HE SLEPT THROUGH!

After exactly 9 months of regular night time waking and crying, J finally slept through the whole night last night from about 9:00 until 05:45 this morning!
The weather has continued to be fantastic here, we went to the glassworks at Holmegaard yesterday to see the new visitors centre (average really considering you used to get a guided tour for free and now you pay 80kr to show yourself around!), but we did get some new wine glasses.
Now that J is sleeping, we are considering getting ourselves a new bed so that we can sleep better too...

Oh no, not again...

I am extremely disappointed to hear about Floyd Landis's A sample testing positive, if it proves to be a correct result and that he did take testosterone before stage 17 then I think he will have to have the Tour win taken from it and that could be the beginning of the end of pro bike racing as we know it. The media interest will go ( it is already waning) and the sponsorship money will soon follow. There does seem to be some hope that Floyd's result is a false one and many have been cleared in the past following this kind of result. I really hope that this is not the going to be the third consecutive Grande Tour tainted by doping...
On a much happier note, here is J in his Hawaiian outfit.

Argh!

Isn't it annoying when you make an effort to get to a meeting and then it is cancelled? I have dragged my sweaty arse into the office today for a meeting this afternoon, only to have it cancelled at the last minute. The result is that I am stuck in CPH until about 10:00 this evening waiting for my mother to arrive at the airport. It is also very hot in here.
I have just installed some widgets on my desktop from Yahoo though and they seem pretty cool! I now have an analogue clock, weather forecast and check of my yahoo mail account floating around the desktop ( I can also have a picture frame that runs through my photos and an Outlook link to to-dos etc)
In the meantime, here are some feet.

Working from home is great

I have been mostly working from home for the last couple of weeks and it is marvelous. I can get out of bed and be on-line in a couple of minutes and also save at least a couple of hours of commuting time each day. There are drawbacks, it is more difficult to get things done when you don't see your colleagues, but as most of them are on holiday it doesn't matter.
Other exciting news is that I had a message from someone I have never met before meaning that my global audience is growing. ( I think she was in the US based on the comment that her husband watched the Tour in the mornings)
Anyway, to keep the regular reader happy, here is another picture of the little guy helping to unpack the new phones... (won't work now, I'll put it up later)

Withdrawl symptoms

Unfortunately for us viewers, the Tour de France is finally over. Floyd won a deserved victory and at last someone other than Lance has one, I was never a huge fan and now that it seems that Jan Ullrich will never do it again, i am happy that it is someone like Floyd could do it. What a nice guy and what a great collection of sunglasses!
Anyway back to the usual update pictures of the family to keep my mother (who is not remotely interested in cycling) happy.

Amazing Floyd

Floyd made an amazing come-back yesterday, the likes of which has not been seen since the days of Mercx. In a move requiring such balls that it is a wonder he can ride a bike, Floyd attacked with 150km to go and basically whipped everyones ass. Fantastic.
However, as only my mum reads this, i should note that everyone at home is well etc etc. We are looking forward to seeing her next week and I hope that by then J will have overcome his latest round of sleeping problems...

Meltdown

Well yesterday Floyd had a shocker, he died on the last climb and basically lost the Tour, he ended up going at my pace. What I really like though is his attitude, he is so honest and down to earth when he explains what happened, you can't help but like the guy. Denmark are no doubt celebrating Rasmussens win which was pretty impressive to say the least.
Today should be exciting too and I really have no idea who will win, but I suspect that Michael Rasmussen will have another go on the last climb if he is there with the leaders...

Sitting, but not sleeping

Well J has now learned how to sit himself up from lying down and he is increasingly communicative and fun to play with, but he is still unable to sleep for more than 4 hours in a row and stay alseep after about 05:30. At the moment this is not really my problem as i have the "work clause" which allows me to sleep through the night time duties, but it won't be long before I have to step up to the plate and deal with him in the night when we are both working again...

It was great to see the stage of the Tour going up Alpe d'Huez yesterday, it reminded me of the painful hours that were spent riding around there last year, I don't think there is a better place in the world to ride a bike on the roads.

Wireless world

I went a bit mad in El Giganten on the way home last night so we are now fully wireless and I am sitting here with 3 laptops switched on and connected at the same time. We also now have 3 cordless phones dotted around the house. The main reason for this is that the smallest member of the household is more than a little interested in all things with wires and he is getting better and better at moving around and pulling himself up on and with things.
More interestingly though today is the best stage of the Tour de France and I am working from home! Hurray!

