Not much to report

We are all fit and well and working hard so there isn't much to blog about.

I got out of bed early this morning to do my sprint interval training for the first time this year. I have been lifting weights a few times,  but the fear of coughing my guts up has prevented me from doing the aerobic stuff until now.

This was me at about 03:00 on Sunday morning

Bread

It's not that much fun when the work canteen decides that it's sandwich day, but you don't eat bread.

Consequently, I had 2 pieces of cold roast pork with red cabbage and pickled cucumber for lunch and threw away 2 bread rolls.

What a waste.

I am also starving again.

Wow

That was quite a weekend.

We visited friends on Friday and got home at about 01:00 and hit the sack. I got up again at 05:00 after a cramp interrupted nights sleep and left the house with an odd bag of coffee, figs, cash and passport.

I drove to Rotterdam at 14:30 having only had 3 brief stops for fuel and bladder emptying en route. The boat was fine, the mast not so good,  but after a bit of haggling, we hitched it up to the trailer and I set off home again at 16:30.

The drive home was pretty unpleasant. I was very very bored, getting increasingly uncomfortable and it snowed or rained all the way. I stopped for a salad in Germany and a bit of a nap just before the Danish boarder and a few more coffee/pee breaks along the way so I didn't get home until 04:00 in the morning.

That was a total of about 18 hours of driving time out of 23 hours away from the house!

I slept until 11:00 and then got up and painted the bathroom and installed a new shower. I am truly some sort of superman and really rather tired.

Coooold

We are eating with friends tonight in CPH so it was decided that I should take the train to work and then be picked up later by MK and the kids. That's fine and would normally be no problem at all.

However, this morning it was -15C when I walked to the station and I just had to walk 40 minutes to the bank and back to get my Euros for the Holland boat trip tomorrow. Nice exercise and fresh air, but time I don't really have spare in my busy day.

Tomorrow will be a long day. 8 hours to Rotterdam and probably 10 hours back again.

Negotiating or haggling

I am getting to enjoy the process of haggling for things. It looks like I'll be fetching a boat from Holland a the weekend but only looking at one of them as the other guy is no longer available.

That suits me fine as it is the cheaper one that I can see, it has a trailer that I am pretty sure I can get registered in Denmark. I also got the opportunity to push the price down based on the fact that he needs the money for his new boat quickly.

Looks like I could soon be the owner of:

Up and at 'em

I managed to haul myself out of bed at 05:30 and do some exercise this morning for the first time in 2013. Having gone to bed at a reasonable time helped a lot and I plan on getting back into the habit as I was before Christmas.

I took it fairly easy as I am still somewhat under the weather from last week, but it's good to be back at it.

Done

We're back in our own bedroom and it's fantastic to be back in a dark room to sleep.

It is also good to be back in good health after a few days of bad stomach and then a cold.

Work is really  busy at the moment so I suspect that there will not be too much to report here this week. However, I am planning on going to Holland next weekend to collect a boat so there should be something to show for that.

I have been blogging photo graphs during the week without checking that they were posting. Apparently they weren't.

Work

I spend too much time sitting in meetings with grey people with grey faces, grey clothes and grey hair.

I need more colour than this!

Weekends, this and next

This weekend ended up being something of a damp squib.

I spent the customary half day in a sports hall waiting for football matches to be played. J and his class managed a silver medal in the school football. That would probably seem pretty good for a tiny school if they hadn't won the last two tournaments.

J spent Saturday afternoon lying on the sofa feeling ill and a bit sad -  he had a nasty cough and a fever. I spent the afternoon painting the bedroom

Sunday was another odd day. MK and DK went to a christening whilst J languished some more and I painted a bit more and then we all went to the reception after the Christening of Anton and Jonas. J was still quite unwell with a fever so he and I left early, him to occupy the sofa, me to paint some more.

Thankfully both the kids were well enough to (very reluctantly) go to school and nursery this morning through the overnight snow. I'll collect them early and hope to get the painting more or less finished this evening.

Next weekend I am planning something much more interesting.

