An itch that needs scratching

I haven't been on a normal bike ride since last Tuesday and I am getting really fidgety about it. Last night I did my core strength exercises and took it easy after the race on Sunday although to be honest, I don't think I needed or deserved to do so. Tonight I will ride somehow and I hope to do so again tomorrow becuase there is no way that I can ride on Thursday as I will be in Viborg for a meeting meaning an early start and late home.

In the post yesterday I got my new cycling hat. It is 100% merino wool and it seems really nice. a good fit that comes down over my ears and it doesn't see itchy. The only problem is that J seems to like it even more than I do so I think I may have trouble keeping hold of it...

What a tool

This is NOT me, but I did see a few face plants whilst I was there.

The race went well, I didn't fall off, my bike didn't break and I think I did a reasonable time of about 56 minutes.

"About 56 minutes?" I hear you all ask.

"Surely you should know exactly what your time was because you had an electronic timing chip attached to your bike according to the instructions on the Slush Cup homepage. This should record your time precisely"

"Ah yes." I may reply, "what was that about instructions for attaching the chip to your bike? Is it really important to have that plastic thing under the chip?"

Yes apparently it was so I didn't get any times registered for my 3 laps and as a consequence, I will have to start at the back for the first race. I hope I do well enough to move up through the field for the races that follow, but I must admit I was a little disappointed*.

*I was only disappointed that I didn't get the time after all the effort I put in to not have to start at the back for the races. I should have come somewhere between 210 and 225 out of 320 starters so I wasn't exactly setting the field on fire!

Doing the right thing

I just spent 10 minutes downstairs in the basement trying on all of the winter cycling clothing and came to the conclusion that I have plenty of stuff. At the end of the winter I will look out for something on sale to replace the very old jacket that I use when it is really cold, but in the meantime, I need to spend more time riding my bike and less time thinking about how to spend money on cycling accessories.

I suspect MK will agree whole heartedly

Have a good weekend and I hope there will be a report from my mountain bike race on Monday.

Cold and damp

The Autumn is showing signs of turning into Winter pretty darned soon over here. Most of the leaves are now off the trees and it is getting colder. I think I'll even have to put the winter tyres on the car before too long. Yesterday was a really wet, grey affair with little to celebrate meteorologically speaking.

A consequence of this cold damp weather is that my bike rides are also getting cold and damp. In the Spring I bought and Assos Element One jersey like this below to keep me warm when the winter came around again. I got a really good price on sale and got it delivered to Boulder.

Unfortunately, it is simply not warm enough now that the temperature is in single figures so I am having to use a few other things instead or as well. The main problem is that the windproof jacket I have as not really breathable enough so I get rather damp inside it and then rather cold as the ride wears on.

I think the solution is an Assos 851 jacket like the ones below. These are limited edition colours and I am rather drawn to the orange for some reason. There is a problem though - the price. I have been selling odds and ends on eBay in the hope of getting enough together to buy one without upsetting MK, but I don't think I've made enough especially with the other purchases that I've made on eBay whilst waiting for my things to sell...

For the time being I am sure I'll survive, but I am still looking for the solution and hopefully it will be rather less expensive than one of these...

Lots going on

Yesterday MK and DK were detained in the hospital in CPH for the whole day because there seemed to be some problems with his bowel that was stopping the doctors getting a tube up there to flush him out. In the end it turned out to be just an incompetent nurse, but it had us worried that MK and DK wouldn't be able to go to Manchester today for another appointment.

I have just heard that DKs feet are fabulous and the dynamic duo are off to do the shops in Manchester for the remainder of the afternoon before flying home again later this evening. It will have been a long day for them both.

J and I are going to have a boys evening. Maybe going for a short bike ride in the dark if the rain ever stops and probably eating some pizza at some point.

Slush Cup

This isn't me and I don't think it is GBN either...

I have entered a series of mountain bike races taking place over the winter called the Slush Cup. I think I may be rather stupid to expect anything other than mud, cold feet, a wet arse and numb extremities...

The first race is a time trial this weekend. We will be racing against the clock to see who starts in which group for the first proper race in a couple of weeks. The idea is to minimise the inevitable chaos of having 400 people start a race at the same time by putting the fast guys at the front and the slow ones at the back. I am hoping to be somewhere in the middle, but I suppose I'll just have to wait and see how it goes...

There are 7 races in total, each one lasting 1 hour plus one lap so a maximum of about 1 hour 20 minutes per race. The last race is at the end of February in Sorø with the others spaced neatly through the rest of the long, cold, wet, dark winter. MK is planning on coming along with the boys for the first one, we'll have to wait and see if that is enough spectating for them.

Glad that only happens once a year...

J's birthday is over and we are all exhausted.

On Friday we had guests for birthday cake and coffee in the afternoon ( I was at work for some of this) then MKs family stayed for my home made pizza that was thankfully successful.

On Saturday the mothers group came to visit (meaning 2 mothers and 4 extra kids) MK make some bread rolls and cake type things for them and I went out on my bike for a couple of hours.

Sunday was the turn of J's friends from Nursery. In the end, Simon couldn't make it so there was just Augusta and Esta (?). I made some fairy cakes in the morning and MK we ate the remaining bread rolls.

By the end of the day yesterday we just had enough energy to watch Ironman on DVD which was actually rather good.

Thanks to everyone who gave present to J. He is really happy with all of the gifts that he received.

Happy Birthday Sunshine!

They've come out in reverse order but I'm sure you get the picture...

The big day

I have been very busy today and the only time I had to write a blog entry, I decided to spend out on my bike instead. I am 100% certain that I made the right choice, even if it was cold and damp.

J is 4 tomorrow, we have got lots of things planned during the afternoon and the weekend. I will try to get some pictures along the way and post them next week.

Shopaholic or not?

There have been times in my life when I have been criticised for spending too much money on things I don't need.

