Feast

It has been a very pleasant weekend. After a dramatic haircut on Saturday morning, I spent the day cooking and running back and forth to supermarkets. In the afternoon we had some friends for dinner with their kids so the cooking was a fairly mammoth task

Firstly we had home made bread rolls with team and coffee (MK made the bread)

Then a little later came the main event, chicken nugget things for the kiddies and then some fairy cakes whilst the adults tucked into beef enchiladas, refried beans and salsa followed by the piece de resistance, Tres Leches.

The thing that I am most proud of is that I made it all even down to the tortillas! (I really had no idea how unhealthy those little things are, there is ½ tablespoon of lard in each one!)

It was all good and everyone seemed to enjoy it, so I guess there wasn't enough chili in it.

No pictures of mine, but here's an idea:

Enchiladas

Tres Leches

More November madness

The great news is that Mum and Jen are coming to visit for a week in November to help finish off the painting in the kitchen.

I haven now finished the 700 page biography of Mao Ste Tung and it was quite an eye opener.

It is not that I had any notions that he was as champion of the people or that I was expecting to hear that he was misunderstood. I was however amazed by the psychopathic way in which he lived his entire adult life dominating and persecuting those around him to achieve and then maintain a position of power. He and most of his close associates relied on sleeping pills to get any rest and an unusually high proportion of those people and his family lost their minds presumably as a result of the environment in which they lived.

I have also read a little about Hitler and Stalin and I honestly cannot understand what drove these people to do what they did. I simply don't get the motivation. Perhaps that's why I'll (probably) never be a dictator.

It also strikes me as odd that the only country that appears to have been able to come to terms with it's past and admit that mistakes were made under dictatorship is Germany, the Communists (although I don't believe there was a socialist agenda in China) seem to have clung to enough power to stop the countries moving on and freely reforming themselves.

Warm bathroom at last

After 1½ years, it is finally done. We have double glazing in the bathroom!

It's not easy to see, but there is now an extra panel of heat reflecting glass on the inside of the window and it seems to work pretty well.

Sorry that is very boring, but it is a milestone for us!

To make up for the tedious windows, here are MK and J cooking.

Tea Break

One of the good things about working in an office, in Denmark at least, is that there is free tea, coffee and soft drinks abound. There are also pastries on offer once a week or so as I have mentioned before and being a consultant, there is generally a free lunch to be had as well.

It should be noted that there is no such thing as a free lunch and I pay by way of the £10 return trip to Copenhagen and not being able to eat in my own canteen where the food is significantly better. I digress

The problem with working at home is that there are not many coffee breaks and cakes are unheard of. Until this morning.

I have instigated a new once a week tradition of buying a treat on the way home from dropping off J. My oh my what a good idea that was!

The final essential part of the tea break is reading the BikesnobNYC blog. The guy is a genius and makes me laugh every day. Oh and of course the Fat Cyclist and so on...

Working out your notice

When I have changed jobs previously it has always been at a lull in proceedings, either at the end of a project or at the end of a year meaning that the last 2 weeks of 4 were holiday anyway. This time it is different, I have 2 months notice and it seems that I will be working all of them and also fairly intensely in order to complete stuff before I go. It is a bit difficult to motivate yourself under these circumstances and I am looking forward to having handed a lot of stuff over so that I can step back.


Another problem that I have here is that I am not very good at taking advantage of the slower periods to do my own stuff away from the computer. The biggest draw back to working from home and being able to work from home to me is that I have developed a need to be up to date with all of my email all the time. What a pain, I need to forget about it and get out for some fresh air.

Here on my bike or with J in tow until the end of November (when it will be bare and muddy!)

Here at the end of November for some R&R

Here for a walk and to play in the snow with the family at Christmas

Hamburg

We had a good weekend with nice weather and good German food and beer.

Comedy German Police car

The town hall

The Danish train in Hamburg station

J had a great weekend with his grandparents too so all is well with the world. We have only one major grumble with J at the moment. He still wakes up in the night and has decided that whenever he wakes up, ha has to come into our bed and disturb us all for the night. If we try to make him stay in his own bed there is a lot of screaming. I suspect that we'll just have to face that at some point...

The weekend off

We're off to Hamburg tomorrow as I mentioned earlier in the week. Other than that there is not much on my mind that I feel like sharing with you today, sorry about that!

Well the builder guy did come to put up the extra glazing inside the leaded glass today, but didn't have all the bits he needed so left without finishing either of the windows. That is a something of a let down as they agreed to do it over a year ago!

There'll be an update on Monday though I am sure with some pictures and insightful comments from the weekend. I am anticipating some excellent stereotyping of our Teutonic neighbours. I bet you can't wait...

Want that one!

It's rather unusual to see one of these in Denmark so MK took our picture next to this glorious DB5. Even given that they are probably disappointing to drive, I must say that this is in my opinion the most beautiful car ever built.

This, on the other hand, isn't!

Back to planning my mini-break in the Rockies. Apparently there is a telemark equipment demo day in Winter Park on the 25th November...

After the kitchen

Comes another break! I am going to have a week of self indulgence in Colorado at the end of November.

I am working on some plans but I intend to try and find some snow at a few ski resort like Winter Park and maybe even further afield in Aspen or Vail.

