The old kitchen won't be around for much longer

Having moved one large wall cupboard from the utility room to the garage, we can start storing stuff in there that isn't needed until the building work is finished. The builders are coming on Monday morning to start removing the wall between the kitchen and the utility room, giving us a larger kitchen and ripping everything out that is currently there. Today we chose the tiles that will be delivered a couple of weeks from now, and that was the last thing to choose. The layout is designed, the finishes have been chosen, everything is ready. The coming month is going to be awkward with next to no cooking facilities. But all of this will be finished before Christmas (where have I heard that before?) So far, this is a really effective way of burning up money, but with any luck, it will all be worthwhile. The final tour of tile shops being over, I've settled down for the evening with a beer and some Norwegian jazz (Nils Petter Molvaer - Khmer), with the log burning stove driving out all thoughts of the cold, wet, dark outside.

German autobahns

My Yamaha FJR 1300. This bike goes some. I got it to over 140 mph in Germany on the autobahn. That was very exciting, especially when it started to weave a bit at high speed. It was so fast there was no time to look at the speedo properly, things changed so quickly. I didn't stay at that speed for long. If there was a more than one car in front, it was usually the case that the second one would lurch into the overtaking lane with no warning, just before it would have collided with the car in front. I liked the way they lurched into your path, then looked in the mirror, then when they saw there was a bike with a pair of big headlights, they would signal! Briliant. Seeing this, I made sure I never passed a car at high speed, just a little bit above their speed, in case they lurched. Usually, it was OK if it was a solitary vehicle. But as soon as there was any traffic at all, high speed driving was out of the question.

End of the week

Just the thing for a cold evening. And some pizza and fries. And some red wine. The stove is a couple of months old. The fireplace was ideal for this kind of thing, with plenty of space for keeping logs beside it.

First Post

I thought it was time I started my blog, so here it is. Jan Hillig and I are just about to set up an undergraduate tutorial discussion group in the on-line teaching environment that we use, called Blackboard. New format from previous years, so it will be interesting to see how it progresses.