Actually, come to think of it, that is probably quite a large portion of my life, but seeing as I have been more or less financially independent for the last 15 years or so I don't think I have ever been completely irresponsible with money. Careless at times yes, but not crazy.

Following on from successful blogs like The Sartorialist, Berlingske (our daily paper) has a section at the weekend where they photograph someone in the street who they think looks cool (or captures the zeitgeist as I have always wanted to say) and ask them various questions about the clothes they are wearing and how much they spend on a monthly basis on clothes. It seems that the average is about 2000kr per month (approx £200 or $350) which always seems like a great deal to me especially when they are asking students and young people.

I started writing this post because I felt like I have spent more money than usual on clothes in the last couple of months than usual and I have been looking for more things online. This is partly because the weather has changed and I am quite a lot smaller than I was last winter so I have needed to buy some new things.

In actual fact, I have only bought a new coat, a down vest and a couple of shirts/t-shirts totalling around 2000kr and that is in at least 2 months. I had a big blow out in August and bought jeans, a belt, a jacket and a sweater in England, but I needed some clothes for work that don't look like they belong in the garden. Juxtaposed to this is the fact that I currently have a number of my cast off items for sale on eBay including a very old ski jacket and a number or pairs or trousers. As it stands at the moment, I will be getting about 1000kr back from them by the end of the day.

So, do I spend a lot or not? I'm not sure, sometimes it seems like a lot, but in relation to these trendy young types, perhaps I am more frugal than I imagined.

Doing things you really don't want to do

On Sunday I cleaned the oven, I didn't want to do it, but it has needed to be done for several months so I finally got around to it.

I didn't want to clean the oven, but it was fun compared with our other daily festivities that we have to go through at the moment.

Every day we have to spend about half an hour flushing DK's bowels out with salt water. He hates it. We hate it. Even J hates it because everyone is tense and he gets little attention.

The temptation is to get it over and done with as quickly as possible, but rushing really doesn't help and it is important to do it properly so that his bowels can recover from the stretching that they have had for his first 15 months and be in good enough condition to work properly when the non working bits are removed in November. The consequences of them not working would be a colostomy bag until they are recovered and we don't want to deal with that...

I know it is for his own good, but he doesn't. He just hates it and screams to let us know how he feels about the whole deal. The only positive side is that he cheers up very quickly afterwards and is back to his normal self in 5 minutes or so afterwards.

Tubeless success

The first set of tyres I tried to fit to my new wheels would not fit, they were not even close to going onto the rims so that means the Kenda Navegals are out of action. The Racing Ralphs on the other hand fit like a glove and were pretty easy to get fitted and inflated. I didn't realise how horrid liquid latex smells, but it does a good job of sealing up the gaps.

I took the bike for a test ride yesterday in the forest with BHP. He's not a very experienced mountain biker, for all of his road riding experience and he struggled a bit in the mud for a while before breaking his chain and then managing to get very lost on the way back to the car... I'm sorry he didn't have a very good ride, but I had a pretty good time despite the mud and rain. I'll leave the rack on the car for a while to see if I can get back up there again soon.

DK has had new drains put back in both ears this morning. That was general anaesthetic number 5 or 6 I think. I've never had one, but he seems to be getting better at coping with experience and he is over it in an hour or so these days!

Ready to roll

The weather has been crap today so I spent rather a lot of time fitting tyres and mudguards to different bikes and then hunting spiders in the basement instead of riding in the cold grey miserableness outside.

Tomorrow morning I am meeting BHP to test out the tubeless tyres if they still have any air in them. I ended up fitting the more summery tyres that I have simply because there was no way in the world that I could get the others onto the new rims. Not even close...

I expect the weather will still be crap but I'm looking forward to my first mountain bike ride in quite some time...

Busy day ahead

I have a meeting in CPH and MK is taking DK back to the hospital again, but this time just for a meeting with a social worker type of person to decide when she has to go back to work. (MK that is).

My secret mission is to find one of these:

Suddenly I'm busy

I have taken over another project from one of my colleagues so now I am suddenly rather busy at work which is nice for a change although I am sure the novelty will wear off...

I tried to get my new wheels going last night, but I am missing a lock ring so that will have to wait until I manage to locate one before I can try them out. Hopefully I will be able to get one when I am in Copenhagen in the morning so that I can try them out at the weekend...

I am having another go at selling stuff on eBay. I was going to take my clothes that I have grown out of to the charity shop, but seeing as people were prepared to pay silly money for my used cycling clothing, I thought I'd see if they are interested in my work clothes as well. It will be interesting to see if anyone wants my old trousers...

I took the train to work this morning for a change because MK wanted the car to take DK to the hospital and I didn't have time to go with them. It was a total mess and it took me 2 hours to get there. I'll be avoiding that in the future if I can.

Big boxes and Big coats

I promised I would show some justification for me buying a new coat. Here is me in my old coat with 2 pillows stuffed inside it. There is enough space to get MK in there, but then there would be nobody to take the picture...

Here I am in the new coat, there is no room for pillows in here and I hope it will keep me warm in the miserable Danish winter that is descending upon us.

A big DPD truck arrived this morning carrying a big box with my name on it. Amazingly enough, my wheels have been built and are now sitting behind me waiting to have the disc rotors installed and some tyres. Hopefully the tubeless system won't cause me any problems as the rim strips and valves are already fitted...

I hope to get them fitted tonight, but I don't think I'll be able to give them a test ride until the weekend.

Ignacio Ponseti 1914 - 2009

Despite having reached an amazing age of 95 whilst continuing to work, it is still sad to hear that Dr Ponseti died this week. He seems to have had an eventful and interesting life and his legacy will continue to touch a lot of people around the world for many years to come.

Here is his obituary from Iowa University, it is a little long, but worth reading:

Ignacio Ponseti, MD, whose pioneering, non-surgical, low-cost clubfoot treatment has benefited hundreds of thousands of children worldwide, died Oct. 18 at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics at age 95 following a sudden illness.