I feel pretty guilty leaving the family behind, but it is not often that you get some time to do things like this so I'm taking it. I just hope that there is some snow so early in the season, otherwise I'll be hiking around Boulder and taking it easy.

Found the camera

Here we are in Copenhagen with Waka

Weekend pictures

Are currently unavailable until I find the camera!

MK and I are going to Ikea on Thursday to buy the kitchen units. Here is the kitchen builder version of how it will look


How exciting. Then we are going to Hamburg for the weekend for an overnight break. J is staying with his grandparents for a bit of spoiling whilst we are spoiling ourselves here

It's just a shame it's only Tuesday...

Weekend Waka-ness

We have had a nice relaxing weekend. We met Waka at the airport on Saturday lunchtime and spent the afternoon in the centre of Copenhagen doing the usual stuff.

Coffee (wow it is expensive in Illum now - 3 coffees and cakes £20!!) home ware shops and a few sights. We went to see the Royal palace, Opera house and a few other things. Then a rather nice dinner in the city centre.

On Sunday we picked up Waka from her hotel and we to Tivoli for a picnic before heading to the other must see item: The little mermaid.

After all of that excitement we took her back to our house for dinner and to catch up on her work emails!

We hope that one day we'll be able to visit Waka in Japan!

Waka

Waka is a Japanese friend from our business school days in France, she has since moved back home to Japan, but this weekend she is visiting us in Denmark.

I think we'll do the usual visitor things in Copenhagen. It will be fun to see here again and she can get to meet J.

I googled her name and this is what came back, I'll try for something more life like over the weekend!

Motorbikes

Wittering on about wanting a motorbike has become something of a habit for me. It was only a year or so ago that I decided that I am gown up enough to be trusted with one. Now that we are living in a relatively safe country where the roads are not too busy and people are not too crazy it seems like a good opportunity. There is the added bonus that as we only have one car it would give us some more flexibility for transport in the summer as motorbikes seem to be off the road from November to March.

So with all of those good reasons to give it a go, here come the negatives. Firstly getting a license takes some time and costs about 8500kr (£850 is or approx $1500). Secondly everything costs a fortune, for example this Suzuki GS500 costs £3000 in the UK, but £5000 in Denmark.

This was never going to be a cheap game, but it is probably more expensive here than most other places.

If I really want to do this then I'll have to save for the lessons next year and take it from there. So I promise I'll not mention it again for a while...

Birthday Wish List

In search of Robert Millar by Richard Moore

Oakley ski goggles

Suuto core watch

A Sunday in Hell DVD

Free Heel Skiing by Paul Parker

Suzuki GS500
Bosch cordless drill/screwdriver

Hestra 3 finger ski gloves (enormous size) Motorbike lessons
And of course the black ipod classic from the last post

Consumerism

I am a terrible consumer or a great one depending on your perspective.

One of the things I have had to embrace since moving to Denmark is the wish list that you have to issue before birthdays and Christmas. As that time is again approaching, I have been thinking about what I would like for my birthday. It is amazing how I can within a few minutes decide that I "need"an ipod and subsequently spend the better part of a day deciding which one I want. The answer for those of you who care (nobody right?) is a black ipod classic 80MB.

I would really like a motorbike and a licence, but I can't come to terms with the fact that I have to pay at least double the normal price because I live in a country where I will only realistically be able to use it for 7 months of the year. Surely it should be half price by that logic.

I'll publish the full list tomorrow...

Happy Birthday Maureen

Have fun in China (I hope that isn't too specific a location!)

Pepper Pots

In Denmark, if a guy still lives at home when reaches his 30th birthday he becomes a pepper pot. To celebrate this, the friends of these people put big models of pepper pots outside their houses. In the countryside, this game can get a little out of hand.

Oil drums are pretty common and I have seen a car with a caravan attached, but no wheels, the challenge being that the recipient has to dispose of it somehow.

Before this one, the biggest I had seen was 2 cars piled on top of a transit van, but this trumps the lot.

This is farm grain silo with a MkI golf convertible on top!

Zoo time again

As it was not painting weather on Saturday, we headed off to the zoo with K to keep us company. J was more interested in running up and down all of the step, but he did stop long enough to spot the odd animal...
Watching the Polar bears:

And the elephants

Dinner time

New windows

We had our leaded dining room windows changed yesterday to normal glass. I like the added light, but I think the other jury is still out on the overall effect. We have kept the old leaded panels so that we can get them renovated at some point in the future if we find an affordable option...

Before

After

I also have some pictures from the swimming, but at the moment blogger won't allow me to post them. Now it is working!

Baby swimming

You only get one chance to create a first impression and the new swimming pool blew it! There is some clever fancy chip system required us to fetch an armband with this chip on Monday to be able to get into the changing rooms and use the lockers for the swimming yesterday. We had ours, but others didn't. Of course it was more than the old mans life was worth to let anyone in without the chip and there were no spares. That was #1, then there is only 1 parent allowed in with each armband, so I could watch from the cafe, which is other other side of a brick wall (#2) and the windows all round the pool are fenced off as it is still a building site (#3).

All in all the place and the organisation were crap. The old pool was friendly and informal, this was run by the SS.

So in the meantime, here are some Boulder Baby swimming pictures

The last one is Steamboat hot springs