Happy Birthday tomorrow J

Have a good day.

I'll post some pictures over the weekend if I have a chance.

We also have a house viewing in the morning so it is going to be hectic.

BMX Pictures

It was getting dark when I remembered that I could take some pictures of the future BMX star with my phone so they are not that good, but here are a couple nonetheless.

Film reviews

We have had 2 DVDs sitting in the house for a couple of weeks waiting for us to watch them. We finally got around to it this week and it made a pleasant change from watching our recorded episodes of House MD.

First was Benjamin Button which was really just a soppy old love story which happened to be the life story of someone who was born very old and got gradually youger until he died as a baby at the end. MK cried a lot aven though it wasn't really sad. Perhaps that is too much of a male perspective, but if you tell an entire life story then the character has to be born and die. During his life other people die as well, but there is no real tragedy involved. The fact that he aged backwards really seemed meaningless and overall I think the film was just a very standard sort of love story with a few interesting special aging effects.

Second was Australia (as Mark Kermode says: "Yes, all of it!"). The film as sort of fun as an old fashioned epic tale but it was very long and somewhat predicable. On the plus side, it was nicely shot and an interesting bit of historical drama and Nicole Kidman is as easy on the eye to me as Huge Action probably is to the other half.

Overall they were both too long and both average to be perfectly honest.

Missed a day

I worked from home yesterday before collecting the kids and taking them to J's gymnastics. It always takes longer than I expect to collect 2 kids, provide them with a snack and then walk/ride to the gymnastics venue and we are always 5 minutes late. Maybe one day I will learn.

MK called during the journey to tell me that there are 2 viewings arranged for our house, one on Tuesday afternoon and on on Saturday morning. As a result we spent last night tidying and cleaning and will doubtless do the same on Friday evening. On top of all the cleaning, I had to get up at 5:00 this morning to drive to accross the country for a meeting. Hopefully some good will come of the second meeting this afternoon.

This evening MK is taking J to the BMX club to have a try on the track. I don't know if it will be his thing although he is a good bike rider and loves nothing more than racing anyone at anything he can so I suspect that it will be right up his street. News tomorrow I guess.

New shoes and Pizza

Today has been a day off work. MK had an appointment to get her eyes checked after the lazer surgery and we needed to go to the special shoe shop in Copenhagen to get DK some winter shoes.

Everything went really well. We got some boots for DK (unbelievably expensive) and then went to Mother, a new pizza place, for lunch: The pizza was really really good, I supect because the place is run by Italians and Brits! I had a pizza with smoked cheese and anchovy which was excellent and it was quite reasonably priced too.

The final detail of the day is that MK's eyes are fine although she should go back in 6 months to have them checked again and see if they can be corrected a  little more.

Grumpy kids

It is holiday week in Denmark this week so there have not been many kids at the nursery with J or DK. J has been up early every day to go to nursery because they have been doing different things than they normally do and he has really enjoyed making knights swords and shields and they were going to make helmets today. Unfortunately for J, MK is off work for the rest of the week so he is home today and not making a helmet. He was not at all impressed - so much for spending time with the kids.

DK is going through the typical terrible 2s thing and being quite difficult to deal with at the moment. If he doesn't get his own way then he collapses onto the floor having a fit and I am not allowed to go near him at all. He generally points to the door and shouts "ud!" (meaning "out!") at me. I guess he'll grow out of it at some point but for now I seems to have more or less lost one son.

Woops I did it again...

So J and I went up to the north coast last night to fetch a BMX. It is not a standard 20" wheel BMX, it has 24" wheels so it is really a cruiser and generally used for racing rather than tricks which is a good thing.

It feels quite big compared with how I remember BMXs feeling but I think it will be fun to play around on with J up and down the road, at the skate park and if he is interested in racing then we can try that too. The guy selling it had rather a lot of toys and had a rack of different helmets for different sports. He was interested if I was planning on racing the bike. I said I wasn't sure but I may give it a try, so he asked if I had a helmet. I don't so he gave me his for nothing which was rather nice of him and will leave me with no excuses if the opportunity arises to have a shot on the track...

BMX

All this talk of getting J to the local BMX club has me hankering for one. I have my eyes on this one at the moment, but the guy selling it doesn't seem to want to answer my emails. I suspect that MK will be quite happy about that...

