Let the blogging begin (again)

It's been a lean period for this blog for a while, but I am now hopeful that I can put that behind me and come up with something to read again.

On Saturday I got up very early to to a 12 hour mountainbike race near Copenhagen. I wasn't really looking forward to either the early morning or the many hours riding round in circles. These timed races generally follow the same format of riding around a course as many times as possible withing a given time period. In this case the course took about half an hour I think and it was not too bad. The weather was perfect, the course dry and there was nothing to complain about at all.

I started badly, we were in a holding area waiting to start when the announcer said (in Danish or course) make sure your timing chip is in the right place on your shoe, don't start at the front unless you are going to stay there etc etc. No sweat, I'm near the back and SHIT I forgot to put on the chip on my shoe. By this stage the holding pen thing was full so I had to run over the to the solo rider tent thing to try and find my chip. Not there. Then run back to the pen, get my bike and ride back to the car to get it. All in, I think I was about 10 minutes late for the start and I cought up with some people about half way through the lap.

The problem with not having to get from A to B is that there is no real motivation to keep going on these rides. I am not competing with anyone, I can't tell who I am close to becuase I don't knwo who is laps ahead of me or behind me and it just gets rather boring. The course was hard and bumpy which makes your back ache pretty quickly and by lunchtime my interest was waining. At about noon, I stopped for a sandwhich and some coke and enjoyed half an hour off the bike. The lunch was rather heavy and when I started again I felt rather sick so decided to take another break to digest a little longer.

My heart was never really in it after that, I was bored and missing spending the nice day with the family so at about 4 oclock I decided to go home and have dinner with them instead to punishing myself any further.

I remember that last year I felt about the same, but then MK and J showed up and encouraged me to keep going, I also made friends with a couple of Aussies who were riding solo as well that day so there was some more motivation to keep going.

Maybe I'll do it again next year. It is extremely well organised and run and there was a lot of entertainment arranged for bored kids, just not quite enough for a bored rider...

I am SO out of here :-)

Counting the minutes

Tomorrow is my last day in my current job and the winding down process is dragging on a little.
In the meantime I have been copying and deleting files from my C: drive and generally tidying up for the exciting swap over to a new computer. This time I am getting another Dell and I already have my iphone so I should be up and running by the end of Friday.

In the meantime, I am hoping that Crank Brothers are going to start making their rather nice wheels in 29er sizes...

Twittering again

I have posted about Twitter a couple of times and I can see that a couple of the family have joined up, but neither of them ever use it. I put something up there a couple of times a day but I am pretty sure that nobody reads my posts.

I think it is rather like farting in a empty room. There is nobody there to laugh or be disgusted at it so where's the fun?

The weather is great here today again so I biked into the wind all the way to work and I am looking forward to a much easier ride home in preparation for a very exciting weekend when I am racing against Bjarne Riis and Ned Overend. This is the coolest thing that will ever have happened to me on a bike.

I am such a geek.

Wooden anniversary

Sounds a bit rude if you ask me.

Saturday was our 5th Wedding anniversary and we celebrated by not going out for dinner but by shipping J off to T&B and spoiling ourselves with expensive champagne and a big hunk of beef fillet (about 30cm lopped off the end of the fillet) that was barbecued and delicious.

Yesterday we went to the forest with J's nursery and had a nice time running around and eating cake (not at the same time). All in all, it was a nice weekend and the weather was fantastic.

Getting to the end of it all

I got my new iphone the other day, but have not been able to figure out posting from it yet...

I have been very busy this week having spent time in Belgium, Spain and incredibly Denmark. This morning I dragged myself out of bed and cycled into the office. I am looking forward to ride home for a change seeing as I will actually have a tail wind for a change.

Weeee!

Weekend in the forest

Yesterday we had out annual family trip to see the flowers that carpet the forest at this time of year before the leaves come out in the trees. The flowers are called Anemone (I think that is the correct spelling) and yesterday was a beautiful day for it.

All quiet on the blogging front

This week has been fairly hectic despite (or perhaps because of) it's abbreviated length. I spent 2 days in Belgium and 2 days at home recovering from the trip to Belgium. Next week will be similar in that I am on the 06:35 flight to Brussels on Monday morning, but then it takes a different turn in that I fly directly to Barcelona on Monday night for a full day workshop on Tuesday before returning home at about 11 on Tuesday night. I plan on taking the remainder of my employment a little easier, starting with cycling to work on Wednesday and not working more than 45 or so hours for the week for a change...

