Happy Christmas

We've had a really nice relaxed couple of days eating and drinking things that we generally wouldn't.

Next on the agenda is a walk in the forest and then we have to attack the half turkey that is lurking in the fridge.

Epic trip

To the supermarket to pick up vital supplies. Cream mostly.

Not quite there yet

6 hours driving
9 hours work
Still working

It's going to be finished before I go to bed though...

THEN it's Christmas :-)

Humbug

I am simply too busy for Christmas this year. I don't really have time to be writing this blog post, but if I don't write it, my dear readers will think that I have fallen off the face of the planet.

Today MK should be picking up the turkey from the butchers on the way home (don't worry, it's frozen) and then we can think about starting to decorate the tree that has been naked in the living room since the weekend.

Christmas trees and humbug

We got a Christmas tree on Saturday and by the time we had carried it home, I decided that we aren't having one next year. That was confirmed when the stand broke as we put it up in the living room.

On the plus side, I made a really nice Paleo Christmas cake on Sunday afternoon from ground almonds, loads of dried fruit, a couple of eggs, an orange, a glug of whisky and some spices.

Now the countdown is on and we are trying to figure out what we need to have done before the weekend. That includes getting food but as of about 5 minutes ago, we no longer need to worry about presents for the kids.

Don't worry, I haven't killed them, I bought a Scalextric instead.

Sitting Down

I spend a lot of time sitting down these days because I am almost always at our customers offices and as consultants, we are not given fancy standing up desks.

Apparently sitting down all day increases your risk of heart disease and a number of other nasty things by 100%. So why do we (almost) all do it? Apparently exercising doesn't do anything to mitigate these risks either!

I would love to be standing up as I type this, but I don't have the option. When I had my back problems I managed to work standing up all the time, but now I don't make the effort to make the effort.

That's going to change next week. It's my 17th December resolution!

Advent

As far as I can see, we are now half way through advent and we are a very very long way from being ready for Christmas.

• No Christmas tree
• Almost no cards written
• Many gifts not yet bought (or even decided what to get)

On the positive side, we know what we are eating and when (duck on 24th and turkey on 25th) and plans are starting to be pieced together to keep us busy between Christmas and New Year.

I am optimistic that I will be able to get the cards written this evening and sort out at least some of the shopping, but that means that the ironing will have to wait until another evening. 

I expect that MK and I will also make time to watch the last episode of Forbrydelsen 3. (I think it's The Killing in English but I have to watch it in Danish without subtitles!)

Heavy Stuff

There have been lots of heavy elements to the last few days.

Friday was an early start and a long drive across Denmark to Viborg for a quarterly company meeting and our company Christmas party. My idea of only drinking spirits actually turned out OK, I stuck to schnapps until about midnight and then moved onto mojitos without sugar. They were better than I expected and kept me going until 2:00 when I hit the sack.

5 hours later I got out of bed, had a little breakfast and got a ride to Ålborg airport to fly back to Copenhagen. Having 3 hours to kill before the next party started, I decided to walk the few miles to Dragør despite the snow and sub zero temperatures. The walk cleared my head and I was ready to get back into the schnapps with the Danish Finn Sailing club for another 7½ hours of drinking and eating.

The party was really good. I was the youngest person there and I would say that the average age was somewhere around 55, but they were very warm and welcoming and we had a good meal (sous vide cooked duck was the best I have ever eaten and rather a gourmet surprise). We drank and shot the breeze for a good while until I got a lift into town and took the train home. I also me the guy who built and owned my boat. He was glad to hear that it is still alive and they all seemed happy to have a new member or two. The other "new" guy last sailed a Finn in the first Danish championships 49 years ago and is planning a comeback next year!

Not surprisingly I took the opportunity to have a quiet day on Sunday whilst MK and the kids were out at football and making Christmas decorations with friends. I did shop for and cook a pretty good roast meal for supper so the day wasn't fully wasted.

