They came, they snoozed, they did the garden...

It was sad to say goodbye this morning to the old ladies who had taken up residence in our house for the last few days. J seems to have developed a good relationship with them and the garden is looking much better thanks to their efforts. (Photos to follow if any of them are worth seeing)


Thanks for coming, we hope you enjoyed yourselves becuase we did.


In the meantime, here are some more cars for old ladies


#2 Volvo C70 (everyone I know who has one thinks it's crap)

#3 The Farfar mobile (you can get a crate of beer in it!)

#4 3 series BMW with folding hard-top (golf clubs not included)

Cars for retired ladies # 1

The VW Eos

Roof Down

Roof Up

Monte Zoncolan

Today is one of the toughest of this years Tour of Italy (Giro d'Italia to those in the know) including the legendary Monte Zoncolan. The climb is just under 11km long with an altitude gain of about 1300m giving an average gradient of over 11% with some sections over 20%. That is very steep. I have ridden up steep mountains, but I think this is probably tougher than any I have ridden including Ventoux and Alpe d'Huez.

Good luck guys, this is going to be fun to watch and painful to do, I suspect that Diluca, the leader of the race at the moment is going to have a tough afternoon.
Here is the Google Earth view of the mountain:


I hope this isn't too boring for my "regular" readers , but look at it has broadening your horizons. It'll be back to grandchildren soon enough!

They came, they saw, they had a snooze

We had a busy day yesterday at a combined 90th Birthday and 65th Wedding Anniversary party.


J had fun eating cake and chasing ducks, but by the end of it the visitors really needed to have a nap before they were able to tackle Miss Marple and a crossword.

J had his lat visit from the midwife this morning and got a good report (well I suppose we did as well) He has grown quite a bit although his weight has not kept up as he runs around so much.

A spoon is OK, but

This is quicker!

rain rain go away

Please. The gardening plans for the weekend look somewhat scuppered as it is raining and looks set for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the only solution now is to go to the bike shop and stock up on goodies for the 24 hour races before heading out for a ride this afternoon...

I need:

Tubes, lube, energy food, maybe some new gloves, a new helmet (the old one is cracked, but I don't really want to shell out for a new one) a puncture repair kit, some bike wash, bum cream and maybe some other bits and pieces...

Hedge Funds

I had a hedge fund in the form of some spare hedge plants that were left over from the hedge replacement last year, so last night I extended the hedge around the terrace.

Was this useful? Not really

Did I take any pictures? Sorry no.

I am tied up in a course for the day so this is really just something to make you think that you have not wasted your visit (unlike recent visits to Big Williams World)

I am however selling some stuff on ebay

Balls

There was a photographer at the fancy do we went to a couple of weeks ago.
Here we are arriving and lookin completely lost! (I think I look the least confused though)

Who is that fat bloke with my wife?

Oh bugger, it's me

Gardening

As was alluded to yesterday by MK, there were developments in the garden at the weekend. We now have gates across the stairs to the basement (that can also swing back to shut the garden and a gate at the other end of the garden to try and keep our miniature escapologist under control.

There is also a vegetable patch of sorts with some herbs, rickets, radishes and mange toute I think.

As for the promised camping trip, the weather was rather unsettled which put us off a little, but the fact that J slept badly for most of last week left us without sufficient energy or desire to sleep on the floor in a field rather than our own beds and there was a big new television that needed watching.

42" of Pleasure

Drudging around electical shops is not the families favourite way of passing a sunny saturday afternoon, but that is how we spent our last one. The consolation was that we are now the proud owners of one of the worlds largest televisions. We got a great deal on this ex demo model and K is so pleased with it that he keeps demanding to watch it!

For those of you who care, it is a plasma.

Camping trial run

We are almost ready for the trial run camping trip up the road in the forest. Unfortunately the weather is not looking too promising

We have decided that we are only going to go if it looks pretty good because it won't be a lot of fun in the rain. T&B are lending us a couple of stoves and a folding table and we have a huge selection of sleeping bags to choose from, I intend to put a zip tie around the middle of one so that J doesn't get lost in the bottom!