This weekend we will be out and about doing various stuff including a trip to the woods and dinner with T&B and MK is taking J to handball and a concert at the library. I will try to take some photos as I think I have been neglecting my duties to the absent grandparents for a while.

New front mech

When I was cleaning my rather special new bike at the weekend I found the reason for the poor shifting on the front chainrings. The titanium cage had a broken weld. Bummer

This evening I took the bike into Fabin where I bought it and they replaced the front mech without any trouble and were very nice about it too. It is very thoughtful of them not to make me feel like a fat bloke with more money than sense and he even weighed my bike for me...

6.9kg or 15.2 lb !

He even told me that most riders in a pro peleton would be envious of my bike. That made me really happy, but now I just have to ride it more.

Little to report

Went to the hotel, had a beer, something to eat and then went to bed.

The room was very hot even with the window open so I didn't sleep too well, but I can have a nap on the plane on the way home this afternoon.

Easter round up

The weather has been great in Denmark over the very very long weekend so we have been busy outside more or less all the time.

We have dug and planted and moved and mown. We've watered and weeded and sown and pruned as well. The result is that we now have carrots, parsley and peas planted from seed. Another rhubarb plant growing alongside our new sage and rosemary plants in the vegetable patch. Then to add a little life to the garden and cover up areas that currently need mowing or weeding we have planted a rhododendron, an astra something or other and a magnolia bush. We have also relocated the rose bushes and replaced them with ones that will cover the ground and planted a row of strawberries to boot!

In the meantime, I have managed several good bike rides including mountain biking with J in the forest (sort of mountain biking anyway) and yesterday we all went out together, I towed the trailer with the kids in it and MK just got to drag herself around for an hour or so. It was great. We even managed to have 2 barbecues over the weekend much t J's excitement. I guess the final big news of the weekend was that DK is now crawling, he has only managed a metre or so to date, but I am sure we'll be locking things up before we know it...

I am now back in Belgium for 48 hours, but I am looking forward to getting back home to more gardening, barbecues and biking.

Over hot coals

It is turning into another busy week. But hang on a minute...

This is Denmark isn't it?

It's Easter as well so that can only mean 1 thing...

A 5 day weekend (with a supplementary day working at home as I worked 60 hours last week)

Hurray, the sun is shining, it's not too cold and I'm going to ride my bike every day until I go back to Belgium on Tuesday morning.

The next project is to decide what to do for our wedding anniversary, but I have a little time left for that.

Have a good weekend everyone, see you on the other side!

Weekend work

It is not unusual for me to do some work at the weekend, but it is unusual to go to the office. I got home at 11:00 on Friday night and got the call on Saturday morning at 08:00. That was the day gone because I got home at 7:00 just as the boys were going to bed. Having been away all week that was a real pain. It was also the first day of the year that was remotely warm and sunny so it was a double pain in the bum.

At least it is a short week this week and I am hoping to get some time back at some point... In the meantime, I am unreasonably busy for someone who has handed in their notice...

By the way, didn't anyone like my new watch?

Just for me!

Antwerp and beyond

We finished a little earlier than usual last night (meaning 6 o'clock if you're interested) so we went to Antwerp for dinner. I had never been there before and it was quite nice. Just like Brussels but smaller. I had moules and frites which were very nice and a beer or two. The other two guys were less brave.
This is the cathedral:

Here is the powerboat factory thing next to our hotel

and this was the view to the left of the above. It looks quite nice, but it is in the middle of a fairly large industrial estate surrounded by water.

Just becuase I'm missing them all

It sucks a lot that I can't go home tonight :-(

Tour of Flanders

This Sunday the Tour of Flanders will take place not too far from where I am sitting in Belgium. A couple of years ago I rode the route in the "sportif" ride that is open to the public on the day before the main race, but this year I'll just be watching it on the television.

The race is extremely tough, it is about 270km long with about 40km of cobbles and 16 "bergs". These bergs are short and very steep hills, often cobbled and so steep that often the pros end up walking up them when they get there in bigger groups. The race is brutal and I can't wait to attack our very own ironing "berg" whilst I'm watching on Sunday afternoon.

I'll be doing my own little Tour on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. I have a 12 hour mountain bike race on the 1st May and I am nowhere near ready for it yet...