Gone fishing

Yesterday was a fabulous day in Denmark, the sun shone and it was hot. I was lucky enough to be invited out with Lars, Jan and Bent to go fishing in Jans boat at Reersø. We took a few cold beers and a load of fishing stuff and headed off into the sun. Having never really fished beforeIi was amazed thatIicaughtt the first one, a horn-fisk (long thin thing) and 3 of the 15 or so flat plaice like fish we got (called a skrubber or something in Danish (apparently it is Flounder)).
Jan did a great job of cutting the heads off and pulling in the insides out and when we got back (2 hours later than planned), Lars took the fins and leathery dark side skin off.
Moving on a couple of hours, we had fantasticfreshh pan fried fish with chips in the garden at home at last.
J didn't seem so happy to be home, he woke up drying every halfhoure during the night despite being in out bed. We guess it must be his second tooth coming through...

"... and simultaneously they play music"

I really like Germany, I had forgotten what a nice place it is. The other thing that I had forgotten is just how funny the Germans are without being aware of the fact. On Wednesday evening a group of us were taken out the dinner (rather nice suckling pig with bacon dumplings) and a few drinks in the apparently infamous Reeperbahn in Hamburg Towards the end of the evening we were walking along the side of the harbour to one of the beach bars (an artificial beach with a bar), when passing an old warehouse building Gerhard pronounced that "at the weekend you can see thousands of people here drinking beer and simultaneously they play music" Perhaps this loses a little in the re-telling, but I thought it was rather funny.

Not much happening here

It's been a dull day working from home and waiting to take the train to Hamburg this evening. I feel like I should continue to make posts even when I don't have much to say! It's a shame that it isn't an interesting stage of the Tour de France today either.
Maybe something interesting will happen in Germany...

Back from the edge

The edge of the island that is! I am home alone again and unfortunately there is an air of old mother Hubbard about the house. I had sour(ish) milk on my breakfast and cereal for my tea last night.
I have also done something to my back so I am struggling somewhat. Getting out of bed was tough, putting socks on was tough etc etc. I hope it gets better quickly. I think it could be related to the fact that I have cycled hard for about 60km each day since last Thursday and on Saturday I lowered my handlebars a little. Maybe they're going back up again tonight.
Pictures of the lovely weekend spent at the beach will be duly posted when the wife returns with the camera!

Home alone

M and J are going to the beach for 10 days or so with her parents, I am joining them for both weekends, but that does mean that I will be home alone for 4 nights ! (I am going to Hamburg for 2 nights next week)
It is not often that I get to do this so the plan is as follows:
Thursday night - ride bike then clean and service it
Friday - hopefully work from home and then spend a few hours riding to the beach
Saturday - relax
Sunday - spend a few hours riding home again
Monday - work and who knows what else
Tuesday - work from home, short bike ride then take the train to Hamburg (this is very exciting and will no doubt feature largely in another dull post
So that's it really.

Elephant Man

I was stung in the middle of my forehead by a wasp whilst cycling on Sunday so yesterday I had a forehead that was somewhere between John Merrick and a Klingon. Thankfully today it has subsided a little.
It's dead hot here!

Quality Time

Well I think that's what it's called, Jeremy and I were home alone yesterday afternoon whilst Mum went to Copenhagen. It was a pretty hot and sticky day and to be honest I don't know how she ever gets anything done when she is home with him. It was fun, but he wants more or less constant attention.
For her part it seems that Mum had a good time escaping to CPH, although she singularly failed to achieve anything on the shopping front despite having carte blanche to buy anything she fancied and the sales have just started!
Then at the end of the day he falls asleep in some very strange positions...

Weekend at the beach

The weekend has been lovely but there have been a few disappointments to go with the exciting developments. Friday saw the sad removal of Jan Ullrich and other from the Tour de France, I am not really sure whether it is fair to apply a guilty until proven innocent rule, and I suspect that the expelled riders are not in the minority when I comes to drug use...
Saturday saw another sporting disappointment with England out of the World Cup. I knew as soon as it went to penalties that we would go out, but that is football and it doesn't really matter as the Tour is on now!
On a more positive side, Jeremy is now sitting really well on his own so he can entertain himself better as you can see.
He also has his first tooth that can clearly be heard when he tries to bite the side off a glass when drinking.
So all in all, the weekend was good, sunshine, beer, swimming in the sea, cycling and relaxing.