Hopefully after the long weekend I'll have some of our own pictures to post.

Århus

I went to Århus today on the train for a meeting. It was OK, had lunch then came home again. There was an eastern European guy getting drunk on the train coming home, that livened it up a bit

Mountain biking

I have finally found somewhere to ride my mountain bike near home. I have made several trips to various woods only to find a few kilometers of fire road and not much else. Yesterday I found a marked out route with about an hour and a half of pretty tough single track to entertain me. (some sections were too technical for me to manage riding and there had to be some walking/pushing!)

I also found that there is a campsite in the forest so our trial camping trip may be closer to home than originally thought but that will require a little more investigation first.

Balls

Tonight we are off to a Do at the Hotel D'Anglaterre in Copenhagen. This seems to be the fanciest hotel in the country (it is after all where the famous people such as the Beckhams stay when they're in town!)

I have checked and I can still (just) fit into the dinner jacket and trousers so we're ready to go, except for one not insignificant thing...

MK has no shoes (and for once I agree she has none suitable) so we're off in search of the glass slipper, about an hour before kick-off...

Don't talk to me about sophistication...

I've been to Leeds.

And it rained quite a lot.

Bikes for little boys

Last week I noticed an advert in a newspaper for a kids bike (I only look at the pictures so the advertisements are often some of the most interesting things in the paper). It is a BMW and rather smart as you can use it with or without pedals and chain. This means that is is a push bike

and a normal bike later in life.

Cool. Unfortunately it is not made of titanium, but it does have compartments for putting things in.

The main problem is that it is a BMW and therefore rather pricey. This one is however made of titanium and is hence even more expensive, but very cool for dads...

Gates

After fetching J back from attempted escape into the road for the 4th time in 10 minutes on Sunday morning, we decided to put in a gate. Having not rained here for some time, digging the holes for the posts was not too easy, but they are now at least a foot into the ground with concrete about the base. I don't think they'll fall over. The next challenge is to make the gate work. There may be trouble and some swearing ahead...

At that point I decided that I should go out on my bike whilst the sun was still shining

Just to keep up with BWB here is a picture of my new second hand mountain bike that I took for a spin around the woods on Friday.

And here is a statue if a little boy having a pee for those of you who are interested

Switzlerland for Lunch

The meeting in Rheinfelden in Switzerland didn't go exactly as planned as the main participant from their side couldn't make it in the end so I had a nice lunch outside in the sun and a fairly relaxed meeting in the afternoon. I had a short meeting on the train and then read my book whilst eating sushi in the airport. Other than getting home rather late, it was not such a bad day really!
Friday was a public holiday in Denmark so we are having a relaxing long weekend painting, and generally pottering around fixing stuff.

Camping

I have been trying to think of something interesting and I can't, I suppose I am simply not an interesting person at the moment.

We are hoping to have a test camping weekend in a couple of weeks as we have a long (4 day) weekend to use up somehow. The plan is to head to Sweden for the test.

We bought a tent in Wales like this:

It is a 6 person mammoth with 2 sleeping compartments so that J can have his own room and it is high enough in the middle to stand! We have sourced tables, chairs and stoves to borrow and we are more or less fully equipped.

Now we have to decide on a destination and plan for the inevitable bad weather...

Book ideas

Well the title says it all really, I have suddenly got loads of things to do at work (there is always a lot to do at home). Then obvious thing to do in that situation is to write a blog entry!
I get the feeling that my readership is gradually coming back after my Easter break so I really must think of something interesting to write at some point.
On Thursday I am going to Switzerland for the day and Friday is a bank holiday here so I guess I have to get as much done as possible in the next 48 hours.

In the meantime, I thought I would share my idea for a book (I have one every couple of months, but of course never do anything about it). This one is as usual cycling related, I thought it may be fun to try and ride all of the sportif (amateur non-race versions) of all of the Spring classic bike races in one season just before the pros do them and deal with the inevitable nightmare logistical and physical problems of doing it. I think it would require quite a lot of planning and frankly that will be the end of the idea. The advantage of the idea being killed off in that manner is that I never have to get to the point of realising that I have absolutely no talent for writing...