It has snowed heavily for the last 48 hours so we are getting increasingly snowed in. Thankfully the world seems to continue turning here when it snows so we are just getting on with life.

The final heavy point was that when I weighed myself this morning, I was heavier than I have been in about 18 months. It's an odd time of the year to decide to try and lose weight, but that's what I'm doing.

Snow

I suppose that the 20 or so cm of snow lying around outside and still falling isn't going away anytime soon. At least I got some proper winter boots last week for the first time in my life!

Winter anyone?

We have about 15cm of snow already...

Looong but good day

It may have been apparent from my absence from the blog that we have been away for a few days. We flew to Manchester on Friday evening to spend the weekend with family and for DK to have a check-up on his feet in Manchester.

We arrived on Friday evening without incident in a rather boring and slightly tatty Ford Focus (glad we didn't buy one of those). Saturday was spent observing the world of consumerism in Bicester Village and then a relaxed evening with B, E, T & KP including a crafty pint and fish and chips for supper.

(At the risk of reading like a "Gill's Elevensies" stream of consciousness, I shall continue)

On Sunday we saw P, A, J & T for lunch. Monday we shopped in Tamworth. Tuesday we did the Think Tank in Birmingham and Wednesday we returned to Manchester for the check up.

The doctor said that DK's feet look better than they ever have. He runs well and the stiffness that we were worried about didn't concern her. We left his brace behind to be recycled for some other poor little mite in another country and headed to the airport, happy to be told that we don't need to go back for a whole year rather than the 6 months it has been until now.

The joi de vivre did ebb away somewhat as the evening wore on and we were delayed by 2 hours. The result was that we were not in bed until 2:00 this morning and getting out of bed for work was something of a struggle.

Nice BSA gold flash

Birmingham Think Tank

Formerly the science museum, still with the spitfire and steam engine.

Last day

Thank goodness for that!

Christmas Parties

Next Friday is our company Christmas Lunch (which takes place in the evening) in Viborg which is 3 hours drive west from our house. I'm getting a lift with some colleagues and staying overnight in a hotel.

I have also been invited to the Finnjolle (Finn Dinghy) sailors Christmas lunch in Dragør near Copenhagen on Saturday lunchtime.

As far as I can see, I don't really have time to go home between the events, other than to perhaps drop off my bags and collect whatever I need to take with me.

I have a feeling that I will need a quiet Sunday after all of that!

The worst moustache

There is a general concensus amongst my colleagues that out of all the guys at work who have grown a moustache in November, I suit mine the least.

These photographs are just the guys on my project at the moment so I am being judged from at least 10 people and I think it's quite an achievement to look so stupid. I didn't even go for a ridiculous shape!

It's going on Saturday and I can't wait to be rid of the itchy little blighter. I may be persuaded to wait until we have seen B&E and family if they really want to laugh at me though!

Winter weekends

On Friday afternoon, Richard decided that the weather forecast for Sunday was too bad and that we should sail on Saturday morning instead. So instead of a Saturday afternoon at the summerhouse and a walk on the beach (whilst fetching my sailing gear) I had to get up early and spend 2 hours driving over to fetch my gear before driving back to the other side of Sjælland to sail.  

There wasn't much wind which was OK for me to be honest. I was worried about making a total idiot of myself in front of the 3 other guys (it was bad enough having to meet them with a moustache!). We headed out into the Øresund and sailed for a couple of hours doing upwind and downwind legs. I was just as fast as the other guys downwind but struggled a bit upwind as the boat seems to want to naturally point a bit too much into the wind.

I made progress to and as my tacking got better, I wasn't totally left behind. I was complimented on my boat speed, but it was noted that I had a just needed to learn to sail in the right direction! I really enjoyed being DEN18 for the day and am looking forward to more sailing in the future. MK is far from wild about the idea of me getting a boat (I think or at least hope that is because of the cost) but I'm afraid, I think I'm going to do it anyway. As the guy in the bike shop said - "buy her a bunch of flowers and she'll soon forget about what it cost".

