

New sun glasses

Trying something a bit more classic (and no hair)

Weights and measures

I spent Saturday morning in the "hall" at the sailing club weighing and swinging a Finn. (The boat, not Matti the rotund Finnish chap standing by the door)

One of the curiosities on the Finn class is that there is not only a minimum weight limit (116kg since you asked) but also restrictions on the weight distribution. It has been found that the placement of the weight within the boat make a difference to how it performs and apparently the weight should be at the ends and not in the middle. To measure this, the boat is hung from some hooks in the middle and rocked backwards and forwards. By knowing the radius of the swing (length of the hooks) and the timing of the swings, it is possible to calculate the weight distribution. There is a bunch of complicated maths in there somewhere, but you swing the boat from two different hooks. Measure the average time per swing and plot it on a graph. If it's within the lines, you're good to go. The closer to the bottom left corner, the better apparently.

We only managed to weigh and swing Ricard's boat because the gig is a bit too narrow and needs some revision, but I hope to be able to get my boat re-weighed and swung in the next month or so. It was (believe it or not) and interesting morning and I learned a fair bit about how all of this stuff works in the weighing and placing of weights in the boat. 

There

Not their or they're though

Nearly there

Friday afternoon planning

I have been asked if I want to take part in a challenge on Friday afternoon. It was Stefan from Crossfits 40th birthday last weekend and to celebrate there was a mega workout of 40 reps of 40 exercises. I don't remember them all, but there were some pretty hard exercises in there and those that did it were still complaining this week. A normal Crossfit WOD (workout of the day) is about 20 minutes, this took 2 hours.

Anyway, some people are doing in on Friday starting at 13:00 so I could sneak out there and do it in time for collecting the kids before 16:00. I'll see how work is going tomorrow and if I can make training tomorrow night, but at the moment it looks very  tempting.

Back again

It was really nice driving to the office this morning - little traffic and I am not at THE customer site in the middle of Copenhagen so the drive was also shorter.

It's been another uneventful weekend, I spent Saturday chopping and carrying wood until I couldn't really chop or lift another piece and then recovered on Sunday.

We are all fit and healthy at the moment which is the first time in a while and a nice state of affairs.

Next weekend should hopefully be a little more exciting. There is an open house arrangement at the concert hall in Copenhagen so we can see some orchestras playing and there is a weighing and measuring weekend planned at the sailing club so I can get my boat weighed. Hopefully that will allow me to take some or all of the 9 kg of lead out of the boat and provide a very slight help in my efforts not to be last this year. I may even get a trip on the water out of it.

Up and away

I am typing this from somewhere over the north of Germany. I don't really have much to write, but it's pretty cool that there is wireless internet available on the flight.

Home tonight to see the family. Apparently DK has ear problems, the drains are out of both of his ears and he has fluid in one of them. We still suspect that there is still a degree of selectivity in his hearing.

Cheese lolly?

Hotel therapy

I decided that I need to improve my handwriting so I have spend 30 minutes practicing letters and words that last couple of nights. It's nice therapy and it even seems to be helping. (This was Tuesday)

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.