Melody cool

There is a local resident in our village who carries a digital camera with him where ever he walks. The day before yesterday he passed our living room window while I was practising the guitar. He stopped and asked me to keep on playing, and took this photo through the window.

Signing on

Ahem, thanks for all the kind comments, and sorry I was toying with the thought of shutting this blog down. It is certainly nice to know that you are not babbling to empty cyberspace, and how could I not keep going now? I will this instant remember to post more comments on the blogs I read as well.
It's Wednesday. Sofie has gone to hang out in the city centre. Matthias has been playing basketball after school, and now he is training more basketball in the back garden. I can hear the ball slamming into the ground, just behind me, outside the window. He has set up a basket himself on an old piece of wood, which is leaning against a hedge. His own ball loses its air, but yesterday Matthias borrowed a nice Spalding leather ball, imported from the US by our American friend Paul.
The weather is cloudy, but not too bad, and tonight Mrs Rasmussen is returning from St Andrews for her mid-week visit to her home. Nothing really to complain about, except perhaps Labour politicians. And Labour voters. And Conservative and UKIP politicians and voters. But I won't.

Signing off

This blog is about to be two years old. Maybe that's middle-aged in human years. It's been fun in many ways, but nobody seems to read it anymore, so what's the point? Better to buy a holiday home in Spain and move down to the sun than die as a miserable old blog.
Thanks for listening.

Paul Weller: Studio 150

The new Paul Weller album was out last week, and I bought a copy today in Tesco. Studio 150 is a album of cover tracks with a very no-nonsense, old-school sound to it. It's very good. I had trouble listening to Close to You, yes that one, but Weller makes it work, amazingly enough. Wishing on a Star, one of the best tracks, comes with a guitar solo - I wonder: is this the new re-birth of the guitar solo? Remember, you read it here first.
Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, immortalised by Hendrix, has been criticised by several reviewers for its heavy organ and gospel vocals. I think it's great.
All in all, Weller makes all these classic tracks his own. Only thing missing is one of his own beautiful songs, like English Rose or You Do Something To Me, in a new version.

18866

There's a new phone service provider out there, and it kicks butt. 18866.co.uk offers UK customers one hell of a deal: 1p to call another UK landline number and no charge. 10 minutes? 1p. 2 hours? 1p. Calls to UK mobiles are 12p per minut (2p weekends).
The service also provides cheap calls to other countries, so now we pay 1p per minute to call Denmark. Calls to Danish mobiles are 15p per minute.
So while you are waiting for all your contacts to get round to install and use Skype to call each other (that's FREE, which is even better), 18866 will have to do. I doubt it gets any cheaper.

Weasels ate my coffee

It sounds like an urban myth, but apparently it's real. I don't know. Judge by yourself.
Apparently you can buy coffee beans that have been svallowed by weasels and spit out again. The trip to the weasels' stomachs should make the coffee smother and stronger. I betcha. My only concern is, why did somebody get the idea when he saw a weasel vomiting coffee beans, that this would make just excellent coffee? At least it's insanely expensive, £15.95 for 57 grams.
I still think it's a hoax. When you see that the same website is selling monkey-picked tea, your feeling just gets stronger.
Buy weasel coffee
Monkey-picked tea

Kids, eh?

I just got an email from Matthias today. It was short, to the point and went straight to my heart:

Hello,

You are a very good dad.

Mats.

I'm moved.

Another week ahead

Another week sticks its ugly face forward and we head into it. Mrs Rasmussen left this morning at ten to seven, and the kids went off to school around eight. That leaves me back alone, working at my desk, drinking coffee and thinking about the week ahead. The weather is very nice this morning, albeit a little on the chilly side.
P moved in upstairs yesterday, and today L and her boyfriend S is are arriving from London with her stuff, and the move-in will be complete.
We had quite a scare yesterday evening, when we suddenly thought the world was coming to an end, or at least aliens were invading. It turned out to be the new washing machine upstairs, that makes the whole house shake when it's spinning. Like a house massage, only worse.

Upstairs

The flat upstairs has been refurbished and brought up to a modern standard. The sweet old lady, Isa, who used to live there, unfortunately died last year. We have been very curious what would happen to the flat, and who would eventually move in.
It so happens that L from Prague is coming to Edinburgh to study this year, and we put her in touch with the owners of the flat. You never know.
A long story short, it all eventually fell into place, and next week L is moving in upstairs with her friend P, also from Prague.
Now we only need to convince the local pub to get some decent Czech beer in stock.

It aint over until VJ Singhs

Tiger Woods has been replaced as the number one golfer in the world by VJ Singh. Woods has been topping the best golfers' list for six million years, so it's quite a surprise that anyone has actually managed to move him. Maybe it's the system that's wrong, I don't know, but I don't remember Woods winning a tournament for a very long time.
Monday hit us all in the face with a nasty, chilly, overcast day. As soon as anybody even thought "Scottish summers are not that bad, eh?" we were rightly corrected. Reports from St Andrews say that the weather there was actually not bad, but they haven't been confirmed, and, frankly, I don't believe them.

Break's over

The Scottish summer showed itself from its most pleasant side yesterday, with a warm sunny day from dawn 'till dusk.
I finally bought a new rear wheel for my Cannondale bike, and Matthias, Susanne and I went for bike rides along the Water of Leith both yesterday and today. It was great. We had almost forgotten how splendid it is to ride a bike, with the wind in your hair, insects in your mouth and somebody's dog chasing you. Just kidding, it was gooood.
Friday afternoon, Matthias and I went to see the Hellboy film. We had a great time, and both thought the film's first 15 minutes or so were the best. The storyline was pretty horrible, while the design and actually most of everything else was quite enjoyable.
Susanne is going back to work in St Andrews tomorrow, and normal daily routing will kick in for real.