Breaking The Surface

Well well well...Friday 13th March was lucky for the world at large, as it was the last time I posted. There's been a huge amount of stuff that has happened in the meantime and I have been a busy, busy boy.

This is my excuse and I am sticking to it. Shut yer face.

Anyway, in order to try and grab a few of the salient moments that have been and gone, heres a bunch of photos....

NDC

Rejser/Resor

A long overdue post........

We've been travelling again.


This time it was a Northern trajectory that took us to Copenhagen and deposited us at Norreport station in the freezing cold sleet and wind, armed only with a vague sense of where our hotel was, a wheely carry-on case (mainly containing 3 bottles of wine) and a complete lack of appreciation of the ferocious amount of small-wheel-unfriendly cobbles that lay between us and our hotel room. Thankfully the nice people at the hotel we were booked into let us into the room early so we were able to dry out, warm up and get our bearings.


Unbeknownst to me when we booked the trip, there was a sightseeing bus trip included in the price. I'm not usually one for these things (most of my favourite traveller's tales come from when I've been comprehensively lost under my own steam), but it was peeing down and we decided that we'd at least use the bus. The highlight of the ride was the recorded tour guide describing The Little Mermaid in a Pathe-news-style delivery as 'small, unimpressive and frankly disappointing'. The bus driver, who was Spanish, told us he preferred the 'booby mermaid' statue further out of town.


We went to a whole bunch of galleries and museums, we crossed over to Sweden via the

Øresund bridge where Mrs A and I ate nachos and drank eye-wateringly expensive lager in an Irish bar (at least it was Carlsberg). We wandered for hours in rain and wind an sunshine, we ate piss-poor pizzas in a hipster foodmarket (apple and celeriac? WTF?), We loved Ameliaborg and Chistianborg, but were massively underwhelmed by Nyhaven and Christiania. We acquired several interesting mementos including some jolly small vases, a candle schmoozed from a cafe and a warm coat.


Oh, and I took a few photos.


NDC

Birthday Boy

Today the Boy Wonder turned 9. I haven't written much about him of late (although that's mainly because I haven't written much about anything), but suffice to say that I am proud of him beyond measure.

Tonight we went out for something to eat and a bit of chit chat, he devoured a sticky toffee pudding (supplied complete with birthday candle by the very nice waitress) in the manner of a Labrador that's found an unattended box of biscuits and told me how many years left until he's allowed to drive. This gave me The Fear and made me feel old.

Happy birthday Sunshine, keep smiling and the road will rise to meet you.

NDC

Il Fait Bon Vivre.

The weekend before last I got my Christmas present from Mrs A, a weekend in Paris sans les enfants and it was glorious.

From leaving The Shire in the early (for us) hours of Saturday morning on the train, to dropping back into our own bed late on Sunday evening it was fascinating and beautiful.

We walked miles in glorious French sunshine and packed in so much stuff over the weekend from the tourist haunts of The Eiffel Tower, Musee D'Orsay, Sacre Couer et al, to some distinctly and delightfully un-touristy cafes (complete with an alarming amount of Gallic sinus-clearing), culminating in a glorious couple of hours in a Breton fisherman's market in Montmatre drinking champagne and eating oysters with the locals on Sunday afternoon before wandering back to Gare Du Nord for the Eurostar home.

To say I am looking forward to our next visit is an understatement.

Oh, and I took a few photos too.

First Among Equals

If you were to ask me, I'd tell you that I am not an overly competitive person. This is a statement that for the most part I feel I could justify with numerous examples of 'it's-more-about-the-taking-part' from my life's meanderings.

However, every now and then something bypasses all the social conditioning that I and my environment have put upon me over the last forty-ahem years and taps directly into the part of my brain that just wants to be the fastest or the strongest or the biggest-woolly-mammoth-killingest bloke in the world. Sometimes it's fairly predictable stuff (see many posts about marathon training), sometimes it's a bit more left field.

This time it's beards.

I started growing one just after Christmas after a bit of cajoling from Mrs A and I have taken to it quite cheerfully, but now it would seem that it has become a source of personal pride. Mrs A tried to tame it this morning with conditioner and I was pleased to note that it paid not one jot of heed to her fancy hair product fripperies, refusing steadfastly to be anything other than bristly.

Later, I spotted a fellow beardy in the supermarket and immediately realised that this was the new focus of my competitive streak. His beard was better than mine and I vowed to out-beard him.

All this would have seemed a lot more manly, I suppose, had I not spotted him putting hummus into his shopping basket whilst I was looking at the olives.

NDC

Technojolity

So here's a little test. I'm hopeful that attached to this post will be a particularly fine example(!) Of DoF, taken using a proper camera (remember them?), and then fired to my phone via the wonders of a wireless SD card (my Christmas present from a particularly nice child) to my phone, which then fired it to the cloud, which then made it available as blog-fodder.

Phew!

This is all because the photog in me wants a bit more control, a bit better quality shot than a camera phone (even a good one) will allow whilst the lazy bloke in me can't be arsed with all the faff of cables and adaptors blah blah blah. First world problems right?

So, to summarise this post:

Photo - meh.
Words - nowt special.
Opportunities for decent pics from upcoming travels to send to blog - priceless.

Oh, and happy new year. I hope 2015 is great for all of us.

NDC