There is a boat in Rotterdam and one in Amsterdam. I am hoping to take a trip down there next weekend and come back with one of them...

NED 844

The boat search continues.

As you start to communicate with people selling boats around northern Europe, funny things start to happen. The first guy has sold his boat, but he forwards you mail to another guy who decides that he may be interested in selling his.

I have also been put in touch with an indecisive guy in Dortmund who decided not to sell his boat after all

My latest contact is offering to sell me NED 844 which looks like rather a tempting offer. The only significant obstacles to getting this boat are

1. It's in Rotterdam which is an 8 hour drive each way
2. It doesn't have a trailer (I have been offered one to borrow, but it will slow the trip)
3. MK won't let me spend the money (I am working on this...)

I really need to get some of these bikes and bits up for sale this weekend...

Android and filling

Yesterday was far from exciting.

I managed to fill all the holes I made in the ceiling with filler which was a much bigger task than expected. I had to more or less recreate the ceiling surface so that I can spend this evening sanding i and hopefully, finally getting some paint up. I would also like to get a coat of paint on the walls as well, but so far I have underestimated every part of this job so perhaps I should set my sights a little lower.

I also found out whey a Sony Xperia Tipo costs 1/5 as much as an iphone as I tried to get MK's new phone working with contacts etc.

The phone was fairly co-operative in that I synced her contacts from yahoo to the phone without problems. What I hadn't counted on her not having, wanting or valuing any kind of single address book with phone numbers and addresses in the same place. I therefore spent my breakfast time writing down all the numbers from the old phone and now have to update them all in the address book. I know I am going to regret this phone business.

Worst is over

Last night I finished scraping the old chalk paint off the ceiling and painted it with a primer that sticks all the dust together and stops the new paint falling down.

It is horrid stuff, it has the viscosity of water so it goes all over you and the room and is no doubt full of nasty chemicals that you get coated in and inhale.

Next step is filling the holes, washing down the walls and then get on with the painting. I suspect that it will take three coats, but there is still a little optimism hidden within me hoping that 2 will be enough.

Dust

"There's no time like the present."

At least that was how it felt on Saturday when I started scraping the old chalky white wash paint ff the ceiling in our bedroom. Having spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons on that task without finishing it, I now realise that I forget what a dreadful job it is dealing with our ceilings when the task is done otherwise I would never have started this again.

We have slept badly in the living room for 2 nights and MK had to fight a dusty duvet cover off the wardrobe to find some clothes this morning.

I am determined that it should be finished before her birthday on Thursday...

Family Planninfg

No not that sort...

We normally use a paper calendar in the kitchen to keep track of the family to-ing and fro-ing and MK has been determined to remain in a bygone era by having a paper diary until now.

We are experimenting with Cozi.com as a shared calendar and to do/shopping list. We can all see the diary and lists from our computers and the ipad and I have an app on my iphone that gives me access too.

The only problem now is that MK doesn't have a smartphone so she doesn't have access to it from her phone.

I think this may be the year that she has to embrace the smartphone...

I think I've fallen in love

I am still looking for a boat for the coming racing season and stumbled across this one at Devoti's homepage.

It's a shame that it's 10 000 Euro.

I suppose the search must continue for something a little cheaper in Germany or France.

Happy New Year

I've been off line for most of the Christmas period and it's been good for me. I spend far too much of my life in front of a computer screen and it doesn't do anyone any good.

My December resolution to work standing up whenever possible has been going well and the scales told me this morning that I must have been eating reasonably well over Christmas as I haven't gained any weight despite eating rather more marzipan than I ought to have done along with a pig out on Christmas puddings and a few other treats.

We had a fantastically relaxing New Years Eve at the beach with good food, a bottle of champagne and some fireworks. DK was frightened of the fireworks and seemed intent on trying to set fire to the rest of use with his sparklers but otherwise it was nice couple of days in front of the fire and coping with the freezing cold winds coming off the sea.

We are now busy looking forward to painting the inside of the house, skiing, planning a summer holiday and maybe a bit of sailing thrown in too.