Ponseti's gentle methods and soft-spoken compassion were a hallmark of a six-decade commitment to helping children, and belied a sometimes tumultuous, even dangerous, early career in medicine.

Ponseti was born in 1914 on the Spanish island of Minorca. As a teenager, he worked summers in his watchmaker father's repair shop. Hours spent learning to make and replace tiny, delicate watch parts were lessons in patience and precision that would serve him well in the years that followed.

Ponseti entered medical school in Barcelona in 1930 and completed his degree in 1936, just before the start of the three-year Spanish Civil War. Volunteering to serve as a medical officer with the Loyalist army, he spent the war in the Orthopedic and Fracture Service treating battle wounds. By 1939, General Francisco Franco's fascist army had gained control, and Ponseti, fearing imprisonment or worse, chose to leave Spain.

His escape was not a solo effort, however. Ponseti also arranged a risky evacuation for the nearly 40 wounded men in his care. He worked for three days and nights to set their fractures, and then, with the help of local smugglers, he transported the wounded by mule over the Pyrenees mountains to safety in France.

Finding himself with no home or citizenship, Ponseti left France for Mexico, where he served as the community doctor for Juchitepec, a small town south of Mexico City. There, he successfully treated typhoid patients with hydration and bean puree.While in Mexico for two years, Ponseti met Dr. Juan Farril, a professor of orthopedics at the University of Mexico who had trained in the United States. With Farril's assistance, Ponseti arranged to study with Dr. Arthur Steindler, then chairman of orthopedics at the University of Iowa. In 1941, Ponseti moved to Iowa City.

Ponseti's limited English and lack of a medical school diploma (due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War) almost stymied his entry into Iowa's residency program. Fortunately, he was able to explain the situation - in French - to Carl Seashore, then dean of the UI Graduate College, who helped resolve the problem.

After completing his residency in 1944, Ponseti joined the orthopedics faculty at UI Hospitals and Clinics, where he remained for the next four decades treating patients, teaching and conducting research. He retired as professor emeritus in 1984, but returned to the University in 1986 to a consultative practice in orthopedics until he fell ill last Tuesday (October 13, 2009).

Ponseti's work on clubfoot started very early in his UI career in the 1940s. It was obvious that without treatment, children with clubfoot faced a lifetime of debilitation, and even possible amputation. But the surgical treatments used at the time had significant limitations. With nearly 200,000 children born each year with the condition, the need to find a more effective treatment was imperative.

During his first year as a graduate fellow, Ponseti reviewed the outcomes of Dr. Steindler's clubfoot surgical treatment used between 1921 and 1941. Analysis showed that surgical treatment often resulted in stiff, fixed ankles. Moreover, although the treated children could walk, they almost always had a limp.

Ponseti's extensive examination of the anatomy and biology of infant feet, led him to believe that physical manipulation and casting might be a more successful approach. In 1950, Dr. Carroll Larson, head of orthopedics at the University of Iowa, put Ponseti in charge of the clubfoot clinic, where he developed the eponymous method that would slowly but surely revolutionize clubfoot treatment.

Known as the Ponseti method, it involves the careful manipulation of muscles, joints and ligaments held in a series of casts and braces to reposition the foot back to normal. It has become the "gold standard" for clubfoot treatment, after decades of positive follow-up results and numerous international peer-reviewed studies showing success rates as high as 98 percent.

However, for the first 40 years after developing the technique, only Ponseti and a handful of orthopedic surgeons used the method, treating more than 2,000 children. Frustrated by the under-use of his technique, Ponseti and colleagues who had used the technique began making a concerted effort in the 1990s to communicate the method and its successful results to as wide an audience as possible.

Ponseti's book, “Congenital Clubfoot: Fundamentals of Treatment,” published by Oxford University Press in 1996, describes his experience with the method and includes patient studies confirming the success of the approach. A string of peer-reviewed articles, including multi-decade follow-up studies, also helped raise awareness and professional acceptance of the method.

By early 2000, the Web became an effective grass-roots medium, especially among the parents of successfully treated children who advocated the Ponseti method to other families searching for the best treatment for clubfoot. Over the past decade, these educational and advocacy efforts have resulted in the Ponseti method being considered the mainstream treatment for clubfoot in North America today. The technique is increasingly used to help children with clubfoot from underdeveloped regions of the world. In August 2006, the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed the Ponseti Method.

The Ponseti International Association for the Advancement of Clubfoot Treatment was founded in 2006 at the University of Iowa. The Ponseti International Association aims to improve the treatment of children born with clubfoot through education, research and improved access to care.

Ponseti is survived by his wife, Helena Percas-Ponseti, whom he married in 1960 in Iowa. Ponseti shared a love of art with his wife, who was originally from Spain, as well. Her story of his life, Homage to Iowa: The Inside Story of Ignacio V. Ponseti, was published in 2007. Dr. Ponseti also is survived by his son, Bill Ponseti. Arrangements for a celebration of life are pending

Around we go again

It's been a good weekend in some ways and average in others.

I fell into the usual Danish coat trap on Saturday (that is different from the Darrell Cartrip) and bought a black coat. It was greatly reduced at the outlets and I couldn't be bothered to spend the next 2 weeks agonising over what, where and why to buy online and I do genuinely like this coat. I'll post a picture tomorrow and one of the old coat to show my justification too.

Darrell Cartrip in case you were wondering...


A friend and former boss came over on Saturday afternoon to go for a bike ride and then stayed for some home made pizza in the evening, it was a bit chilly and very windy, but we had a good 75km ride including a few hills and shot the breeze for a couple of hours.

Yesterday the sun was shining so I decided to abort my plans of doing something useful around the house to get out into the forest on my bike. I had a really great 2½ hours or so hammering around the forest roads on my winter hacking bike and was so enthused about the whole forest/autumn thing when I got home that I persuaded the rest of the family to come back to the woods later on for a walk. The walk didn't turn out 100% as planned becuase the paths we chose were rather too rugged for J to ride on his bike and pushing the Bugaboo was retty tough too, but in the end we had fun.