I am really harking back to something like this

Although mine had blue anodised bits and was therefore much much cooler than this one.

Autumn

We had a couple of frosts last week and the thermometer told us that it was -2C on Saturday morning so there can be no doubt that the Winter is just around the corner.

We had no real plans for the weekend so we concentrated on recovering from last week. DK was much better by Saturday and back to his usual petulant self. MK decided to take the boys to the library whilst I went for my first bike ride since June. I rode 45km without any problems at all, not even a niggle from my back so I was very happy about that. I was significantly less happy about how much less fit I am than I was in June, but that is to be expected and I can work on that over the winter. I spent a couple of hours watching the last bike race of the season on television whilst I did some ironing. The Giro di Lombardia always appeals to me as  race to go and watch, I don't know why, maybe it is because it is not in northern France/Belgium like most of the other "Classic" races. Maybe one day I'll get down there to watch it with MK and our bikes. This year it was brutal, the weather was very cold and wet meaning that only 34 finished the race of the 195 who started. Well done to Philipe Gilbert.

Sunday was another uneventful day, we went for a walk in the forest and collected lots of leaves and sticks and things. I think MK has a plan to use them for some art project with the kids when they are all home together at the end of the week. 

Busy quiet week

In some ways it has been a busy week. House viewings, hand ball and MK out a couple of nights.
DK has flu and has had to be home the last 2 days. Yesterday MK stayed home to look after him, but this morning we were stuck so MKs dad did the honors whilst I went to a meeting then I took over whist he went to work. DK still has a high fever (39.2C) but he is drinking and eating a little so it seems to just be flu which T had last week. Now I am sitting on the sofa with J & DK waiting for MK to come home to start the weekend in style.
I have been back on some sort of calorie control this week. I have avoided sugar for the most part and tried to control what I eat in general. I am not going to lose weight fast doing this, but if I can keep it up, then maybe I will be at my racing target weight in time for the 2011 cycling season and I can get the promised race wheels if we can afford them and a new house.

I am rally looking forward to a bike ride this weekend, the weather is crisp and autumnal and we don't have plans to stop me from getting out. Hopefully a proper bike ride will give me some motivation to ride the awful trainer in the basement next week.

Frederiks Bastion

The house viewing was fine but apparently the viewers are not really sure what they are looking for yet. They liked the house but want to see more in the area before committing to anything.

Today I am at a workshop at Frederiks Bastion in Copenhagen. This is an old amunition store with 2 meter thick walls. It is interesting inside, but it is rather damp and there are no windows.

The dynamic duo are back in action together today. DK is ill so MK is stuck at home looking after him. I hope they are having a good day and that he will be fighting fit again tomorrow.

1st viewing

I have been running around like an idiot for the last 24 hours getting the house ready for a viewing this afternoon. Let's hope they like it...

Bad moods and trainers

This morning was dreadfull, J got out of the wrong side of the bed and so, apparently, did I. That meant that there was a lot of screaming and shouting before MK finally threw me out of the house to go to work and leave them to finish getting ready.

Based on the initial catalyst for this morning's debacle, I think watching the TV in the mornings is going to be banned for the forseable future as there is always some stroppiness associated with turning it off. We don't need to add any more stroppiness to the house when there are 3 non-morning people living in it.

I am really enjoying my air max trainers that I bought a couple of months ago to ease my feet and legs into working standing up all day. I used to wear trainers all the time and I had forgotten how comfortable they are. I also think they look OK too. There is something of a cult following for Nike air max shoes and some of the ones I had in the past are still available as re-issued collectors items.

The silver 97s were probably my favourites

Followed by my blue 95s.

I had some others that apparently weren't interesting enough to be re-issued, but today I am wearing my rather fine 2009s

And at some point in the future I am hoping to get my hands on a pair of 2011s if, as or when I can find the colour and size that I want. At the moment I think I prefer the grey and orange, but the black and neon ones are rather spiffy too...

Spinning at work!

I am off to a spinning class with the other project managers this afternoon. Should be fun and also rather odd...

We had a quiet weekend with a fun trip to the zoo yesterday with some friends and their kids. They have a 1 year old son who is a heavier than DK who is now over 2!