What little of Saturday that was left when I got home, was spent cooking some delicious lamb neck fillets and relaxing.

Sunday was a relaxing day inside as it was cold, wet and windy outside. We cooked a very big pork roast in the afternoon for cousins Tim and Rich plus SOs Rachel and Emma. It was nice to see them and get cracking on our second case of GSM.

Nuts?

Yes she is washing the ceiling!

Gettin' my a$$ kicked

I have accepted that I have failed to become the cyclist that I wanted to be. I had an idea that I could be good enough to fight for race wins in my class, but I was wrong.

The D class field that I am up against now has changed a lot since the first race that I rode 5 years ago. At that point there were maybe 25 people in each race and the average speed was around 36kph. If I was reasonably fit, I could keep up and I hoped that in time I'd be good enough to fight it out for a win every now and then.

These days the average speed is often over 40kph and the field has to be split into 2 groups because there are too many accidents with fields of up to 70 people. Whilst it is great that cycling has become more popular, I suspect that the change is related to the naming convention used for the classes. 5 Years ago we were called "Beginners", now we are the "D klass" so there is far less stigma involved in staying down in the lower ranks and the larger fields make it harder to earn enough points to be moved up the the C class.

Not me

So what now?

We I will carry on cycling for exercise and I think I'll do some mountain bike races again at some point but I want to turn my competitive spirit towards something else - sailing.

This weekend, someone has kindly offered to let me borrow a fairly new Finn at a sailing club near Copenhagen so I can experience what it is like sailing a boat less than 10 years old instead of my 30 year old one. I am also hoping that I can start the process of learning how to prepare and race a Finn because that is what I want to be doing next summer.

not me either!

(Mid life crisis?)

Bananas!

Washing machine settings

Our fancy new washing machine has all sorts of different stain removing programs. I think there are about 10 ranging from blood to sweat (no tears), grease and mud.

However, what we really need in our house is one that removes the smells and stains from poo and pee.  Why isn't there an excrement setting Bosch?

Getting Bushy!

Urgh

Down Time

This weekend has been double down time.

Down time #1 - The down jacket

After J played football from 8-9 on Saturday morning, we went out to the forest with his classmates and parents for a social event. There was a small orienteering exercise and then a camp fire in the camp hut thing where we could bake (obviously poisonous) bread and cook sausages.

It was real winter cold and damp weather and we were all happy to be wearing plenty of clothes. I was also happy that I had spent the first part of the morning making food for us - bacon cased quiches and some coconut pancakes.

Down time #2 - Relaxing

The remainder of the afternoon was spent warming in front of the fire and cooking even more. This time it was a beef goulash that wasn't really very popular with the kids, but I liked it.

I was expecting to go for a bike ride on Sunday whilst J played football again and the others were swimming. That fell through when there were only 3 kids at football and the coach decided to cut the session from 1½ hours to 45 minutes. I did some washing instead and then fetched him. The day ended up being nice and relaxing with some clearing up in the house, planting bulbs in the garden and a trip to the supermarket.

The 'tache is coming along nicely. MK hates it, but I can't really do anything about it until the end of the month.

Weak moustache

Receding hair and a shiny forehead.

D134

This is my boat as she was nearly new. The nice chap that we met yesterday had this in his archives and he will look for the other paperwork relating to the boat at some point.

Skyfall, wind and cold

Skyfall was pretty good. MK loved it because it was more like an old fashioned Bond film. I thought it was a bit too much of a departure from the last 2 but still enjoyed it a lot.

We went to the sailing club on Saturday morning and spent some time talking to a nice guy who couldn't sail because he was injured.

Apparently it will be impossible to race with the other Finns without getting a new (used) mast and sail which would cost about 1/3 of the price of buying a second hand boat. That was, however his advice unless I want to dive in and get a boat.