Tail winds, head winds and no wind(ows) at all

I am in Belgium for a couple of days and it looks like the weather is nice. Unfortunately I am stuck in a meeting room with no windows so I don't really know at the moment.

Yesterday was a busy day. I managed to motivate myself to cycle to work and back for the first time since December. Getting there was fine, I had a tail wind and it was nice to be out in the fresh air. The journey home was another story, having ridden 45km in the morning meant that my legs were not fresh and the kind tail wind had of course become a fierce head wind. At times I wasn't even sure if I would make it, but eventually I got home after 2 hours of struggling. I guess the only way it will get easier is if I do it more often. Given that I resigned from my job yesterday, I suspect that I will be able to find the time a little more easily for the next month at least...

Happy Birthday G

Have a good day and may the dentist treat you kindly!

I quit!

NEWS FLASH ..............

We have just heard from the Doctor that DKs MRI scan showed that everything in his head is fine and normal.

The nurse visited this afternoon and he needs to grow a bit, but otherwise everything is goooood and he is getting worryingly close to crawling...

It's here at last

Spring is here in some shape or other. Having put the clocks forward, it is now light until about 8 in the evening here in Denmark and that makes a huge difference to life general. It is still grey and rather cold today, but yesterday I got to ride my bike in the sun without any punctures and with most of it working as intended. Truly an unusual experience this year.

The down side of yesterdays ride was that I realised that I am nowhere near the condition that I need to be in for the planned races in the summer. That means that I need to get out more and really put some effort into my training. That will be tough this week as I will be away from very early on Wednesday until late on Friday and there is no gym in the hotel. I'll just have to make up for it some other way and work hard next weekend.

Time to review the training plan I think...

Busy weekend ahead

Tomorrow we are having a family trip to Copenhagen to do a little shopping and visit the zoo. I am looking forward to the zoo more than the shopping but thankfully we don't have to do a lot of shopping.

It is quite a long time since we went to the zoo and I can only hope that this visit goes better than the last one. J had a tantric tantrum (one that last for hours) after being forced to try on clothes and then being fed in a cafe. I think DK slept through the whole thing, but frankly I can't get past the memory of J's behavior.

Looks like I am off to Brussels again next week so I may be getting my wedding anniversary present early if they still have it reduced...

Perfect pants

I decided a couple of days ago that I needed some new trousers. I wear (smart) jeans to work most days but some days I want to wear something else. A suit is overkill and the 3 pairs khaki things that I generally wear are getting rather scarecrow-ish. My solution was to go to the new Hugo Boss outlet in Ringsted. It was crap. They had nothing and the one pair of suitable trousers was still 860DKK (about £90 or $180) which seemed rather steep.

Naturally I was a meander around the other shops and left all but one of them convinced that I would have left empty handed even if everything had been free.

At the last stop I did manage to find something that I wanted: a couple of pairs of underpants and I am happy to report that they have been holding me in place comfortably all day :-)

As you can see, all of this dieting and working out has really helped my abs

In the end I ordered a couple of pairs of trousers from Charles Tyrwhitt

Done and dusted

We're home again and it all went well. DK is tired, a bit grumpy and eating everything he can get his hands on having had to miss breakfast.

We're not good at missing meals in this family...

MRI scan

Today little DK is having an MRI scan to look at his brain and inner ears. Apparently the head develops in 2 halves in the womb and the cleft palate that he has is caused by the halves not joining correctly. The doctors want to check that there are no other problems that can't be seen inside his skull. Whist they are looking around anyway, he has also asked that the structure or his inner ear be checked as well. I don't think they can or will do anything regardless of what they find but apparently the information would be useful.

The down side is that being 9 months old means that DK is not too good and staying very still and that is a prerequisite for MRI scans. consequently he is being given a general anaesthetic which will almost certainly be the worst part of the whole thing.

We'll get the results in a couple of weeks.

Now that's just silly

But I'd still like one for some reason. I suspect that Wenger have a 10 year old boy is working in product development though...

Snow in March

It's snowing outside but it's warm inside and yesterday the sun even shone for a while.

Yesterday was T's birthday so we celebrated with K,L&A, and Farmor and Farfar. It was a nice evening and it was lovely to meet little A.

Tomorrow is little brother B's birthday so happy birthday to him too.

Happy Motherig Sunday

Sorry I didn't manage to get a card sent to you, you can have one for the Danish version in a month or so!

