The Office. Part 4 - There's always a catch.

Obviously, whilst going to all the effort of building a new office, there's no point in putting it in the same old poorly decorated room. When first spending time and money on painting the walls and wood work, it seemed a shame to keep the same old carpet, which was a little past it's prime.

Carpets and cats don't go so it was decided to sand the wooden floor down and apply some new coats of varnish.

It all sounded simple, but as those of you who have dealed with previously varnished floors will know, it wasn't. Mrs VL started off with the belt sander, which simply melted the old varnish and made even more mess. Next step was to rope in a poor unsuspecting visitor (the cat's foster mum in this instance), adourn chemical resistant poly bags and attack the floor with paint remover,


(Cutting edge reporting this, one can't begin to imagine how much trouble I'll get in for posting this picture...)

Success was little more than partial. Weeks later and after more chemicals, many worn out sand sheets for both the round and belt sander and with much frustration the floor was finally ready for a new coating.

Here's Mrs VL half way through the first of many coats. You can also see the new colour scheme, freshly applied.

The Office. Part 3 - The lower book shelf.

I started constuction with the easiest bit, the lower part of the bookshelf which also makes up part of the support for the desk itself.

After some fussing about with my router gig to get the correct width for the mortices that support the end of each shelf, it all came together very well, and is good and solid.

Here is the result.

The Last Spud

Last weekends Saturday dinner, kindly cooked by the mother in law whilst we were busy with other projects, saw us consume the last of the product of last years "lazy beds".

Below is a picture of the harvest of one of the 3 types we planted. All in all they all kept very well in our basement food store, and I am very pleased that we have not had to buy a single spud for the best part of 9 months.

The last Onion was consumed during our dramatic winter holiday , again you can see part of the harvest in the photo (in the sack). These also kept excellently so we'll be growing even more this year. Need to get some garlic in as well, I've missed out on that for the last two years.

Lies, lies and Damn Statistics.

As previously mentioned Mrs VL is once again indulging in some post graduate education. The field of epidemiology involves a significant quantity of statistics, with which Mrs VL was confident I could assist.

To begin with this was all well and good, a quick trip to the loft to fetch one of my old uni text books did the job. Now, a couple of months down the road, Mrs VL has become statistically wiser and wiser whilst I have sat still. Now all the talk of means, null assumptions, standard deviations and so on leave me completely baffled and attempts to get any amount of assistance out of me have a reasonable chance of failure.

The Office. Part 2 - Cutting Out

After some careful calculations and thought we purchased the required boards and planks for the office project, loaded them up in the Landrover and headed over to my partner in crime for a day of projecteering in his basement, followed by some fine food and a little competitive music identification...

When we were done with building and testing a "single phase to three phase rotary convertor",



I was very grateful for assistance with cutting the pieces for the shelving and more importantly the complicated curves of the desk top. This we did in the sober light of the next day, not all that early mind, it took our heads a little while to cope with power tools!

Partner in Crime, did a great job. After printing out the curves in full scale,



he cut out with a jigsaw, tidied up with a belt sander



and rounded of the edges with a router.



I probably could of done it myself, but as he's got twice as much equipment and twice as much experience, my result would have been half as good... Many thanks, partner in crime...

Little Man

A belated and very quick cat update.

Starsprung Skiddaw, who is now our only breeding female (living with her Foster Mum), had her first litter one week before our Winter Holiday.

Things did not go as planned, the first came out backwards, upside down and sadly dead. The second, and only other, came out full of life. however, only children can be problematic in the cat world and this was no exception. This little fellow went from 100gms to 170gms in the first four days, then stopped gaining weight, lost the will to feed at the same time as the mother lost interest, possible because of a dose of maistitis caused by the difficult birth. Day 10 was as far as he got.

We are rather fond of the name Skiddaw little man, and since we did not get as far as officially registering this kitten we will be calling the next male kitten that Skiddaw has by this name.

I havn't published any pictures by choice, but I can say that the little we saw of his quality looked very promising for future litters.

The Office.

I have a well founded theory that one project frequently leads to another.

If one considers Mrs VL's recently begun Masters Degree from the Royal Veterinary College to be a project then there is yet another data point to confirm my theory.

Those of you who have loved ones or relatives in any medical profession will know that these professions come with a huge amount of literature (which also tends to be expensive). Also, unlike us engineers, who shove our books in the loft after uni and never look at them again, this literature is often required for reference. A distance learning Masters in "Veterinary epidemiology and Public health" involves another literal shed load.