MK and I talked about it for a while and I think the conclusion is that I will look into getting a newer used boat that is more sea worthy than the one I have at the moment which I fear will fall apart or sink when the going gets tough.

Now the tough part: finding a boat and finding some money.

Skyfall

MK and I have the night off from the kids tonight so that we can go and see Skyfall (the new James Bond film for those of you living under a rock).

We're also going to eat at the Paleo place again so there'll be duck gizzard strew and meat based pizza on the menu as well.

Tomorrow morning there is a final Finn sailing meeting at Vallensbæk sailing club so I am going to watch. At the moment, I'd really like to race next year, but I don't know if the boat I have is race-able when considering:

• Legality
• I have no buoyancy certificate, measurement or weight certificate 

• Safety
• Will it just sink if/when I capsize?
• Is it just going to fall apart in heavy weather?
• Competitiveness
• It's (she's?) 30 years old
• Modern boats have carbon masks and kevlar sails - I don't
• If there are other old boats out on the water, then that's fine.

I'm looking forward to meeting the guys sailing Finns in Denmark and getting some advice about how to get back onto the water.

Dairy

Last year I lost weight pretty much all year by following a slow carbohydrate diet. As I learned more about nutrition and got a bit bored of eating beans all the time, I have gradually shifted to a paleo diet so that I don't really eat beans any more, but I have started to eat a bit of dairy and I gave up the gluttonous cheat days. The result has been a slow gain in weight again. Bummer.

I have decided to give up dairy for a month and see if it helps me to manage my waistline. I have been eating as much fermented stuff as possible as it should be easier to digest and over the last week, DK and I have been drinking unpasteurised milk as well. - DK loves it!

However, I guess I need to drop it and see if it helps with my weight management and then if that isn't doing the trick, I think I'll try being more strict on the daily diet and go back to having a pig out day each weekend.

Nutrition is really interesting stuff when you get into it and I am enjoying seeing how what I eat effects how I feel, I just wish there was a gradual improvement in my body composition instead of a gradual decline.

Movember

I can't quite believe what I am doing today.

Having been challenged by a colleague last week, I agreed to take part in Movember. I didn't shave from Thursday last week until this morning and when I shaved this morning, I didn't include my top lip.

I started feeling quite self conscious about it, but as the day has gone by, I am getting used to the odd glances that my top lip is getting and beginning to understand how it me be to have massive boobs.

Partly because of the fleeting eye contact and partly because I feel like a tit.

Photos to follow - so far there really isn't much to see.

Delivery for the long dark evenings

60 bottles of red :-)

Where has the week gone?

I haven't blogged much this week, I've just been running around doing other stuff instead which is probably a good thing.

This afternoon MK is at home with J and all the boys from his class (plus DK who J wanted to be invited as well) having a birthday party. I made a cake last night and MK has planned a treasure hunt for them this afternoon so all of the important bases are covered. Then this evening we'll all be eating chicken wings and legs and some weird Danish red sausages.

The final birthday celebration is planned for Sunday with the rest of the family and then it should be over.

Otherwise, there really isn't all that much to report. There will be football and swimming over the weekend and a bit of furniture moving to be done. We are planning redecorating our bedroom in the coming weeks before Christmas, the paint is falling off the ceiling and the walls are very grubby.

So far it looks like we'll go with boring white walls, but get some coloured bits and pieces to go in there like new bedside cabinets.

Happy Birthday J

It was a pretty busy day yesterday so I didn't get a chance to write this. We had a good day with lots of presents and cards.

Thanks for all of them.

The joy of not caring

Whilst having my hair cut last week, I was chatting with my barbor about our new car and that we were happy with it despite, in his eyes, downgrading from the Mazda.

Then we got to talking about cars in general, how you feel about them and how much it matters. When he started his business a couple of years ago, he had sold his car to provide some funds and when he had earned some money again, he was very please to go out and buy a Golf.