I hope you like the flowers when they arrive

Wx

Fetching J

J started his new nursery in October, so far I have dropped him off there once and never picked him up because MK has been home to do it.

J has asked me several times to collect him, but I have never managed it. Today I am leaving early so that I can get him and frankly I feel awful that I have not done it before.

Heading home

Belgium has been really dull. Dull hotel, dull office and lots of standing around waiting for taxis.

For some reason we have not been able to get a single taxi to arrive on time or not charge us extortionate rates for traveling to and from our hotel. Next time we are going to rent a car...

However, the god news is that I am going home to the family in minutes and I can have a nap on the plane...

Twitter

I think it would be cool if some of the family started to Twitter

twitter.com

You can follow me there from time to time under wmillard

Arrested Development

One of my colleagues with us here in Belgium got a call from his wife this morning to say that his 15 year old daughter was arrested last night for graffiti-ing on a wall in an underpass.

That being in Denmark means that she will be made to clean it up herself, pay a small fine and have a criminal record for a year. Not too clever really, but it got us thinking about all the stupid things that we did in our youth and got away with.

To be honest, I don't think I have performed too many illegal acts and perhaps listing them on the Internet would not be that wise, but I don't think I have ever even considered doing graffiti, I wouldn't want to waste money on paint when I could spend it on beer.

I guess that I just hope I never get a similar call regarding either of our 2 although my colleague seems to have taken it quite well and the police reminded them not to be too harsh with her as she hadn't killed anyone...

News

MK got over her sickness after a couple of hours in the car on the way home from Italy, but J didn't get sick until last night after he had drunk about a litre of water and consumed several carrots.

What a mess! once all over the bathroom, once in his bed and another little splattering later for good measure.

Thankfully I had to get up at 4:45 this morning to get a plane to Belgium where I am now trying to stay away.

More interesting news is that K & L had a baby girl at the weekend. I don't know how much I am allowed to publicise, but suffice to say that all went well and everyone is happy.

More pics

Ready to hit the slopes


Snow ploughing

MK says that DK looks a lot like me here, I am not sure that the half asleep look is something either of us should aim for though...

Back again

We're back

It was a long drive and it started with MK throwing up for a couple of hours, but we made it home at 6 yesterday morning. This was dawn on the way down through Germany. We drove through a lot of snow and it was slow going for a while.

The week was really nice. Not enough skiing, but plenty of time with the kids, snow, good food, booze and no internet access for a week! J got 2 new pairs of sun glasses. The first pair lasted less than 24 hours...

J loved skiing although he did confide in me at some point on the lift that he preferred the swimming pool

Making tracks

It's been a crazy week, but tonight we're hitting the road. I'll try to post next week, but I have no idea if I'll be able to get online.

Two ways of seeing things

Some people may ask why they only get assigned to dreadful projects, while others who are more astute, may ask why the projects they are assigned to always end up being dreadful.

Being a project manager means that you have little option other than to sit in the second camp.

However, I still believe that I belong in the first though. Maybe I do have some self esteem after all...

Does that make sense?

The road ahead

This week is already feeling old even though it is only Wednesday (admittedly nearly the end). I am working like mad to try and get ready for going away on Friday and driving 13 hours to Livigno. To be honest I am dreading trying to spend the night driving, but we are more or less committed to it now so I'll stock up on caffeinated products and hit the road.

Firstly I have to survive the rest of the week without someone with authority telling me that I have to cancel the vacation. It's not beyond the realms of possibility...

A few pics

I tend to enpty the camera once a month so here are a few of them:

My new Redhead


The weekend pancakes

Home made salmon fishcakes mmmmm

Freedom

Saturday was DKs first brace free day. He now only has to wear the bar between his feet that you can see on the photographs below for 14 hours each day instead of the 23 hours that he has worn it up to now. To be honest it doesn't seem to have made a big difference to him yet, his didn't immediately start dancing or even crawling, if anything he seems a little unsettled by the extra dimension of uncertainty that had been added to his little life. Up to that point, there were some certainties in life that needed little or no consideration including where his feet were relative to one another. Suddenly that disappeared and now has to find some way to entertain his feet as well as being busy eating, banging stuff and requiring attention and entertainment.

DK is desperate to be able to move around under his own power but it will be a little while before he can manage it, in the meantime he seems to be doing a pretty good job of getting what he wants through the medium of banging and shouting...