Today MK has had to make another appointment at the ear doctors for DK as the drain fell out of his left ear at the end of last week after he had a ear infection as part of a cold/cough. I suppose he'll be in for another to be implanted in a week or so. We are hoping that he can have some titanium ones fitted next time, not to save weight, but becuase apparently they don't fall out on their own.

Winter Coats

Yesterday I had to admit defeat and dig out my winter coat as we have been having unusually cold weather. The problem was that I was more or less lost in my duffel coat and had to find something else to wear.

My solution was to wear my older coat that I had when I first moved to Denmark. It is OK, but was replaced because it has holes in the cuffs and is getting a bit scruffy.

Whilst killing a bit of time in Copenhagen before meeting ex colleagues for dinner I looked in the shops at the coats, but absolutely everything was black and boring (and very expensive too, but that is no surprise).

As a result I am sort of on-line fantasy winter coat shopping at the moment. My current favourite is this one, but I'm not sure and more importantly, the holder of the purse strings isn't either...

I am looking forward to a weekend of relaxing and cycling in the cold and wet :-)

Off the road

I have an incredible wife. This morning she has gone back to work for an all day team meeting and dinner this evening and she looked fabulous in her new work dress despite appearing to have caught J's flu from yesterday.

Another of her great attributes is that she allows me to indulge myself in my two hobbies (spending money on bikes and riding bikes). This week it has been the former that she has helped with the most by letting me order new mountain bike wheels so that I can get back out into the forests to enjoy the autumn colours and get ready for some races over the winter.

The new wheels will be a lot better than the old ones (not only because they will turn with the pedals) being lighter and also TUBELESS. Yes I am going to be running without inner tubes thus saving weight and avoiding punctures at the same time. There is a special rim strip that seals the valve and tyre to the rim and then you put some latex fluid into the tyre that seals up and leaks or punctures as you ride along. Apparently the only thing you have to do is check that there is still enough sealant fluid in the tyres every 8 weeks or so. I can't wait.

Bike geeks will also want to know that they are XT hubs (so I can keep my centre lock rotors and not be bankrupt), black DT competition spokes and black brass nipples.

The wheels are being built in Sheffield so I will have to wait a couple of weeks to get my hands on them, but it is almost impossible to get 29er wheels in Denmark and I am sure it will be cheaper from the UK as well.

That means that I will be able to take part in the Slush Cup this year and get a bit of intensity into my training ready to hit the road again in the spring with enough speed to keep up with the racing dudes.

Silly Ideas

There are a lot of things going on at the moment which means that I don't have many interesting things to blog about other than hospital visits, colonic irrigation and so on. In fact, whilst syringing DKs ear this morning to get out the remains of an ear infection he seems to have had over the last week, the drain seems to have come out so that will mean yet another appointment with the ear doctor and probably another small operation to put a new one back in there.




I have been thinking about what I am eating again as I have slowly drifted back into more normal eating habits. That is not to say that I am eating badly again, but I have not been totally abstaining from cakes and sweet things. I have been eating very little of these sweet goodies and I intend to begin my abstinence again in the very near future - probably when MKs home make orange cake is all gone. Anyway, I digress. I have been considering trying out a few different diets to see how it is to try and survive with some strange and arbitrary eating rules. Maybe just for a day or maybe a week depending on the complexity of surviving without eating X, Y or Z.

Which should I try?

• Firstly I thought I would try the new raw food thing and see if I could last a week eating only raw food. To be honest, I don't think I could last more than a day or so on this one, because I simply can't think of many things worth eating that don't require cooking of some sort.
• Secondly I thought about being vegetarian for a week. I think I could manage this and it would probably do me some good.
• Taking this to the next level would mean being vegan for a day or two. Again, I can't imagine surviving this for long simply because there is nothing to eat if you're a vegan. I simply don't know how you could survive and it is even harder to see why you would want to do it.

To be honest, I am curious about the raw food, but I know I can't live on raw food in Denmark for long without learning a lot more about preparing stuff because I will go totally mad. I think it may be something I could incorporate into my diet more in the future.
Being a vegan is just daft, but maybe not eating meat for a few days would be interesting. I will think about a plan and post it tomorrow...

J seems to have flu today and is firmly attached to the sofa. I hope he gets better quickly.

Boys in tights

UPDATE:

According to my blogger stats, this is my most viewed post ever with regular visits every day from people searching for boys in tights. I sincerely hope that you are not spaking your monkey over photographs of my 4 year old son. If you are, then you are a monumental pervert and deserve to die sad and lonely as you almost certainly will

Have a nice day :-)


Apparently it is fairly normal for young boys to wear tights here in the winter to keep warm. It makes some sense and you can even buy them with cars and planes on them for boys. DK has some of these that MK has bought for him and they work really well when he is in his brace.

Last week MK took the boys shopping in town and she happened to mention that they had bought J some more spiderman sock and some tights. She didn't mention the colour.

At first I was somewhat horrified that my some was going to be wearing pink tights and even more concerned that the other kids in his nursery would be mean to him about them.
He wore them for the first time on Sunday and absolutely loves them to the extent that it is a fight to get him out of them (unless he pees in them) and I really can't find it in me to see anything wrong about it. He simply loves running around the house in them and I am fairly sure that none of the other kids will care in his nursery, after all, he has flowers on his rain coat :-)
DK is doing fine, and remains as cheerful as ever.

The details are emerging

It seems that the incompetence in DKs latest problem is turning out to the fact that nobody found out that he had it sooner. This means that the healthy guts have been strained and stretched somewhat, but hopefully will be back in shape by the time of the operation thanks to our new skills of administering colonic irrigation.

This morning we went to the hospital to find out what will be happening with the operation and to have DK flushed out. It took 4 litres today which seemed like rather a lot to me considering that we only use 1 at home to do it, but it's better out than in.

