I quit!

NEWS FLASH ..............

We have just heard from the Doctor that DKs MRI scan showed that everything in his head is fine and normal.

The nurse visited this afternoon and he needs to grow a bit, but otherwise everything is goooood and he is getting worryingly close to crawling...

It's here at last

Spring is here in some shape or other. Having put the clocks forward, it is now light until about 8 in the evening here in Denmark and that makes a huge difference to life general. It is still grey and rather cold today, but yesterday I got to ride my bike in the sun without any punctures and with most of it working as intended. Truly an unusual experience this year.

The down side of yesterdays ride was that I realised that I am nowhere near the condition that I need to be in for the planned races in the summer. That means that I need to get out more and really put some effort into my training. That will be tough this week as I will be away from very early on Wednesday until late on Friday and there is no gym in the hotel. I'll just have to make up for it some other way and work hard next weekend.

Time to review the training plan I think...

Busy weekend ahead

Tomorrow we are having a family trip to Copenhagen to do a little shopping and visit the zoo. I am looking forward to the zoo more than the shopping but thankfully we don't have to do a lot of shopping.

It is quite a long time since we went to the zoo and I can only hope that this visit goes better than the last one. J had a tantric tantrum (one that last for hours) after being forced to try on clothes and then being fed in a cafe. I think DK slept through the whole thing, but frankly I can't get past the memory of J's behavior.

Looks like I am off to Brussels again next week so I may be getting my wedding anniversary present early if they still have it reduced...

Perfect pants

I decided a couple of days ago that I needed some new trousers. I wear (smart) jeans to work most days but some days I want to wear something else. A suit is overkill and the 3 pairs khaki things that I generally wear are getting rather scarecrow-ish. My solution was to go to the new Hugo Boss outlet in Ringsted. It was crap. They had nothing and the one pair of suitable trousers was still 860DKK (about £90 or $180) which seemed rather steep.

Naturally I was a meander around the other shops and left all but one of them convinced that I would have left empty handed even if everything had been free.

At the last stop I did manage to find something that I wanted: a couple of pairs of underpants and I am happy to report that they have been holding me in place comfortably all day :-)

As you can see, all of this dieting and working out has really helped my abs

In the end I ordered a couple of pairs of trousers from Charles Tyrwhitt

Done and dusted

We're home again and it all went well. DK is tired, a bit grumpy and eating everything he can get his hands on having had to miss breakfast.

We're not good at missing meals in this family...

MRI scan

Today little DK is having an MRI scan to look at his brain and inner ears. Apparently the head develops in 2 halves in the womb and the cleft palate that he has is caused by the halves not joining correctly. The doctors want to check that there are no other problems that can't be seen inside his skull. Whist they are looking around anyway, he has also asked that the structure or his inner ear be checked as well. I don't think they can or will do anything regardless of what they find but apparently the information would be useful.

The down side is that being 9 months old means that DK is not too good and staying very still and that is a prerequisite for MRI scans. consequently he is being given a general anaesthetic which will almost certainly be the worst part of the whole thing.

We'll get the results in a couple of weeks.

Now that's just silly

But I'd still like one for some reason. I suspect that Wenger have a 10 year old boy is working in product development though...

Snow in March

It's snowing outside but it's warm inside and yesterday the sun even shone for a while.

Yesterday was T's birthday so we celebrated with K,L&A, and Farmor and Farfar. It was a nice evening and it was lovely to meet little A.

Tomorrow is little brother B's birthday so happy birthday to him too.

Happy Motherig Sunday

Sorry I didn't manage to get a card sent to you, you can have one for the Danish version in a month or so!

I hope you like the flowers when they arrive

Wx

Fetching J

J started his new nursery in October, so far I have dropped him off there once and never picked him up because MK has been home to do it.

J has asked me several times to collect him, but I have never managed it. Today I am leaving early so that I can get him and frankly I feel awful that I have not done it before.

Heading home

Belgium has been really dull. Dull hotel, dull office and lots of standing around waiting for taxis.