This storage issue, combined with the fact that to successfully study one requires a comfortable, pleasant and spacious office facility, has brought forward our plans to build a new office.

Originally we had designs to turn the smallest of our bedrooms into a compact but functional office. As this room seems to have been taken over by the cats and would not provide enough space for both of us at the same time (one studying and one on the computer), we have chosen to improve our existing office/guest room.

A quick session with a tape measure, a couple of "thinking caps" and an Ikea catalog, helped us to find out that as ever, the ideal solution wouldn't come in a box and DIY was the best value for money and design effective solution.

This all started before the fateful ski holiday and construction is now well under way, you'll have to wait for more details of that though, first a sneak preview of the seamless combined application of both basic and highly advanced design methods.

Family Affair

There all at it now. Well that is with the exception of Big Sis, whose Irish, out in the country, internet connection means she's can't manage to surf more than a ripple.

They'll have to come to a better arrangement when our parents move out to join them in there newly finished granny flat, otherwise there'll be no more of the fine blogging that we're all looking forward to when that time for the big move comes.

2007 will be a life changing year for them. We're looking forward to reading all about it.

Welcome to blogger.

This time it wasn't my fault!

Arriving home after her evening as a bride, Mrs VL rather mysteriously came in the front door. My pondering about why on earth she would walk out of the car port and through the snow, both on the ground and in the air when there was a perfectly good back door was answered when she announced "The cars stuck in the hedge.."

I came out to find this scene





Fortunately someone had left a 1963 Landrover in the garage only 5 metres away. Once again, the old girl came to the rescue, although with sheet ice under all 4 wheels a little carefully placed grit was required.

Mr's VL's excuse was that she was taking after me, attempting to drift it round the corner like I do. So maybe it was my fault after all....

Wife, or Bride to be?

This was my wife on a Tuesday evening a couple of weeks back.





Don't panic, she hasn't left me to wed again and hasn't turned to her polygimistic side. You know how the saying goes, "there's no such thing as a free haircut", Mrs VL volenteered to be a model for one of the apprentices in the local salon and ended up after a couple of trial runs acting as a model for the aspiring hairdressers final exam, as seen here.



To those of you who complain there is never enough pictures of my wife of this blog, I hope this makes up a little, I certainly think it does!!!

Ski Holiday Drama

A week ago today, we set off for our week cross-country skiing at Ustaoset high up on Hardangervidda. After the enjoyment of last years winter holiday , The Thoughtful Scotsman once again joined us for the occasion.

After our four hour drive to get there, The Thoughtful Scotsman enjoyed his trip up the 2.5Km cross-country trail on the trailer of a snow scooter with all our luggage. 2 hours later, these were the scenes outside the Chalet.







TTS had gone straight outside on arrival to take some photo's, slipping on ice that he did not expect to find there, considering the enourmous amounts of snow around. By some incredible bad luck, the damage look like this.



Mrs VL, fortunately, found hidden strength reserves to haul him inside and out the cold and the snow (myself and the sister in law where skiing up the hill at the time). In a tribute to the Norwegain health services, the accident happened around 6:30p.m, TTS arrived at hospital, 200Km away by 9:00p.m., by 10:30p.m he was on his way to theatre and at 1:30a.m. he had an 18" Stainless steel pin and 3 bolts in his leg.

TTS was awake for the operation, stating, when I visited him the next day, that he couldn't see much but the drill felt a little strange and the stitching was quite uncomfortable. He also said, that there was a CCTV of the operation on which he could see what was happening, although he thought it was probably for the surgeons benefit!!!!

J'ai nais cais pas

Kid sister, it seems, is heading off to France for 3 months. The excuse is something to do with her studies, although I am a little unsure how much work will be done.

We wish her all the best. You can keep up with her goings on at Kid sister gone French.

Where have I been?

Ooff, as they say in Norwegain. Life is a little chaotic.

In response "to the other cold one's" recent comment, I thought I had better announce that I still exist. I'm writing this from a mountain chalet up on Hardangervidda, 1100m above sea level, during our relaxing skiing holiday, which hasn't quite worked out.

Work is chaos, and between this and private travelling I've been to Lithuania twice, London once and Poland once since my last post.

We've got projects galore and I've been putting together a better pc to make blogging easier...

Just to give some idea of how far I'm behind with the blog, amongst others, I have plans to write blog posts with the following titles.

J'ai nais cais pas

The Office

Wife, or Bride to be?