The operation is scheduled for 18th November and he will have to be in for a couple of days before and a week after the actual operation, until then he is not to go to day care and will need a month to 6 weeks recovery afterwards before he can start so that means he will start after Christmas

Drains

Having found out where the water in the basement comes from, I have finally started trying to solve the problem.

The water comes in through the window when there is heavy rain and the drain backs up enough to come up through the drain in the window box. I've had a look down the drain and it looks like a soak away, but that doesn't make sense because it goes straight down under the house rather than out into the garden. Last night I dug out the plans of the house and sure enough, it is a drain that should go under the house. That means that it is blocked...

I have had a first go at flushing it out with Lars' pressure wash things without any success because it seems to be basically full of soil. I will have another go this weekend, but in all honesty, I suspect that I won't be able to budge it.

I suppose that the next step will be to call someone with a truck and some sort of heavy duty sucking equipment to get all the soil out.

One thing I did learn is that it is best to put the drain flusher into the drain before giving it a test fire.

When the going gets tough

The tough have trouble sleeping and get rather a bad headache...

DK is getting better, I am getting worse. I have caught one of the boys colds and will no doubt be looking for a lot of sympathy over the coming days.

The hospital called to say that DK has to be flushed daily until his operation which should be at the start of November (provisionally) so MK has taken him to the hospital in CPH to be taught how to do it. He doesn't seem to like it much so I expect there will be a lot of mess and screaming involved in that over the coming days.

My bike ride was cancelled yesterday due to some shit/fan interfacing at work. Hopefully I can get that cleared up today and relax a little this evening.

Accepting Autumn

Autumn is certainly with us now so it is time to accept it, embrace it and enjoy it.

I would normally be trying to get out on my mountain bike at this time of year to enjoy the dry trails and the great colours in the woods, but the lack of a working back wheel means that I can't actually ride it at the moment.

The sun has been shining and despite the ferocious wind, it is a beautiful time to be out and about. The kids are fascinated by a bunch of bulldozers and diggers that are doing something in the park at the end of the road and we are now getting ready for the cold dark winter.

My priorities for cycling have changed from getting faster to making sure that I can still fit into the small trousers that I bought with such smugness only a few weeks ago. So far so good, but I am struggling to make progress towards my Christmas target of 90kg. I guess I will have to make a determined effort at some point to achieve that, but I am struggling with motivation and at the same time we both feel like we deserve a treat in the evening because of the trauma of DKs problems.

DK is doing much better the last couple of days although he has spent a couple of hours crying in the middle of the night for the last 2 nights. Hopefully he will get over that tonight...

DK

Hopfully we'll get the practical stuff sorted out in the next day or so...

Enjoying his supper (but not a lot)


Whining

Last week before his balls turned blue

Bad news

Daniel:

How it should be:

The surgeon called this afternoon to say that DK does have Hirschsprungs disease. That means that will have to have part of his large intestine removed at some point. Normally this is discovered very early on with small babies and is a life threatening condition if not treated promptly. From that I assume that DK doesn't have a particularly bad case since he is now 15 months old and not doing too badly. Unfortunately, all this means is that they won't have to remove too much although I really don't know what I am talking about.

More news will follow when I have some and I am already getting a headache from drinking too much wine too fast...

False alarm

Despite writing a few posts ago that I would try to avoid just keeping an online journal, that is more or less what I am doing at the moment.
I has a moderately sleepless night in the hospital on Friday and was very happy to see MK and J when they arrived with cake for breakfast on Saturday. We dossed around for a while, well I did, DK slept and J terrorised the entire ward on a plastic mini cooper at 100mph.
We came home in the afternoon and had a good night sleep but yesterday DK was rather under the weather. By the evening his temperature was rather high and it seemed that the panadol was not bringing it back down so after speaking to the nurse in the hospital, we packed up and headed to CPH at 7 o'clock. As soon as we got in the car DK stopped the whining that he had been doing for the previous 5 hours (not an exaggeration) and by the time we got to the hospital, he was fine.
After a quick examination we went home again.

Better safe than sorry, but it was rather a waste of time and petrol to be honest.

Hopefully we will get some news about his guts today and tomorrow we are meeting with his pediatrician tomorrow to see what's what. If we are lucky, that could be the last of the operations... Fingers crossed.

I suppose a photograph would be kiddy porn, but DKs nuts look terribly sore, they are blue and swollen and look really sore, he is not at all happy about having the plaster changed on his stitches and generally prefers to be lying down than sitting at the moment.

Home again

We have finally Been sent home. SKa fever has gone down and he is eating and drinking so there was no need to carry on with the drip. We shod get the biopsy result on Monday but in the meantime he looks pretty sore around his privates and one can't help wincing at the sight and thought of the stitches where they put the errant ball back.

Spoke too soon

DK has a fever so he and I will be in overnight to make sure he is OK

Full count

DK is now awake again after his operation and is now fully equipped with 2 testicles. Apparently the new one may not be much use but at least it is in the right place now!
Results on the Hirschsrung disease on Monday...

Another year

I guess I am about half way there today. It has been a busy day so far compared with yesterday which was spent waiting for something to happen. There were 3 men working on taking windows out of our house before I left for work this morning and we were all up and ready to go out a lot earlier than normal (something to do with the aforementioned men I think). J was busy telling the guys about his things and asking them what they were doing.

I had lots of generous gifts for my birthday this year. Thanks to everyone for them. I will post some pictures later.

Quickie

There was nothing quick about our trip to the hospital today. We waited for about 4 hours for DK to be flushed out which took about 20 minutes. Rather annoying, but I guess he got the worst of it.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, not only it is my birthday, but our new windows are being fitted from 8 in the morning and we are eating at J's nursery whilst seeing all the pictures and work from his field trip.

Today's most exciting event was my hair cut this evening. After some discussion with my hairdresser we decided to go with a new, more edgy look. At the end of it we both agreed that there was a good chance that nobody would notice and it is really only edgy if you're very nearly 35 years old!