I just couldn't understand that anyone got that much pleasure from owning a car (that in his case, he rarely drives). I don't think he could really accept that I don't really care about having what he would consider a fancy car.

In the end, I think he was jealous of the fact that I can now say that I don't really care about cars. I'm really happy with the new Berlingo despite the fact that my colleagues laugh at me for it.

Chilly autumn walk

School Assembly

With J's class

We have also had the first ice on the car for the season and DK is home with me after being ill yesterday.

New wheels

Palæo

We managed to get to the Palæo restaurant at the weekend (the boys had pizza from the place next door) and we were pretty impressed. The highlight was certainly the Bolo - ducks hearts and gizzards with vegetable spaghetti and parsley pesto was rich spicy and delicious.

Now everyone is back at school and work so it's downhill all the way to Christmas with J's birthday in the middle as a distraction.

The new bus

We're picking it up next Wednesday!

Haircut!

New family member

A whole lamb!

School Holiday

It's school holiday this week here so everyone is home from today. Daniel had an appointment with the speech therapist yesterday so he went to nursery and J was with the grandparents meaning that MK could make it to work for a day. She needed a bit of peace and quiet and some hours in the bank before we have our trip to England in December.

We're narrowing in on a car, there is another ex demo that we saw at the weekend that looks OK but it is the same price as a new one because it has every optional extra you can get on it. Might be nice to have the gadgets though. I need to speak to the sleazy salesman again today and find out how long it has been registered and how much wiggle room there is on his price.

It's is pretty much exactly like this one:

Paleo fruit cake

Make it up as you go along success
Banana, butter, eggs, coconut, almond flour and dried fruit.

Delicious.

All in a days work

MK and I both worked from home today so that we could go to a meeting at DK's nursery. We met with the speech therapist, a physio, a psychologist, his "class" leader and the head of the nursery.

The conclusion was that he is doing well, his speech is improving and he seems to be bright enough to keep everyone happy. The speech therapy will continue and the physio will find out what can be translated from the work that he does twice a week at the special school to daily activities at the nursery.

We got the go ahead from the bank to change the car so we now need to search for the best deal that we can get for the old one against one of these. 

No doubt cheap on these Polish plates, but certainly not on Danish ones!

Short on time and content

Life is quite busy at the moment, but most of the action is pretty mundane and not worth writing about here. We run backwards and forwards to school, work, football, gymnastics, guitar, music and other assorted meetings with time in the middle apparently spent on domestic duties.

I am not complaining (much) but I can't imagine that anyone really wants to read about yet another busy day driving, writing emails and cooking dinner before watching the TV for an hour or so before bed.

In other news, I have just ordered some kefir grains so that we can try making some fermented milk drinks. The idea is to replace the good bacteria in our stomachs that have been wiped out by the antibiotics that we are all on at the moment. I'll post about that as and when there is something to show for it.

Maybe I need to find something more philosophical to muse over.

Our blustery weekend

There was too much wind to sail unfortunately but there was good food to eat, wood for the fire and wine for the grow ups.

Health update

Apparently we all have a bacterial infection that also gives flu like symptoms so we have all been put on antibiotics with immediate effect.

Hopefully I can avoid the raging sore throat and just deal with the flu type feeling.

Tracking

A couple of weeks ago I decided to keep track on my sleeping, eating and exercising. This was partly for fun and partly to try and see if there was pattern to the evenings when I had trouble getting to sleep.

Am I drinking coffee too late in the day?

Do I get enough sleep?

Was there another reason?

I got a pretty good app on my iphone that made it really easy to note what and when I ate, when I had coffee, when I woke up and went to sleep and also my exercise.

So what did I learn?

