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...