Ear we go then

Monday was a peculiar day, we had to take J to have drains or grommets put in his ears, I didn't have these as a child and I guess that is why both of my ear drums burst at some point. However as you can see in the picture, J now has tiny plastic tubes through his ear drums that allow nasty stuff to run out and air to more backwards and forward so that he can now hear better and doesn't have ear ache. Marvelous.


Since the small operation he has been on fine form (once he got over the anaesthetic) and it is very easy to see the change. He has been running around like mad and laughing at more or less everything. Anything that doesn't get laughed at, is barked at. He doesn't have too many words yet, but the animal sounds are coming on a treat...

Catch up post

It has been a very busy week so here is a catch up of events so far.

PhD proposal work is full steam ahead after the meeting with the guys at the business school on Wednesday. What should one wear to meet academics?

Corduroy obviously!

It has snowed here a lot this week (also on Wednesday actually), we have about 30cm lying on the ground at the moment and the country seems to be struggling to cope (still not as bad as the UK though on that front)

And finally for today J had a bath last night. It is amazing that he still fits in the baby bath, but it saves us hot water and he is happy in it as you can see.

Snow everywhere

The weather has been awful here today, horizontal snow all day.

Jeremy has taken to sleeping a bit better, but he didn't have his MMR jab today as he has ear infections and is having drains put in them on monday. The doctor thought that was enough to deal with without needing a vaccination to upset his system further.

Ossobuco

Apparently that means "bone hole" (wait a minute, this is not meant to be rude) .This is an Italian dish that I have discovered since moving to Denmark and i made it a few weeks ago when we had some friends come for dinner.
Before:

After:

It is essentially a slice through the leg of a cow (well a calf actually, that is a young cow, not the part of the leg...) I think I cooked it a bit too much, but that is the problem when you plan to make ox tail and can't get the right meat at the end of the shopping trip, so we improvised. Most things are better after a few hours bubbling in a bottle of red wine (well tough bits of meat anyway)

Whilst I was checking the spelling of Ossobuco I happened upon a site called cooking for engineers, that I think may interest somebody.

We are an uncle once more!

I had rather an odd converstaion last night, I was talking to my Dad and his cell phone rang. When he answered it I could tell that it was my brother calling with news of a new arrival to their family, a baby girl called Katherine. I think the middle name was Poppy, but I may have made that bit up!
Congratulations and good luck with the sleepless nights that are no doubt to follow. I hope that Mr.T is OK with it all...

Shelves!

This is an entry into the "very boring DIY post" competition, in which there have been few entries recently.


Since J is now getting taller and more able to climb onto things we have had to increase the amount of child proof storage space so feast your eyes on my handy work:

And as some compensation, here is a J getting ready for skiing with his mum's old (and now thorwn out) skiing sun glasses:

Telemark

If you look carefully at the picture below of MK skiing, you will note that she has her heel lifted, that is the telemark turn and it has been the revelation of our holiday. It is really good fun and much more majestic than alpine skiing and has an added beardy wierdy hippy factor. I think we are both pretty much hooked on this odd form of skiing.

As I have the opportunity to have a day skiing in Switzerland at the end of the month, I am determined to do it again (and again and again and again...)

The problem in France was that it was almost impossible to get boots to fit (even in a big resort) so I have invested in a pair of my own boots. Apparently there is only one model of one brand of boot that will fit me so, guess which I have chosen?! Scarpa T2X:

So the plan is that this will be me in a couple of weeks:

Maybe the next time we can go to the new home of telemark skiing: the rockies!

Shopping mania

Some of you may remember that I ordered a custom messenger bag a few weeks ago, well it has arrived and is very cool. I am really happy with it. I also hae a matching wallet with the orange feet on it. The lining is orange truck tarp too so it is easy to see things in there. It is pretty big but it is supposed to be for traveling for a couple of days with work gear etc. Not very consulant though (or Danish for that matter!) Next up are some Telemark boots, I have really cought a bug with that and can't wait to be in Switzerland for a day skiing at the end of the month.

We have also treated ourselves this week. We finally got sick of trying to get burned porridge off the bottom of our saucepans every day from J's breakfast so we bought a microwave (actually a combi oven thing) and as we were in a negotiating mood we also beat the guy into giving us a good price on a very smart new vacuum cleaner.

Better late than never...

I couldn't get anything to work yesterday, but here are some holiday snaps.

Back again

That gaping hole in your life can be replenished once more as I am back from Val d'Isere! The skiing was great, MK and I are now proficient-ish telemark skiers and on the look out for more equipment to fill our basement. J was well behaved, as were the rest of the group (with the possible exception of me at times). He is now waling most of the time and seems to be trying to learn more words. However at the moment his favourite game is to make an enormous sighing noise every time he drinks something.

I will post some pictures when they are off the camera, but in the meantime you can relax and wait!
Travelling all that way by train was quite good fun although the beds were not long enough for me so I was a little cramped and it was somewhat airless during the nights. We got home to more snow and thankfully a warm(ish) house as thankfully heating oil was delivered on the morning that we left so I could get the boiler going to avoid freezing when we got home.

We're here

The journey was OK and the weather is great. The only problem is that I was planning to try telemark skiing for the week and there are no boots big enough...

Falling apart...

We have run out of heating oil so the house was rather cold this morning but at least there was enough hot water for us to shower, I hope that they deliver some today otherwise tomorrow mornings showers will be cold and the house even colder.

We are also without a telephone line so there are no calls coming in and no internet which means that today's working from home didn't happen as planned. Never mind.

Tomorrow afternoon we will be on the train off for our skiing holiday and hopefully some well earned R&R.