1. I feel better going to bed at around 10:30 then 11:30
2. I have no problem with exercising in the mornings now that I am used to it
3. I generally don't drink coffee after about 4:00 in the afternoon anyway and it seems to have no impact
4. If I spend 2 hours staring at a computer screen or ipad before bed I have trouble sleeping
5. I drink wine too often, but thankfully not too much of it

The most important seems to be dropping the ipad later in the evening. This is related to melatonin release being stopped by blue light so I have also installed some software on my PC that cuts out blue light automatically after sunset which also seems to help, but not as much as switching it off.

Next step may be some red light bulbs for evening use but who knows where that may lead...

one up and one down

DK is back at nursery today, but J and I are home. He is sick, I am not 100% fit, but working anyway because I am such a trooper!

DK has also managed to spread his illness to other members of the family - he certainly is generous.

Sick kids

Thanks for the birthday presents everyone. I am hoping to give the sailing gloves a test this weekend if the weather is OK and I am not ill.

DK has been home from nursery for 3 days now with a fever and a river of yellow snot running from his red and sore nose. He has been with T&B for a couple of days and even overnight on Tuesday but he is home with him mum today.

Unfortunately I feel rather as though I am getting the same thing this afternoon so I am nto too optimistic about heading out to see over the weekend in my little boat unless the sea and wind are fairly calm and I am feeling healthy. You develop another attitude to the water when there are waves and no rescue boat.

Happy Birthday to me

So far it's been a good day.

T&B came to eat with us yesterday after a cancelled trip to their summer house. We couldn't face the early morning drive back for swimming class and driving over there to cook lunch seemed like a waste of petrol on top of DK being under the weather.

DK developed a good fever yesterday afternoon so he kept us awake during the night (along with J's nightmares and my repetitive cramp) The this morning we took him back to T&B to be looked after and he has just been delivered back to me at home for the afternoon.

I've had some lovely presents, a blender from Mum (which has now been well used), a sweater from J&D a 24kg kettlebell from T&B and a mystery on it's way from MK...

Maybe it'll be a lobster...

That knocking noise

Well apparently that's the end of the Mazda for us, we'll be doing our best to palm it off on some poor unsuspecting car dealer this weekend and head back in the direction of a Spaz Bus as someone once called it.

Our first Danish car was about as far from an ego trip as one could get without having bought a used one in metallic mustard.

Then my ego took over and we bought a big fancy car

and now we have decided to head back to either this:

or the newer version like this

the result should be significantly lower spending on fuel, insurance and tax along with a slight increase in practicality and self worth.

Busy, grumpy and not sleeping well

There is a lot going on at work at the moment which spills over into non working time. It isn't necessarily that I am spending time working outside office hours, but work is on my mind more than it should be.

The aforementioned car trouble mean that we are likely to have to change the car pretty soon which was neither planned nor budgeted and that is also playing on my mind along with the fact that I can't help feeling responsible for not checking the oil in the damned thing more often. (Having said that, it was an expensive car when it was new and I don't think I should need to check the oil every week to avoid killing it)

I am also burning the candle at both ends a little by training in the mornings and not really getting to sleep early enough to leap out of bed with any semblance of enthusiasm.

I guess something will give at some point, but in the meantime, I'll try to get better sleep and consider not being quite so mean to the kids. (I probably won't manage it though)

That time if year again

The first fire since....

June!

Car problems

Our Mazda is more or less the same age as J but unfortunately it seems to be ageing less well than he is. It has always used a bit of oil and shortly before the summer, I think the oil level got low enough that it has damaged itself from low oil pressure (I'm working on training Mrs M to inform me of awful noises coming from the car when she drives it, but I think she just turns up the radio)

Yesterday afternoon I took it to our mechanic for a quick look, hoping he would say that there was a problem with a valve, but it seems to be something deeper and more dangerous than that. We have booked it in for a couple of hours investigation next week, but after some research, I am fearing the worst and we are planning a quick car change before the engine gives up entirely and we are left with a worthless wreck or a big bill.

We were planning on changing it in a couple of years, but now I think we may just change it this weekend...

