Happy Christmas

We've had a really nice relaxed couple of days eating and drinking things that we generally wouldn't.

Next on the agenda is a walk in the forest and then we have to attack the half turkey that is lurking in the fridge.

Epic trip

To the supermarket to pick up vital supplies. Cream mostly.

Not quite there yet

6 hours driving
9 hours work
Still working

It's going to be finished before I go to bed though...

THEN it's Christmas :-)

Humbug

I am simply too busy for Christmas this year. I don't really have time to be writing this blog post, but if I don't write it, my dear readers will think that I have fallen off the face of the planet.

Today MK should be picking up the turkey from the butchers on the way home (don't worry, it's frozen) and then we can think about starting to decorate the tree that has been naked in the living room since the weekend.

Christmas trees and humbug

We got a Christmas tree on Saturday and by the time we had carried it home, I decided that we aren't having one next year. That was confirmed when the stand broke as we put it up in the living room.

On the plus side, I made a really nice Paleo Christmas cake on Sunday afternoon from ground almonds, loads of dried fruit, a couple of eggs, an orange, a glug of whisky and some spices.

Now the countdown is on and we are trying to figure out what we need to have done before the weekend. That includes getting food but as of about 5 minutes ago, we no longer need to worry about presents for the kids.

Don't worry, I haven't killed them, I bought a Scalextric instead.

Sitting Down

I spend a lot of time sitting down these days because I am almost always at our customers offices and as consultants, we are not given fancy standing up desks.

Apparently sitting down all day increases your risk of heart disease and a number of other nasty things by 100%. So why do we (almost) all do it? Apparently exercising doesn't do anything to mitigate these risks either!

I would love to be standing up as I type this, but I don't have the option. When I had my back problems I managed to work standing up all the time, but now I don't make the effort to make the effort.

That's going to change next week. It's my 17th December resolution!

Advent

As far as I can see, we are now half way through advent and we are a very very long way from being ready for Christmas.

• No Christmas tree
• Almost no cards written
• Many gifts not yet bought (or even decided what to get)

On the positive side, we know what we are eating and when (duck on 24th and turkey on 25th) and plans are starting to be pieced together to keep us busy between Christmas and New Year.

I am optimistic that I will be able to get the cards written this evening and sort out at least some of the shopping, but that means that the ironing will have to wait until another evening. 

I expect that MK and I will also make time to watch the last episode of Forbrydelsen 3. (I think it's The Killing in English but I have to watch it in Danish without subtitles!)

Heavy Stuff

There have been lots of heavy elements to the last few days.

Friday was an early start and a long drive across Denmark to Viborg for a quarterly company meeting and our company Christmas party. My idea of only drinking spirits actually turned out OK, I stuck to schnapps until about midnight and then moved onto mojitos without sugar. They were better than I expected and kept me going until 2:00 when I hit the sack.

5 hours later I got out of bed, had a little breakfast and got a ride to Ålborg airport to fly back to Copenhagen. Having 3 hours to kill before the next party started, I decided to walk the few miles to Dragør despite the snow and sub zero temperatures. The walk cleared my head and I was ready to get back into the schnapps with the Danish Finn Sailing club for another 7½ hours of drinking and eating.

The party was really good. I was the youngest person there and I would say that the average age was somewhere around 55, but they were very warm and welcoming and we had a good meal (sous vide cooked duck was the best I have ever eaten and rather a gourmet surprise). We drank and shot the breeze for a good while until I got a lift into town and took the train home. I also me the guy who built and owned my boat. He was glad to hear that it is still alive and they all seemed happy to have a new member or two. The other "new" guy last sailed a Finn in the first Danish championships 49 years ago and is planning a comeback next year!

Not surprisingly I took the opportunity to have a quiet day on Sunday whilst MK and the kids were out at football and making Christmas decorations with friends. I did shop for and cook a pretty good roast meal for supper so the day wasn't fully wasted.

It has snowed heavily for the last 48 hours so we are getting increasingly snowed in. Thankfully the world seems to continue turning here when it snows so we are just getting on with life.

The final heavy point was that when I weighed myself this morning, I was heavier than I have been in about 18 months. It's an odd time of the year to decide to try and lose weight, but that's what I'm doing.

Snow

I suppose that the 20 or so cm of snow lying around outside and still falling isn't going away anytime soon. At least I got some proper winter boots last week for the first time in my life!

Winter anyone?

We have about 15cm of snow already...

Looong but good day

It may have been apparent from my absence from the blog that we have been away for a few days. We flew to Manchester on Friday evening to spend the weekend with family and for DK to have a check-up on his feet in Manchester.

We arrived on Friday evening without incident in a rather boring and slightly tatty Ford Focus (glad we didn't buy one of those). Saturday was spent observing the world of consumerism in Bicester Village and then a relaxed evening with B, E, T & KP including a crafty pint and fish and chips for supper.