Trouble? Us?

Sometimes, yes!

Green to Yellow to Brown

We have had a nice relaxing weekend with a little culture, an early birthday celebration and some time just relaxing.

On Saturday we went to a Munch exhibit north of Copenhagen at Ordrupgaard. Lunch was OK, the exhibit was dull, but they have recently opened the house of Finn Juhl to the public much as it was when he lived there. Finn Juhl was a Danish designer and Architect who designed furniture and also the UN building in New York amongst other things. The house was really nice and quite contemporary even now. In 1942 when it was built it must have been amazing. One of the things that amused me was that the kitchen was almost identical to the one in our house when we moved in, but not in such good condition. It is a shame that is was just not suitable for today's living.

On Saturday evening I had an early birthday party at T&Bs house before they left for Russia. Thanks to everyone for the generous gifts and have a good trip.

Sunday was a day for taking it easy. J was a little under the weather so we made the usual pancakes and stayed inside for the most part. I took him for a short bike ride in the afternoon before going out for my own ride. I must admit that I felt a little silly riding in the full Lycra with J even though he goes quite fast these days.

We finished the afternoon watching Cadel Evans with the road race at the world championships. A well deserved win for a guy who rarely seems to have luck on his side and who as has his fair share of stick in the media. Well done.

There is no doubt that the summer is in it's death throws, we are now considering putting the heating on and the leaves are quickly moving through the yellows and reds to a somewhat depressing brown. I don't suppose it will be long before they've all gone. On the bright side, however, I'll be able to put my new cool weather cycling gear through it's paces...

When to fit in those rides?

Now that the season is over for the guys riding races and the evenings are noticeably shorter, it is again becoming difficult to pin down that elusive time of day when you are able to get some exercise and also have the will and energy to do it.

Riding with a bunch of guys on a sunny evening is easy, riding on your own in the dark or in the basement is not so easy. The other problem is that when it is on your own time, it is difficult to justify bailing out on the family evening meal (chimpanzee tea party that it is) or putting the kids to bed. That means that the available time slots are before 7 ish in the morning and after 7:30 ish in the evening. Normally I opt for the later seeing as I am not a morning person and despite yearning to be able to get out of bed at 5:30 to get a workout in, deep in my heart, I know it's not going to happen often.

This weekend I think I will set up the trainer in the basement and accept that it is my main option for the coming months and try to find some time to get out on the roads when the opportunity arises.

In other news, more misery is probably waiting for MK as I can see that Crank Brothers have just shown some 29er wheels at Interbike. This is what I have been yearning for ever since my current wheels died a couple of months ago. I think I'll save up for them and hope that they are available before too long...

More pictures

Apparently the last one was popular so here are a few more.

Cropped

Early Morning and To Do Lists

This morning DK decided he had been in bed long enough just before 5:00 and he let us know in very clear terms (screaming) that he wanted to be out of his bed and he wanted his breakfast. I guess we'll be tired this evening.

As the summer is drawing to a close and I realise that there are still lots of house jobs that I should have done during the summer, but remain undone I have an ongoing list of jobs to do.

Chief amongst these is painting the doors for the kitchen cupboards and putting them back in place. I have now at least filled the holes in them, but there remains a great deal of scrubbing, sanding and painting to be done. I hope do have this done within the next couple of weeks.

Then there are the basement doors and windows that I started last weekend and need to finish. This will require a spell of good weather, but again, I think it is reasonable to expect this to be done within a couple of weeks. Then what?

I would like to get our basement painted and tidied up enough that it becomes a less unpleasant place to be. I am not aiming for a delightful living space, but I think I should be able to paint the walls and the floor a bit at a time during the winter and make it into more of an extension of the house than a dumping ground for all the crap that we don't want to look at. Building the bike rack was an important step in the right direction for this project because there are no longer bikes along all of the walls, but now I need to get rid of the kitchen doors and push ahead with the cleaning and painting.

Is Christmas realistic as a target? Only time will tell.

Blogging and Birthday Plans

I am determined that this blog should not be just a diary regurgitating my somewhat tedious daily activities. It is meant to be more than that. My aim is, and has always been, to look to the future, ponder the meaning of life in general and of course allow my family in distant parts to follow our kids growing and developing.

At times I have also used it for self ridicule as a form of motivation to get in shape and lose some weight although I am sure that this is not really the reason that I have managed a little success in this area this year.

I suppose this is more of a reminder to me than anything else so that I avoid falling into the trap of just stating what I have done each day without considering or discussing the wider context although I reserve the right to talk about bikes whenever the fancy takes me.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had been harbouring secret plans for a 100 mile bike ride on Sunday that didn't ever come to fruition. As a s result I still have a nagging desire to get out for one last long ride to enjoy the autumn colours and savour the feeling in your legs of being really really tired. Consequently I am now considering starting a new yearly event to be held on or around 1st October each year - The Birthday Century. My plan for 1st October this year is to enjoy breakfast with the family and then head out and ride 100 miles or so before maybe catching up on some work and having a well earned bottle of wine and a good meal. Sounds like a pretty good day to me.

As requested:

It's not the best photograph ever taken - sorry there is so much window and door, but they look like they are both having a good time.

I wasn't gone for long...

I was busy at work all day on Monday and had no internet connection all day today in the meeting room where I was stuck in Faxe - hence no posting here.

Anyway, all is well. We had a busy weekend doing all kinds of stuff. I painted the basement windows and door, cleaned the windows and did a bunch of other domestic things including making a lot of banana buttermilk pancakes. These are a big hit with DK who still can't eat bread or anything hard so I had to make them on both Saturday and Sunday morning.

I had been harbouring secret plans to do a 100 mile bike ride on Sunday in the forecast good weather. Unfortunately there were all sorts of obstacles to escaping the house for 5 hours or so meaning that I just went for a ride in the afternoon with DK sleeping peacefully in the trailer behind me whilst I pedalled.

