Mobile purchase

Sometimes modern technology is really cool. MK and I agreed that I should have a bike that I can just use to ride with the kids, take J to school and pop to the shops. The first 2 bargains I found online sold out before I managed to buy them but I have just ordered on of these from my phone whilst on the train to Copenhagen. Pretty impressive eh?

There's no need to comment on my apparently oversized collection of bikes. I am going to offload one or two when I have a few spare minutes next week.

Nearly there

Boy this is turning into a long week.

Today was a mad dash to Sweden, a long meeting and then a dash through Copenhagen to deliver some Easter  eggs to a customer before coming home in bad traffic.  Now I am just left with a whole load of things to sort our before finishing tomorrow afternoon.

The boys seem to have stopped using the toilet, preferring to pee in their pants instead. DK got through his clothes and the 2 spare sets and then a borrowed set as well until MK gave up and let him wear just pants. J had an unusually bad day too with 2 accidents and food all over the third set of clothes.

Feet back on the ground

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, hence the absence of blog updates.

Firstly, Congratulations to K&L who yesterday took delivery of 2 new members of the family. Both girls and mum are doing fine and we are looking forward to meeting them at some point next week. In the meantime, we are looking after their eldest this afternoon.

DK is back on his feet and walking around on his casts. He seems to be slowed down very little by them and was even playing football in the garden with J on Sunday (albeit somewhat Frankenstein-esk). The first week has been pretty easy and it has been great having Grandma visiting to help with fetching, carrying and general housework duties. The housework was not expected, but greatly appreciated. The house is now so clean that we cancelled the cleaner for the week!

We have 2 public holiday days next week so the whole family is having the week off. We haven't decided what we are going to do with the time, but J has plenty of birthday parties to attend and we are entertaining some other peoples kids along the way. I have a few things that I want to do, firstly is to get some good solid training in on my bike and the second is to spend a night camping in the woods with J if the weather continues to be as nice as it has been this week.

Let us hope that the sun shines on the righteous and that I prove to have been sufficiently so!

Mobility

DK

We are all back home along with Grandma and getting back into the swing of things. DK is enjoying being in plaster for now as he is the centre of attention and rolls around the house in his wheelchair with surprising ease. I'll post some photos when I have time, but for now I have been very busy at work.

Ready, Steady, Go

I'm just getting ready for the final stage of a rather busy and stressful week.

I have been flat out at work this week so far. Tomorrow morning, we all (that is the entire company) fly to Oslo for a kick off and the announcement of a new name for our company. There will be around 4500 of us in total with the remaining 1500 from outside Scandinavia not invited as far as I can see.

There are some knowledge sharing sessions on Friday to talk about our subject areas and then some events on Saturday with a big party and unveiling of the new name and logo on Saturday night.

Party Location: Telenor Arena, Oslo 

On Sunday morning I am flying back to Copenhagen and then MK, DK and I are off to Manchester for DK's operation on Monday morning. We'll be in Shustoke on Monday evening and then back home on Tuesday in time for work again on Wednesday.

So far I am mostly looking forward to the following Saturday most of all! (although I am also looking forward to a chance to walk around Oslo on Saturday morning as I haven't been there before)

Record Collections

It's a long time since I last bought a CD, or a cassette or a record. That is not a great surprise given the march of technology. I have bought some music on-line and burned some of it onto cds to play in the car, but most of what we have bought is sitting on my computer and the ipod.

It seems like a fair guess that in the future, most music will be streamed directly from the internet and nobody will keep copies of music either as discs or on their computers.

So where does that leave the idea of a record collection?

I think it will be a very sad development that kids will no longer be able to search through their parents record collections looking for something funny, interesting, embarrassing or new to listen to. If young people don't get the chance to experience Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Doors, The Beach Boys, Queen and hundreds of other interesting and influential musicians, that can only be a bad thing.

Sjællandsmesters

A few weeks ago J's football team qualified for the finals of the Sjælland football competition which took place this weekend. 

He and DK had slept at their grandparents house on Friday night so that MK and I could go out for a (somewhat disappointing as it turned out) mean. MK fetched J in the morning so that he could go to a short football practice and then took him to the competition which was held in the middle of nowhere.

I was to cycle to the venue and watch the later games.

The good news is that J's team won. That was fantastic.

The less good news was the 4 flat tyres I had on the way there in the rain leaving me soaked, filthy, cold and having missed the football altogether. However, it wasn't a bad ride really and we were invited back to the grandparents for dinner and to collect DK and we all got to celebrate J's teams win.

Breaking the news

We haven't told DK about the trip to Manchester or his operation yet. We don't really know when we should do it either.

I am sure he has no memory of the plaster casts the first time around so he won't understand what is going to happen anyway. I think we'll try to explain it all to him next week and hope that he isn't too confused or upset.

This seems like a very long time ago.

RAB Inifity jacket

I got tired of being cold this winter. I have more than one coat, but none of them was warm enough and I ended up wearing a couple at a time which is something of a nuisance. As the winter season stuff is now pretty heavily reduced, I did a trawl of the internet looking for a thinker down coat than the Patagonia down sweater that I bought last year. I found a real bargain on this Rab Infinity jacket at Cotswold Camping.

The coat has a boxed construction on the front to avoid the cold patches that you can get where the front and back of the coat are stitched together and it is generously filled with goose down. The fabric is a new, very light weight rip-stop affair call Pertex Quantum so the whole thing weighs next to nothing but is still very warm as I found out this morning when it arrived.

I doubt that I will wear it many times before next winter, but I love the fit and colour and am rally happy with my choice. The added bonus was the price.

Stress

I seem to have a lot of stress at the moment. Too much to do and too little time is something I can cope with, but at the moment I have loads of things to do that I don't really know how to do and not enough time to figure out what to do.

I am fumbling around with both hands trying to find my a$$ without too much luck!

Somersault

Gymnastics

DK really enjoyed the experience

J in full flight

Leap frog

MK on stage

Serious concentration

Spring in the air

The sun is shining.

The snow drops are out and the daffodils are poking their heads out of the ground

I am pretty sure that spring is on it's way.

Busy and back in training

I have finally kicked myself back into action this week and got some cycling done. That has lead to cramps during the night, but I need to get moving if I am ever going to get fit this year.

J has lost his first front tooth but is waiting to put it out for the tooth fairy until he has shown it to T&B.

This weekend is the gymnastic display for J, DK and MK. I can't wait and there will certainly be some photographs to follow. We are also having a tree cut down in the garden at the weekend so there should be plenty of photo opportunities.