(At the risk of reading like a "Gill's Elevensies" stream of consciousness, I shall continue)

On Sunday we saw P, A, J & T for lunch. Monday we shopped in Tamworth. Tuesday we did the Think Tank in Birmingham and Wednesday we returned to Manchester for the check up.

The doctor said that DK's feet look better than they ever have. He runs well and the stiffness that we were worried about didn't concern her. We left his brace behind to be recycled for some other poor little mite in another country and headed to the airport, happy to be told that we don't need to go back for a whole year rather than the 6 months it has been until now.

The joi de vivre did ebb away somewhat as the evening wore on and we were delayed by 2 hours. The result was that we were not in bed until 2:00 this morning and getting out of bed for work was something of a struggle.

Nice BSA gold flash

Birmingham Think Tank

Formerly the science museum, still with the spitfire and steam engine.

Last day

Thank goodness for that!

Christmas Parties

Next Friday is our company Christmas Lunch (which takes place in the evening) in Viborg which is 3 hours drive west from our house. I'm getting a lift with some colleagues and staying overnight in a hotel.

I have also been invited to the Finnjolle (Finn Dinghy) sailors Christmas lunch in Dragør near Copenhagen on Saturday lunchtime.

As far as I can see, I don't really have time to go home between the events, other than to perhaps drop off my bags and collect whatever I need to take with me.

I have a feeling that I will need a quiet Sunday after all of that!

The worst moustache

There is a general concensus amongst my colleagues that out of all the guys at work who have grown a moustache in November, I suit mine the least.

These photographs are just the guys on my project at the moment so I am being judged from at least 10 people and I think it's quite an achievement to look so stupid. I didn't even go for a ridiculous shape!

It's going on Saturday and I can't wait to be rid of the itchy little blighter. I may be persuaded to wait until we have seen B&E and family if they really want to laugh at me though!

Winter weekends

On Friday afternoon, Richard decided that the weather forecast for Sunday was too bad and that we should sail on Saturday morning instead. So instead of a Saturday afternoon at the summerhouse and a walk on the beach (whilst fetching my sailing gear) I had to get up early and spend 2 hours driving over to fetch my gear before driving back to the other side of Sjælland to sail.  

There wasn't much wind which was OK for me to be honest. I was worried about making a total idiot of myself in front of the 3 other guys (it was bad enough having to meet them with a moustache!). We headed out into the Øresund and sailed for a couple of hours doing upwind and downwind legs. I was just as fast as the other guys downwind but struggled a bit upwind as the boat seems to want to naturally point a bit too much into the wind.

I made progress to and as my tacking got better, I wasn't totally left behind. I was complimented on my boat speed, but it was noted that I had a just needed to learn to sail in the right direction! I really enjoyed being DEN18 for the day and am looking forward to more sailing in the future. MK is far from wild about the idea of me getting a boat (I think or at least hope that is because of the cost) but I'm afraid, I think I'm going to do it anyway. As the guy in the bike shop said - "buy her a bunch of flowers and she'll soon forget about what it cost".

What little of Saturday that was left when I got home, was spent cooking some delicious lamb neck fillets and relaxing.

Sunday was a relaxing day inside as it was cold, wet and windy outside. We cooked a very big pork roast in the afternoon for cousins Tim and Rich plus SOs Rachel and Emma. It was nice to see them and get cracking on our second case of GSM.

Nuts?

Yes she is washing the ceiling!

Gettin' my a$$ kicked

I have accepted that I have failed to become the cyclist that I wanted to be. I had an idea that I could be good enough to fight for race wins in my class, but I was wrong.

The D class field that I am up against now has changed a lot since the first race that I rode 5 years ago. At that point there were maybe 25 people in each race and the average speed was around 36kph. If I was reasonably fit, I could keep up and I hoped that in time I'd be good enough to fight it out for a win every now and then.

These days the average speed is often over 40kph and the field has to be split into 2 groups because there are too many accidents with fields of up to 70 people. Whilst it is great that cycling has become more popular, I suspect that the change is related to the naming convention used for the classes. 5 Years ago we were called "Beginners", now we are the "D klass" so there is far less stigma involved in staying down in the lower ranks and the larger fields make it harder to earn enough points to be moved up the the C class.

Not me

So what now?

We I will carry on cycling for exercise and I think I'll do some mountain bike races again at some point but I want to turn my competitive spirit towards something else - sailing.

This weekend, someone has kindly offered to let me borrow a fairly new Finn at a sailing club near Copenhagen so I can experience what it is like sailing a boat less than 10 years old instead of my 30 year old one. I am also hoping that I can start the process of learning how to prepare and race a Finn because that is what I want to be doing next summer.

not me either!

(Mid life crisis?)

Bananas!