For some reason we have not been able to get a single taxi to arrive on time or not charge us extortionate rates for traveling to and from our hotel. Next time we are going to rent a car...

However, the god news is that I am going home to the family in minutes and I can have a nap on the plane...

Twitter

I think it would be cool if some of the family started to Twitter

twitter.com

You can follow me there from time to time under wmillard

Arrested Development

One of my colleagues with us here in Belgium got a call from his wife this morning to say that his 15 year old daughter was arrested last night for graffiti-ing on a wall in an underpass.

That being in Denmark means that she will be made to clean it up herself, pay a small fine and have a criminal record for a year. Not too clever really, but it got us thinking about all the stupid things that we did in our youth and got away with.

To be honest, I don't think I have performed too many illegal acts and perhaps listing them on the Internet would not be that wise, but I don't think I have ever even considered doing graffiti, I wouldn't want to waste money on paint when I could spend it on beer.

I guess that I just hope I never get a similar call regarding either of our 2 although my colleague seems to have taken it quite well and the police reminded them not to be too harsh with her as she hadn't killed anyone...

News

MK got over her sickness after a couple of hours in the car on the way home from Italy, but J didn't get sick until last night after he had drunk about a litre of water and consumed several carrots.

What a mess! once all over the bathroom, once in his bed and another little splattering later for good measure.

Thankfully I had to get up at 4:45 this morning to get a plane to Belgium where I am now trying to stay away.

More interesting news is that K & L had a baby girl at the weekend. I don't know how much I am allowed to publicise, but suffice to say that all went well and everyone is happy.

More pics

Ready to hit the slopes


Snow ploughing

MK says that DK looks a lot like me here, I am not sure that the half asleep look is something either of us should aim for though...

Back again

We're back

It was a long drive and it started with MK throwing up for a couple of hours, but we made it home at 6 yesterday morning. This was dawn on the way down through Germany. We drove through a lot of snow and it was slow going for a while.

The week was really nice. Not enough skiing, but plenty of time with the kids, snow, good food, booze and no internet access for a week! J got 2 new pairs of sun glasses. The first pair lasted less than 24 hours...

J loved skiing although he did confide in me at some point on the lift that he preferred the swimming pool

Making tracks

It's been a crazy week, but tonight we're hitting the road. I'll try to post next week, but I have no idea if I'll be able to get online.

Two ways of seeing things

Some people may ask why they only get assigned to dreadful projects, while others who are more astute, may ask why the projects they are assigned to always end up being dreadful.

Being a project manager means that you have little option other than to sit in the second camp.

However, I still believe that I belong in the first though. Maybe I do have some self esteem after all...

Does that make sense?

The road ahead

This week is already feeling old even though it is only Wednesday (admittedly nearly the end). I am working like mad to try and get ready for going away on Friday and driving 13 hours to Livigno. To be honest I am dreading trying to spend the night driving, but we are more or less committed to it now so I'll stock up on caffeinated products and hit the road.

Firstly I have to survive the rest of the week without someone with authority telling me that I have to cancel the vacation. It's not beyond the realms of possibility...

A few pics

I tend to enpty the camera once a month so here are a few of them:

My new Redhead


The weekend pancakes

Home made salmon fishcakes mmmmm

Freedom

Saturday was DKs first brace free day. He now only has to wear the bar between his feet that you can see on the photographs below for 14 hours each day instead of the 23 hours that he has worn it up to now. To be honest it doesn't seem to have made a big difference to him yet, his didn't immediately start dancing or even crawling, if anything he seems a little unsettled by the extra dimension of uncertainty that had been added to his little life. Up to that point, there were some certainties in life that needed little or no consideration including where his feet were relative to one another. Suddenly that disappeared and now has to find some way to entertain his feet as well as being busy eating, banging stuff and requiring attention and entertainment.

DK is desperate to be able to move around under his own power but it will be a little while before he can manage it, in the meantime he seems to be doing a pretty good job of getting what he wants through the medium of banging and shouting...