I made up for Sunday's missed ride this evening with a good hard ride out with the bike club. We did 85km or so in a pretty hard wind but I felt good and hung in with the fast guys all the way. I think that may well be the last evening training session of the year as the race season ends this weekend and it is now dark by 7:30. It's time to head indoors for evening training and to spend the weekends training instead of racing. Now I am looking forward to racing with the club in the 2010 season if I can keep training over the winter.

Tired

Thankfully DK slept better last night, but I was foolish enough to watch a James Bond film (the dreadful License to Kill at that) and go to bed late so I have woken up tired this morning.

The situation is not helped by the 65km ride I did with the bike club last night. I was somewhat relieved that most of us who had been on the 85km hammer-fest on Tuesday evening opted for the shorter ride last night and took it relatively easy from the point that the long and short ride groups split up. One of the mistakes I made was going for an hours easy ride on Wednesday lunchtime to loosen up my legs, in the end I rode too hard and it only made matters worse yesterday. I struggled to keep up on any of the hills. Thank goodness I was not alone.

J is back from his trip tonight and chaos will surely return to the house with him. It has been quiet without him but I think it has been good for DK to get some extra attention. He is heavily into walking around the house holding both of our hands at the moment so I am feeling confident that I will win my bet with MK that he will be walking before the end of October.

Tomorrow morning I am looking forward to getting back into our Saturday morning ritual of making pancakes for breakfast and at some point I would like to fit in a last 100 mile ride of the year. Sunday looks like the best bet with the weather, but I think I'll have to get out the door early to avoid trouble and be able to get the garden work done that MK is planning.

On The Road

Yes I am "reading" Jack Kerouac at the moment, (actually I am listening to the audio book whilst driving around) but in this instance I am referring to DKs road to recovery. He seems to be back to his normal self and it not taking any pain killers any more.

There is a way to go before he can walk unaided, but he is a very determined climber and we are expecting him to work out the furniture combination that he needs to get onto the living room windowsill very soon.

The result of all of this is that both MK and I are very happy with his progress as you can see above. Now we just need J to come home again and carry on teaching him naughty tricks.

I'm off out with the bike club again tonight and hopefully I'll get home in one piece again...

Bike club hammering

I went out with the bike club last night and got my ass kicked again. It was nice to get out in the sunshine and do a bit of work but by the time I got home 85km later it was cold, getting dark and I was totally worn out. I haven't had much time or energy for cycling in the last couple of weeks and it has always been an effort to keep up with those guys but it is worth the effort.

The racing season finishes at the end of September so there are only a couple of weeks left before everyone heads indoors for spinning sessions during the week and the outside rides are reserved for the weekends.

J is off on this nursery trip so it is just DK who is keeping us busy. He is eating a lot at the moment and insisted that we got up at 4 this morning to give him a midnight snack before he went back to sleep for an hour or so. He is getting rather talented at pointing to what he wants, he makes you pick him up then he points you to the kitchen and the the food and complains bitterly until he gets what he wants. We can't understand that he is eating so much, but are happy to keep feeding him hoping that he will put on some weight and keep growing. Now his swollen tummy has gone down, he looks like a skinny little oik!

Hirschsprung Disease

After being initially rather angry and upset about the news from the hospital yesterday we are getting on with getting J ready for his Colonie field trip thing today. He is going away with the nursery for 3 nights so we will be living in relative peace and quiet for 3 days.

DK seems to be making a good recovery and is eating a lot at the moment. He is also filling nappies on an almost hourly basis so there are currently no problems at the other end although that may change...

We have been told that it is actually rather difficult to take a biopsy of the large intestine correctly, but we hope that the doctors won't f#*k it up next time they do it because we have more or less run out of faith in our health care service that we pay so much for.
The best description of Hirschsprung disease that I have found is here and if DK has it then surgery is apparently inevitable, I don't know if that is a good thing because it would mean that the problem should be solved, but we were at some point hoping that he would be able to eat more substantial food after his palate heals and the problem may go away on its own.

I suppose we'll have to wait until October to find out now.

Bollocks

We just had a call from the hospital to say the the biopsy samples that were taken from DKs gut were too superficial so they were not able to test them properly. We will therefore have to go back on the 30th for 3 days more rounds of colonic irrigation and will have a general anaesthetic on 2nd October to do another biopsy.
Apparently the Xrays seem to show that there is a good chance he has Hirshprungs Disease so it is important to take the biopsy to get a final result.

We are not impressed :-(

Back to normal (ish)

MK and DK came home from the hospital yesterday and were both very happy to be home again. DK is eating very well and seems to be recovering well although he can only eat soft stuff for another week or so and we have to be careful what he gets hold of so that nothing long, hard or sharp ends up in his mouth.
J came home from T&B as well and was happy to see us all and deliver his cakes that he had made with T.

Yesterday morning I took my new winter bike on it's maiden voyage and was very impressed with it. It may seem somewhat over the top for a winter bike but I don't care and I took all of the parts from my old Cannondale so it is only the frame that is new.


On Friday night between 10 and midnight I finished my bike rack for the basement and am quite pleased with the results. It isn't pretty and I suspect that many of the angles are not exactly 90 degrees, but I made it myself from scratch and it only cost me about £20. It is a bit of a squash to fit them all in and my mountain bike is missing from the rack because it is missing a back wheel, but I think I can squeeze it in at some point. Do we have too many bikes? No not at all - the rack holds 6 and we have 6 to put in it.

Finally, last week before DK went into hospital for his operation, we had a test run with the trolley and were happy to see that he can walk with it on his own. It will be a while before he walks totally unaided but it was nice to see this much progress.

Doing well

Yesterday DK had more morphine in the morning so he was rather spaced out when I arrived. By the time J arrived with T he was more or less back to normal provided that someone was carrying him around where he wanted to go. He ate a big lunch and two dinners which is unusual for him and when I left he was sleeping peacfully and MK was about to hit the sack with her book as well.
I went home and ironed the living room curtains and I am about to go in search of a apaintbrush to finish off the dining room windows.
They should be coming home tomorrow and we hope to get the results of the biopsy on Monday or Tuesday.

