On a brighter note

MK got new crossfit shoes that are the colour of summer.

Winter commute

Not the best photograph, but I think you can see that winter is here.
That is seawater in the harbour under the bridge, not another road!

Fighting back

I think it was the combination of Crossfit, heavy front squats and fetching firewood in the snow on Sunday that did it.

I felt a bit under the weather on Monday, I was decidedly crappy on Tuesday and downright ill on Wednesday. After a couple of feverish nights and some serious sofa time, I am getting better today and I expect to venture as far as Copenhagen tomorrow to see if everything has survived my absence!

Maybe I'll be well enough to do some exercise again by the coming weekend.

Winter has arrived

It's been below freezing since last Thursday and there is an icy wind blowing snow around all over the place at the moment.

The kids had friends over to visit yesterday afternoon so I was very glad of the chance to rent a trailer and fetch a load of firewood. We were down to our last 3 logs anyway so there wouldn't have been much of a fire last night without and nothing left for today.

I dearly wanted to work from home today, but my conscience made me come to Copenhagen anyway despite the weather and a cough and MK going out early and everything. I suspect that I am some sort of hero!

Stimulants

I am still having trouble getting to sleep quite often. I am trying to cut down on the coffee by nit having any after the post lunch cup. I do sometimes have a cup of tea after work, but I am loath to believe that this is the problem.

Dark chocolate seems to keep me awake if I eat more than a couple of pieces in the evening as well. Last night I went to be around 10:00 and it took  me a good hour to nod off. I guess it must have been either the cup of tea at 5 or the (paleo) chocolate cake at 8 after crossfit. Maybe it was the Crossfit that did it? I don't know, but it's really annoying being in bed and wasting valuable sleeping time staring at the ceiling!

Perhaps I need to work on some meditation exercises.

By the way, yesterday's mid blue cords are replaced by a rather natty kingfisher green/blue today. I was about to say that I am the only one wearing them in Denmark today, but DK has almost identical ones on. They are certainly unique in the office.

Tweed and corduroy

The slightly sartorially eccentric Englishman's office attire of choice this week!

Bags packed

My new suitcase is packed and waiting for me in the car boot whilst I am at work today. I'm off to Holland again this evening for a couple of days.

I spent the weekend getting over DK's cold so it was fairly lazy. We had friends for a dinner and sleepover on Saturday night which took a bit of preparation. I made a paloe-ish Moussaka with rice flour thickened sauce on top and then a cardamom rice pudding for desert. All good.

I went to crossfit on Sunday morning and did the workout in the second fastest time for everyone that day and then did 5 x 5 100kg deadlifts. I think my technique is getting better thanks to Lars as I don't really have back ache today, just slightly tired legs. I think I can easily add 10kg next time I do that set.

Tomorrow will be a hotel room workout in the Holiday Inn Express in Papendorp. Urgh.

Foam Rolling

I got one of these last week to help massage out some aches and pains and it's fantastic.

You sit, lie or prostrate yourself over it and basically roll backwards and forwards to massage out any knots, aches and pains. It is pretty uncomfortable at times, but it really helps, especially on your lower back.

It also seems to help avoid getting cramps if I spend a few minutes working on my calves before going to bed.

Sweden again

I really have nothing at all to report today having spent the day in the car and an office in Malmö, Sweden. All I can say is that I have a new suitcase on the way (it's the polycarbonite one, not the aluminium - nice but too expensive):

Rimowa Salsa

Cold windy beach

On Sunday morning before we came home.

Time to relax

We've been busy having fun all weekend. Friday night we had sushi and champagne to celebrate MK's birthday and then the rest of the weekend was spent preparing and recovering from the birthday party.
Saturday morning had the usual swimming and crossfit combo followed by heavy supermarket shopping and a bit of cooking from me before I took the kids to the summer house for the night.

MKs fondue party was apparently a big success with the last guests leaving at 2:30. I was amazed that they could stay up so late!

We got home around lunchtime on Sunday to find a sparkling clean house and a tired Mum. T&B came over for coffee and cake in the afternoon and everyone hit the sack early. I had unfortunately spent too long looking at a screen or had too much coffee earlier in the evening so I had terrible trouble falling asleep. Tonight I am avoiding screens and caffeine in an effort to finally get a REALLY good nights sleep.

