Tuesday early start

I have to leave the house at 05:30 Tuesday morning and will spend at least 6 hours in the car during the day so I guess there won't be a blog post during the day.

To make up for it, here are some pictures from the last month or so.

Bad start to the week

This morning I had to take the boys to day care. There was loads to carry, bed, braces, push chairs and lots of clothes and lunches.

I remembered all of that, but I didn't realise that I had forgotten my own bag until I reached for it when I arrived at work. It was still in the hall.

No computer, no note book. Bugger.

I spoke to a few people, moved some meetings from this afternoon and then went home again.

Not a great start to the week.

Act of Dog

Yesterday was not a good car day. As I was driving to Copenhagen in the morning, on my way to Sweden, there was a terrible banging noise form the front wheel when breaking and turning at the same time. It was bad enough that I stopped at the motorway services to check that the wheel was not coming off.

I couldn't see anything wrong so I carried on. A quick call to Ben confirmed that there was indeed a problem and it may or may not be a big one. That was a relief!

I picked up my colleagues and we made it safely to Sweden and the day was going well until I was told at lunchtime that a tree had fallen over int he car park and landed on the car. It initially seemed like just a few marks and scratches, but it turns out that the rear wiper is now limp and worst of all, the boot (trunk) won't open.

Bollocks

I can't wait to find out how much fun it will be getting the Swedish hotel insurance to pay out, despite their assurance that they will.

The hotel manager has some pictures he will mail to me later that I will post when I can.

Sweden awaits

Tomorrow I am off to Sweden for an overnight trip. I'll be staying in Trelleborg at the hotel Duxiana which is apparently on the beach. It is quite some time since I was away overnight and I expect it will mean some hard work for MK although I think she and the buys will eat at her parents house.

I am somewhat dreading the workshop becuase I am one of the key protagonists but it will be held in a mix of Danish and Swedish. I certainly can't understand Swedish and I am told that both sides will have trouble understanding the other but until someone asks to switch to English, I think we are more or less stuck!

If I don't get a chance to post tomorrow, which is likely, then I want to wish a happy birthday to Mum and Jen. It was great to see you this month and I hpe the presents arrived as planned.

Have a good day.

Confession time

I have a personal rule that I have to get approval from the boss at home before spending more than £100 on anything. She hasn't invented it, it is my own rule and generally stick to it except when shopping in the supermarket. In general, I actually ask before buying most things other than food or petrol because we only have one bank account and it is fair that I ask.

I suppose MK will read this at some point and then I will be in trouble.

I got a mail from some nice people in Leeds who have an outdoor shop on Friday. They are having a sale and wanted me to know about their great offers. Last winter was horridly cold and long here and after some searching and searching, I never really found a winter coat that was just what I wanted. I got an odd fitting Patagonia jacket in an odd colour off eBay.

I also bought a duffel coat from the Ringsted outlets which isn't wearing too well either. What I really wanted was something like this.

The problem at that point in time was that there were no winter coats on sale and the really nice ones were really expensive. But guess what? They're on sale now and there was only one left in my size and, well, the problem with Internet shopping is that sometimes you sort of accidentally buy things whilst you are just thinking about buying them and before you realise what's happening, it's being shipped to you. I suppose I'll have to confess at some point and get it over with.

In the meantime, I am seriously considering selling about half of my watch collection in order to fund the purchase of one of these. It's just soooo nice.

Maybe that is enough materialism for today. We had a lovely relaxing weekend and DK was much less unhappy at being left at nursery this morning so I am hopeful that he will be quite settled by the end of the week.

Survival of the unfittest

I am pretty sure that I am unfit at the moment, but MK and I have survived our first week of both being at work with 2 kids and it hasn't been quite as bad as I expected.

I'm not going to write more now because we're going to finish off the bottle of wine we opened and retire for the evening.

Have a nice weekend

The hectic schedule returns

We are getting back into the swing of things here although DK is resisting his assimilation into daycare with some vigor. It is an especially gut wrenching thing to peel your screaming kid off your shoulder and hand him over, still screaming, to another person and then leave the room. I know that he stops the crying within a minute because I am just outside the door putting my shoes back on, but it's not fun all the same.

Each evening we have planned to watch a movie, but by the time the kids are asleep and the lunches made for the following day, it is getting on for 9 and MK is more or less ready for bed. Maybe we'll manage it tonight.

Loss of identity

It is now 8 weeks and 2 days since my last bike ride and I am really disappointed to have missed a whole summer of riding because of my back. I may be able to get back on my bike next week for some short rides, but I will be in dreadful shape and I know it is going to be a long time before I am in a position to go for a decent ride again. I am still hoping that I will be able to train properly again by the end of the year in order to be in shape for next season.