All done

DK has been awake after the operation and everything went well. He has just had some morphine and is now snoring away peacefully. MK is recovering well too!

Operation is ON for tomorrow

It seems that the cold is more or less gone so we are on for tomorrow. Cleft palate, colon biopsy and tongue thing ( the bit under the Tongue) to be snipped. I'll update later but all seems well so far

SH!T

I suppose one of the consequences of colonic irrigation is that whatever goes up, must at some point come out again. DK soiled himself and his bed twice last night, once before going to sleep and once shortly afterwards. He then slept through the night before doing the same again this morning, once in his bed and once on the kitchen floor.

Just to add to the fun, J didn't quite get his bedtime nappy on straight and consequently wet his bed as well so there are lots of bed clothes hanging up to dry in the basement at the moment.

DK is back for more today so I guess there'll be plenty more laundry to be done tonight as well. His cold seems to be turning into a cough so we think there is a good chance that the cleft palate operation will be cancelled for this week which is a pain because it means that MK is likely to have to change her start date at work, we have to go through the stress and worry again at a later date and we still won't get an answer about his tummy because the biopsy was to be taken during the cleft palate operation.

The final exciting health update of the day is that J looks like he has a cold sore on his top lip. I have no idea where he got that from, but I certainly wasn't going to kiss him goodbye this morning.

The long week ahead

Today was the first of what will no doubt be a very long week. DK has been Xrayed both with and without some sort of magic fluid that shows up in his bowel (my arm was captured a couple of times too holding him still). They said they had some good pictures, but we didn't get any sort of diagnosis - that will have to wait I suppose.

After that we went back to the Children's ward so that DK could be washed out with a litre of saline solution ready for some endoscope action on Wednesday. He is going back for another colonic tomorrow but I guess he is getting used to it now so it doesn't seem to bother him all that much although he does cry a bit.

So far so good. Finally Happy Birthday to Lars, we hope to be in a fit state to see him at the weekend...

Basement Projects

Our basement is a complete disaster area at the moment. There aer doors and windows leaning against the walls and unwanted furniture scattered about the place. The results of our flash flooding is that some areas are clear whilst others are pile with stuff and there are leaves and dead flies all over the place. This weekend I will clear it out as much as I can, sweep up the dead insect and leaves and vacuum the cobwebs from the windows so that I can begin turning it back into a usable space. I can then press on with the other unfinished projects that are sitting down there

1. Paint the inner window frame parts for the dining room and put them back in place
2. Prepare and paint the kitchen cupboard doors
3. Build my new bike

Here in lies the problem, there is only one of the above jobs that I want to do and it is the one I should do last. No prizes for guessing that building the bike is more fun than painting anything but I must resist the temptation, if only because there is a significant risk of losing something important in the mess whilst trying to put it all together.

Anyway, whilst MK and DK are away next week and I am home with J, I plan on spending my evenings getting on with the basement projects and getting everything set up for a winter of riding the trainer down there and trying to keep everything tidy for once.

Autumn's coming

Yesterday was pretty warm, but unfortunately I spent 6 hours in the car so I didn't really get to enjoy it much although I did mow the lawn after the kids went to bed so that I got at least a little fresh air. I actually only cut some of the grass because more than half of it has not really grown for a couple of months.

Today it is overcast and grey and it is beginning to look like the summer is drawing to a close. I generally see this as a pretty dreadful time of year, the days get shorter so there is no evening cycling and when you can get out you there is an ever changing ballance to be found between over and under dressing.

It's bearable for a while and there is an undeniable beauty in the changing colours of the trees, but in the end you know it's just going to get cold dark and miserable for the next half year or so.

This weekend I am planning a long ride to visit a friend and then ride with him before going to some other friends for dinner with the rest of the family. I think there is a good chance that I will get my 4th and last >100mile ride of the year in before everything winds down at the end of September.

Next week whilst MK and DK are in hospital I will be home with J which means that I will have some time in the evenings to tidy up the basement, finish painting the windows and get on with building my new bike. Any riding that I manage will probably be either on the trainer in the basement or with J in the trailer. That isn't necessarily such a bad thing, I think I'm going to have to knock this summer season on the head pretty soon anyway. Perhaps I need some new Autumn/Winter/Spring riding gear anyway, it is my birthday in a few weeks after all...

Tough times for DK

Yesterday we visited the main hospital in Copenhagen for DK to see a specialist about a missing accessory... The doctor was more interested in his tummy though as I mentioned so next week he and MK (and possibly me) will be at the hospital on Monday and Tuesday as well as the rest of the week for his cleft palate operation. This is so that he can be cleaned out inside his gut for a barium enema and to take a biopsy sample from his bowel to test for Hirschsprung's disease. This is a genetic disease that effects the bowel meaning that part of it does not have the required nerve cells to function properly so it becomes a blockage point.If he has Hirschsprungs disease then this would explain his rather swollen abdomen and permanent constipation but the treatment seems to be a bit frightening because it involves removing the non-functioning section and joining up the working parts.

Part of me hopes that this is not the problem and that it will go away when he is able to eat a more normal diet (that is after the cleft palate is fixed) but another part of me would be happy to have identified the problem and be able to fix it.

Both MK and I were pretty upset yesterday at the prospect of another problem requiring surgery and it is all the more upsetting to think that it will involve cutting DK open and removing part of him. Actually just writing that makes me not want to think about it any more, but I don't suppose we will have the luxury of pretending it doesn't exist.

I know that being a parent isn't supposed to be easy, but sometimes it seems to be really unfair, just when you think the end of the medical treatments is in sight, another diagnosis crops up and you are back at the start of another round of treatment. MK and I can cope with it, but we both feel really sorry for DK who remains a happy little boy who is more or less completely preoccupied with climbing and learning to stand up steadily so that he can get on with walking.