Guitar lessons II

My group guitar lessons started again last night and it was with some trepidation that I packed up my dusty guitar. I have tried to practice a bit over the last couple of days which had helped a bit, but I was rather rusty after a 6 month break from lessons and practice.

I got through the lesson without making too much of an idiot of myself despite there being just 5 of us. My fingers were pretty painful by the end, but I will get practising again and hopefully make some progress as the weeks go by.

Guitar lessons

I am starting guitar lessons again this evening for the autumn term. I took a break over the summer and have barely touch my guitar since the last lesson in the spring. I have tried to practice a bit over the last few days, but I expect that this will be pretty tough this evening both on the ends of my fingers and also good old fashioned embarrassment.

The lessons are in a group and apparently there will only be 5 of us whereas there were about 8 last time so it will be harder to hide my missed chord changes and not singing than it was before as well. Now I have to get back into the pretty dreadful old Danish songs that we have to massacre each week.

Wish me luck...

Champions again

J's class won the Ringsted school football tournament for the second year in a row yesterday. Considering that they are by far the smallest school entered in the competition, that is quite an achievement. 

The winning team

More medals for the collection

They drew their first 2 pool matches and won the last and then got through the semi finals on penalties. They then went on to win the final 1-0

Race report

The bike was ready, I wasn't...

Cottage Pie

Make with mashed barbecued sweet potatoes on top.

Blue Lights

I am not particularly good at falling asleep at night and there are a number of reasons for that.

• Firstly I spend much time looking at screens, I am trying to curtail that before bed, especially the ipad.
• Secondly there is a blue LED on the phone next to my bed which I covered with black tape yesterday after reading that blue light is the worst for keeping you awake (it has also annoyed me for over a year)
• Thirdly, there is a street light outside our window which I plan to try and block out with a blind this evening.
• Finally I have installed some software on my computer that should cut out the blue light automatically when the sun goes down so that my body doesn't think that it's daylight all the time that I am looking at my screen. Take a look here if you're interested

I'll report back on any improvements, but I think I already noticed an improvement last night without the blue light.

Feet on the ground

It's been a pretty busy week or so (I don't remember the last time that wasn't the case).

It has been fun to have G&J visiting and great to have back up on the fetching/delivering and entertaining of the kids. The weekend in the summer house was as good as ever and It was fun to get out sailing yet again.

If I ever want to race that boat though, I will have to do quite a lot of work to firstly figure out how all of the controls are supposed to be connected and also be a bit more certain of her seaworthiness.

We've eaten and drunk well with our guests in an effort to introduce them both to our "primal" way  of eating. It appears that G has taken it to heart a little more enthusiasm than J, but it's up to them to decide if they want to carry on when they get home.

I yet again failed to get out the door on my bike this morning after my alarm clock radio came on silently. It's a shame as it was a beautiful morning and it is now raining. On the positive side, we had plenty of time to get out of the door and queue all the way to CPH.

Guests in the basement

G & J are with us for a week and have successfully managed to christen the basement bedroom without any apparent ill effects.

Whether or not they manage to get themselves home from Copenhagen today alone on the train is anyone's guess, but they have at least one mobile phone and pre paid train tickets.

Life continues a pace and we are all busy running from work to school to cooking to classes for gymnastics, music, athletics, football and guitar whilst trying to make sure that homework is done, there is food in the fridge and everyone is happy.

It's fun, but we're all ready for bed by 9:00 every evening and I failed to get up in time to cycle this morning because my alarm didn't go off. Thankfully there will be another opportunity tomorrow morning and I will take more care with the buttons tonight.

Flat pack

I confirm my theory that I couldn't stand up the wardrobe from it's side without it falling apart.

The lack of space in our bedroom meant that I built it on it's side and then tried to pick it up, unfortunately it did a parallelogram shape and then pulled all of the fixings out of the crappy chipboard.

