During the first weekend my partner had a friend up from London visiting so they went out and about leaving me with the kids on Saturday. This was really good because they were allowed to be without kids and to have a degree of spontaneity. They came home buzzing and it was nice to see.

On Sunday we went to the huge Victoria park in Glasgow and had a big explore around it. There are areas we had never visited before like the bit around the fossil grove. It is a wonderous area of natural beauty. Small. But really diverse in the trees. The kids had a lovely time bouncing off the little cliffs and running around in the trees. Then their friend became available again. So off they went spontaneously for a second adventure.

I enjoyed some extended video game time with the kids who are currently wanting me to play Dragon Quest Builders 2 endlessly. We all enjoy this but the days of me being able to play a game more than 4 hours are past! I eventually put it down and refused to touch it again that day.

The second weekend was written off. I was supposed to drive to the coast and see my parents. I think a hangover from the Covid that ran through the house last month I was exhausted and easily out of breath. The activity of the previous weekend was slow and deliberate in an effort to not exhaust myself. I was trying to push through and just drive away for the weekend but realised I really needed a lie down so cancelled it. I then spent the entire weekend lying down pretty much and felt much better by the end of it.

Easter weekend came around and I was feeling better. We do not know when we will find a builder for the loft conversion so we have started doing what we can ourselves. I smashed down an old wardrobe in the kids room, and built a bunch of Ikea furniture for my office. While still miles away from the goal of being tidy this has been excellent for my mental health. My office has nothing on the floor cluttering it up. My hobbies and work stuff are all at hand. So I have been inspired and made some music too.

Around about here in the month I popped a shell on a customer engagement. It has been a little while since I have had a less obvious vuln to play with. It was Java Expression Language (EL) and I think I will write a blog about that as it was fun.

For the fourth weekend we did the final trip to the tip dealing with the destroyed built-in wardrobe’s rubbish. The kids went off for a trip to the park with a babysitter and me and my partner got to eat a meal in peace al fresco in the sunshine. It was nice but could have done without the wind.

Pretty much all of Sunday was cleaning the house. One of the more depressing things about moving to this house is that it is exceptionally hard to clean. By tackling the storage issues we can finally expose enough floor to actually regularly clean it. Other than the regular quick clean. The house is starting to feel ready to actually live in which is nice.

The final weekend the in-laws flew in and we were treated to a flurry of cooked food. It was good but a little bit stressful since family staying is always going to be tense without enough space to give people alone time.

Media:

• Dragon Quest Builders 2 – we really enjoyed DQB and this one is bigger and better. I really enjoyed it. The kids watched every hour of this over the last 3 months and it was nice spending that time with them.
• Community – I have seen this show before but it is really really good isn’t it. Definitely worth the re-watch.
• Parks and Recreation – first time for me watching this. It already feels like a nice comfy pair of slippers. Funny and ridiculous in the right places.

Hacking:

• For work I hit a target pretty hard and achieved “root” on their server. It is still awesome to land a shell and demonstrate impact. I love my job!

Music

I made a track in an entirely different way. I took dialogue from a conference speech and cut it up to tell a story. Also working in my DAW (Reaper)

That was the month that was April 2022.