In the meantime, I have tried to take advantage of the newly acquired spare time to get some stuff done around the house, so far this has been limited to the kitchen project, but I have now set my sites on getting the basement decorated and sorting out the driveway to accommodate 2 cars side by side. I suspect I will write more on these at a later date.

I miss the cycling, the competing with people and the pure escapism of getting out for a ride either on my own or hammering along with a group people; on my mountain bike or on the road with the bike club. I still consider myself to be a cyclist and I know I will get back to it in due course, but by not cycling, I am becoming a non-cyclist and I don't feel good about it. One of my first ideas when I was stuck lying on the floor was to try and loose my remaining body fat both for the sake of my back and my cycling abilities. That is, of course, easier said than done especially when you stop doing the exercise that you are accustomed to and replace it with inactivity. I don't think I have gained weight, but some of it has certainly changed from muscle to fat and that isn't a good thing!

So what now? I will get on with the house projects to the best of my abilities and I am restarting the weight loss program from today. It will be the same approach as last summer so cutting out starchy stuff, sugar and fat to some extent. I will try to ease myself back into swimming and keep as active as I can.

Back with my back

The dynamic duo had pretty good days without each other yesterday and it seems that we are getting back into the swing of things without too much trouble.

I had an appointment with the physiotherapist yesterday afternoon and he was happy with my progress. I now have some new exercises to do and I am moving on from what I baby learned at 3 months to what they learn at 6 months. Apparently it's hard work being a baby!

Back on the treadmill

Today marks the end of an era; the dynamic duo has been split up because MK is back at work and DK is in day care. That meant that the alarm went off at 6:00 this morning and we all had to get ourselves ready and out the door along with G&J who were coming with my to CPH for their flight home this afternoon.

It seems that MK had a hard time dropping DK off, they were both unhappy before they left the house and I don't expect it got any better. Thankfully DK is being fetched early so that he will have another short day before slowly having to manage longer days without Mummy. It is a shame that we will lose a lot of our flexibility and life will have to get more regimented, but it is also a good thing for DK to spend more time with some other kids and for MK to get back out into the world and start work again. I hope that DK will find the company helps him to improve his speech and gets him ready for the move up to Børnehave next year.

This afternoon I am going to the Physiotherapist again for a follow up session and to find out when I can get back into action on my bike. I am really missing getting some regular exercise and I don't think it can be too long before my waistline starts to show the lack of activity either.

Raining in Ikea

Mum and I popped to Ikea this afternoon to get a wall shelf and some more drawers for the big cupboard. Unfortunately the wall cupboards were out of stock but we did get the drawers so there is something to do before bed.

DK is not really enjoying nursery much but I guess he will have to get over that starting on Monday just so long as his mum can cope with it as well. In the meantime we will be busy entertaining and going to Farmor's funeral tomorrow. It is always sad when people die, but when they are 93, have had a full life and are not really enjoying life any more, it is about as easy as funerals get.

Summer House

Here are some pictures of the summer house we were in last week.

Kitchen and guests

Mum and Jen arrived yesterday for a week long visit and it is really nice to have them staying. DK has moved into our room so that they can sleep on the futon in his room and it seems that we all slept quite well. DK is continuing his settling into nursery course and seems to be doing well, it helps that there were only 4 kids in his class yesterday because most of them as still on holiday.

Here are the promised kitchen pictures. We are still figuring out where everything should go and MK is denying the fact that we will need a wall cupboard to put cups and glasses in. I guess time will tell...

Back at last

After about 5 weeks away from work, I am back again today and it is like a new school term. I didn't have a new bag or pencil case, but it is the first time I have worn long trousers in several weeks and I have a few jobs to sort out.

Last night MK and I completed the kitchen project (the only remaining job is to screw the counter top in place) and it looks great. I can't believe that we didn't change the units when I did the initial renovation nearly 3 years ago and I can't believe that we didn't put in a fully fitted kitchen from the start. Anyway, the floor went down, the units are in place and all we need to do now is figure out where everything should go.

Mum and Jen are arriving this afternoon for a week long visit and DK is starting he week of settling into nursery before MK returns to work next week so it is all go in our house. I will post some pictures of the kitchen later in the week when I get around to it.

My back is pretty good now, I am still doing a lot of exercises and I will go back to the physio soon to get some more exercises to do to help strengthen my back and hopefully prevent a recurrence. The drive to work this morning felt long and uncomfortable and I can imagine that I will have to stop and stretch on the way if there is traffic.