This time it wasn't my fault

Lies, lies and damn statistics.

Ski Holiday Drama

Little Man

All steamed up.

Your imaginations can run wild. Mobile technology makes posting pictures a little difficult, so you'll have to wait a little. Saying that, it's likely we'll be cutting our winter holiday a day or two short, so maybe I'll get to sit down at the computer on Sunday..

New, even colder, blog

The other cold one is even further north, even further east and often much colder than us. Like a true Finn he cycles to the pub when it's -30C, drinks vodka in the Suana and dives into holes in the ice.

"Life in a Northern Land" is his tale of family life and all sorts of madness in Finland.

Global Warming 10: Winter 1

Finally, winters got the better of global warming. The tractors been past with it's plough on, I've fallen over on my ski's, driven the landy up the nearest snow bank and got it stuck and managed to start my old snow blower.

At the moment it's -9 Deg C out there and there's about 30cm of snow lying on the ground. It's supposed to warm up a little (but not above freezing) at the weekend. the warmer temperatures bringing more snow. I'll be out skiing this week end hopefully, as soon as I've recovered from Friday nights party with my department at work.....

Wet feet.

Earlier today, an exceptionally high tide turned works warehouse and parking areas into a bathing area. All car owners, bar one who had dissapeared, were duly informed and sensibly moved their cars.

Our rescue effort involved one of our electricians using a pair of buckets as a substitute for Wellie Boots. This was a great plan until, as you can see from the photo, some idiot in a 1963 LandRover drove in and created a tidal wave.



The poor lad saw it coming and let out a scream long before the icy waters drenched his feet, I hid my head in shame as the amassed onlookers crumpled in laughter.

I, however, kept my feet dry by driving straight back into the warehouse after the heroic rescue, which you will be able to read more about on More Power, the blog.

Swimming to Iceland.

From the start of January to the end of March, Tønsberg swimming baths has a draw which you can enter every time that you have swam 10,000 Metres. The prize, a trip for 2 to Iceland.

This is providing us with some encouragement and we have manage to maintain 2 swims a week for the first 2 weeks of the year. I had hoped to swim a minimum of 1000 Metres on our pre-work early morning session. This has not yet happened, due to an inability to get up, out of the house and to swimming pool early enough! What it does mean is that it has been neccesary to swim at pace to manage the 800 Metres that I have covered each time.

After 4 sesions, I have reached 3500 Metres, Mrs VL has reached 2500 Metres and the cats foster parent, who also joins us, has reach 4875 Metres, mostly due to her proximity to the pool and ability to get out of bed in the mornings!!!

Blog Century

100 Blog Posts

14 Months and 28 Days

260 Comments

102 Photos

6599 Hits

The new EU baggage regulations

Due to the above mentioned, I was forced to pack the 4 cans of Murphy's and 4 Cans of Beamish (destined for our new years Steak and Beamish Pie) that I had purchased whilst in Ireland in my check in baggage for my journey home on the 30th.

The first problem this caused was that I was 3 kilos over Ryanair's rediculously low 15Kg allowence, costing me €24.

To cap it all, as I was loading my bags into the car at the other end, I was distressed to notice the smell of beer and a damp patch on my suitcase. 2 of the cans of Beamish had exploded and emptied their contents all over my clothes (which, fortunately, were already dirty!). Forensic analysis suggests that this what not caused by any impact to my luggage but was due to the pressure difference between the unpressurised aircraft hold and the inside of the pressurised beer can.

You have been warned.....

A Message from my Mum... Updated 25.1.07

Can I please through your good services pass on my deep thanks to all concerned in the family Christmas at Beeston Farm.

We have had another wonderful, never to be forgotten, time, and it was lovely to be together. My grateful thanks for Mari being left in the cold so generously. That was really appreciated.

So glad that all travelling this weekend are home safely. We will look after Tuulia and Maija as long as is needed and then re-unite them with the family.

Good luck to Richard with the lonely move.

Best wishes to Andy and Mari with their New Year's Party.

Happy New Year to you all.

All my love. Mum of all.

Mum of all would be grateful if you would add to my original thank you which you so kindly put on the main blog, that I didn't think to thank our gallant host and hostess for all their efforts for us too.

Also Our Father is delighted to announce that because you all did so much in the Music Barn, he now has it completely plastered inside too. It looks super. Plans are under way to build the partition and then part of the gallery, so that we will have room for everything hopefully by the time we vacate Dean Street. Its going to be a BIG Job.