Thankfully I did manage to restore all of the holes with the end of a screwdriver, some wood glue and a bit of care.

After installing the draws, it turned out that the door hinges had to go where the draw runners were attached so I had to move all three sets of draw runners before hanging the doors.

Anyway, it all came together in the end and looks fairly straight and true and I just need to attach it to the wall when the boss is certain which wall it will stand against.

Tidying up

I finally got around to cleaning the basement to make way for our guests arriving tomorrow. The place wasn't really too bad, but it needed a run around with the vacuum cleaner and moving the bikes around a bit.

Oddly, the biggest challenge was finding space for the Christmas decorations. they had to go where the roof box was, that had to go on the cupboard which in turn needed moving from the dining room.

I think the final conclusion was that we needed to go to Ikea to get a wardrobe/cupboard for the basement to put stuff in, but that is not important as we bought a wardrobe for our bedroom instead. Neither of us really know how that all happened, but I now have a big flat-pack project to get done tonight.

This is fantastic:

You need to click on this link to read it at the original source

http://www.dansplan.com/blog/1744-infographic 

New Blog?

I'm seriously considering creating another blog to run alongside this one. My idea is to do something about paleo diet eating in a Scandinavian context. There are loads and loads of paleo blogs out there, but most of them are US based and it often isn't easy to take american recipes and ideas and use them in a Scandinavian context.

We have a much more limited access to the ingredients that are often used in paleo recipes and in general the selection of food available is different.

Here are links to a couple that I like which could serve as some inspiration:

http://thestonesoup.com/blog/

http://civilizedcavemancooking.com/

Perhaps this should be my winter project.

Bare feet on the grass

Feels nice after a day inside.

Football practice

Summer ending???

I should have been out riding my bike this morning, it is just getting light when I go out at about 5:45 but this morning the air was very cold and damp and worst, there was a thick fog.

I don't mind the cold damp air, that is nice and refreshing, but the fog is just dangerous and I don't have any lights set up at the moment so it would have been dangerous to go out as I have to cross busy roads and roundabouts.

I opted to ride on the trainer instead which is considerably less fun than being out in the fresh air. I guess I'd better get used to it although I will get the lights sorted out this evening so that I can get outside again on Friday morning.

The coconut "bread" below is a rather odd eggy, greasy creation, but it's not that bad and the kids seem to like it with some chocolatey stuff on top. I personally liked it best with BHP's homemade rose-hip jam.

Bread?

Not quite, it's paleo coconut bread made with 12 eggs, a packet of butter and a cup or so of coconut flour. It's a bit greasy and eggy but overall not bad, the biggest drawback is the cost of making it.

The nearly broken halyard

Battered

It's been another busy weekend (the only kind we have these days thankfully). J's street football was over by lunch so we headed to the summer house with cousin A as we were babysitting her overnight.

We had a good walk along the beach to wear out those who hadn't played football before cooking up a big batch of tacos for the kids and chilli for us.

The night went smoothly and we woke up to a good strong wind. J and I took the boat down to the beach and with a lot of huffing and puffing (and swearing trying to get the rudder on whilst being beaten by the boat in the waves) I got out for a sail. The wind was verging on being too strong for me in reality and I was very conscious of not having any back up of a rescue boat should something break.

I tore backwards and forwards across the bay having a blast. I did have to stop the put the rudder back on again at one point (I have a new retainer clip to put on) but after about 45 minutes I called it a day as I was getting tired and rather battered. I took the sail down to find that the wire halyard that holds the sail up had almost broken. There were only 2 strands left so I had timed it perfectly.

This morning I was up and out at 5:30 for my early morning bike ride, I enjoyed it again and seem to be getting into the habit just in time for the mornings to be too dark to go out. I then had my renal scan which wasn't all that much fun and the tracing fluid has left me felling a bit crappy all day. Hopefully it will all have been a waste of time anyway.

Street Football

Three goals, three teams, one ball and probably a load of confused kids...