Happy Birthday MK

I hope it's a great day.

New tweed

I huge box of M&S sale shopping has been delivered whilst I was in Holland.

I was very happy to find that it all fitted me well and I don't need to send anything back. I got a new suit, a dark blue tweed jacket and 2 pairs fairly unusual (and very non-danish) cords. I am looking forward to many sarcastic comments when the kingfisher coloured pair get an outing.

The big event of the week is tomorrow when MK turns 29 again for the 12th time. See if you can figure that one out... We are celebrating tomorrow night at home and then she is having a party on Saturday with some girl friends whilst I take the boys away for the night.

Utrecht

I am now on day 2 of a business trip to Utrecht in Holland. So far it has been pretty good, the travel has been uneventful, the hotel remarkably unremarkable and the food typically Dutch on the whole.

That means that I have eaten the filling out of the sandwiches at lunch and ham and cheese for breakfast, but we did go to a pretty nice restaurant last night. It is a converted slaughter house that looks oddly like an old church or village hall. I had home smoked wild salmon to start and steak tartar with a poached egg on top for a main course.

Off home tonight and looking forward to a nap on the flight.

All systems go

That's one project given the green light to go live tomorrow whilst I am off to Utrecht tonight to get started on the next one.

I haven't been doing a great deal of business travel recently. but it seems that is about to change in the coming months so I have my bag packed and I am ready to hit the airport.

We were home all weekend. MK was a whirling dervish tidying things up whilst the rest of us tried valiantly to keep out of the way and not get into trouble. We managed reasonably well although DK seems to have talked without pause for the entire weekend. It got to the stage that we were happy he finally went to bed to give our ears a rest.

Photo Time

Click on the photos for bigger viewage

Christmas Day (or Boxing Day)

Kingsbury Water Park

New Years Eve

NYE

I haven't downloaded the pictures from the camera yet, I'll do that soon.

We got home around 10:00 pm on 29th to a cold house and basically went to bed. 30th was a mixture of unpacking, crossfit and then re-packing some clothes and food before heading to the summer house to see in the new year. We haven't been to the summer house as much this autumn as we did last year, but it is always fantastically relaxing to be there and not think about the odd jobs that need to be done at home like washing, ironing and other domestic chaff.

We had 2 nights with good food, a few games and some cold walks on the beach. On NYE, we set off the rockets that we'd brought with us, each of which were bigger than the kids. DK wasn't too happy about the dark or the loud bangs, but he survived the ordeal.

Now we are back at work, MK took the kids with her yesterday and today they are with T&B.

Happy New Year

Looking at the blog, it seems that I didn't post as many photographs over the holiday as I thought I had.

It's always a bit tricky to publicise the fact that you are not at home so travels are usually reported after the fact. We flew to Stansted on 23rd December and picked up a hire care, the travel went smoothly despite threats of storms and ad weather. As soon as we arrived at Hollylands, we were able to relax and get into the mood for Christmas. MK and I spent the 24th preparing food and doing some last minute gift wrapping so everything was ready for the big day.

Christmas day was very nice. It started with presents and an odd family tradition of pork pie for breakfast before we all went to Nether Whitacre church (some more enthusiastically than others) for the family service.

We got home to smell of roasting turkey and having done most of the preparation the day before, we were able to relax and enjoy a glass or two of bubbly before lunch. The lunch was pretty good although I suspect that the turkey would have been better with half an hour less cooking. The Christmas pud was good enough to overcome any of the turkey's dryness. It was great for MK and the boys to finally meet Auntie Ann, I hadn't seen her for almost 20 years so we had a chance to catch up.

If I remember correctly, we went to Kingsbury water park on Boxing Day for a walk and met a man walking his pet barn owl.

On 27th we went to Chipping Norton to see the Pantomime. I had neglected to tell MK what to expect, she hat translated it to some sort of mime and was quite confused by the first half hour of bad jokes, men in dresses and audience participation. She got into it at the end and both the boys absolutely loved it, especially DK who joined in very enthusiastically.

After another relaxed day, we headed home on 29th (wishing Grandad in America a Happy Birthday en-route).