We also hit the skate park on Saturday afternoon whilst MK helped some friends move house. I think we'll take J to the local BMX club in the next couple of weeks because he seems very excited about it.

No interest yet

We've been on the market for a couple of days now and so far there hasn't been any interest. I suppose it was unrealistic to expect a stampede, but I was hoping that there would be someone wanting to come and have a look at the weekend.

If you are curious to see our listing it is here

In the meantime we are planning on catching up with some friends at the weekend and going to the zoo with them in Copenhagen. I suppose I should try and take the camera with me so that I have something to post next week.

Small rant

So the surveyor thinks we use 4792 litres of oil per year. I have no idea how he calculated that based on seeing only the last 2 oil invoices and not knowing how much is in the tank at the moment. We told him our estimate was 3000 to 3500 per year.
I was a little annoyed with the report so I got out all the old oil invoices and calculated that we actually use 2325 litres per year. Now I've told him, I'll be interested to see what their reaction is. I don't expect him to admit that he's wrong, but maybe he'll change the report.

I also mentioned that it seems ridiculous that we get the lowest possible rating when I would say that there is a significant improvement in efficiency by having the double glazed windows and 100mm of insulation in the loft. I cannot imagine that there is such a big difference between a house that has an A rating and one that has a B rating.

Whatever next?

Don't ask me where I found this link, but it seems that M&S are soon to be selling underwear aimed at the smaller gentleman...

Bodymax pants

House Surveys

Yesterday we received the survey reports for our house. The actual survey was only moderately annoying, there is a coding system which indicates whether something is purely cosmetic (K1), will develop to cause damage (K2) or is critical (K1). We of course had several K1s, some of which I can understand, some of which are laughable such as a creaking floor in the living room and the lack of ventilation under the living room floor. On the whole though I suppose it was OK.

What has really bothered me though, is the energy mark that we got. This is like the marks on electrical appliences and cars which goes from A+ to G and indicates how much energy you waste by having it. We are in the lowest category - G.

That means that we get the same as a tent, the new double glazed windows and front door and the 100mm of insulation in the loft apparently could not be any worse. I understand that this is an old house and we could benefit from new a new heating system and that another 150mm of insulation in the loft would help but is is surely there should be something to differentiate "some insulation" from "no insulation" like an old farm house or barn. I wonder how they differentiate between A and B, I am sure that there is a bigger gap between our house and one with no insulation and single glazed windows and one that uses heat from waste water and one that doesn't.

That made me cross! can you tell?

First bike ride

Last night I did my first bike training since 22nd June. It was a rather unspectacular 35 minute spin on the trainer in the basement, but I had no back pain and no problems.

My backside is no longer accustomed to being sat on a bike seat, but that will come back, hopefully along with some sort of fitness during the winter so that I can be back out with the big boys next spring.

Hmmm

I had a small birthday party yesterday with MKs family and lots of unhealthy food. It was nice and we went for a walk after lunch to try and digest the cholesterol.

On Saturday evening I was rather alarmed to realise that our freezer was not working. We had to empty it and throw awal more or less all of the food. Thankfully there wasn't too much expensive stuff in there, it could have been much worse. The freezer was in fact turned off, we don't know how that happened. DK is into turning lights and sockets on and off at the moment, but I was also cleaning last week and may have turned off the wrong socket when unplugging the vaccum cleaner down there. When we turned the freezer back on there was a bad smell and a puff of smoke so we have been out and bought a new one this afternoon seeing as it was half price.

Now we have to get the old one up out of the basement and dispose of it...

Happy Birthday to me

Thirty bloody six...

Tonight the kids are off to T&B so that MK and I can have an evening off. DK has managed to wake us up more or less every hour during the last 2 or 3 nights so we are both looking forward to a good nights sleep above all else. What a sad state of affairs that is!

We were initially planning a night out in Copenhagen, but that involved me taking the train to work this morning whilst holding a phone conference and it also meant that we wouldn't be home until the middle of the night. In the end I decided that I would be happier to go to the local sushi place (which is really very good) and have a relaxed evening together. I'm looking forward to it and also to seeing the rest of the Danish arm of the family on Sunday for lunch. Now I have to think of something to cook and then do some shopping.