Finally there was some progress in the internal work on the house! This was great for the psyche. The kids bedroom floor had the 1960s boards ripped out and a level chipboard one fit in its place. A new carpet, a lick of paint, a bunk bed, and now the kids have an ok bedroom.

I killed the mould on the bathroom ceiling and painted it a nice grey colour. Installed a new bath panel to fill the massive gap where rodents came running in. I did a little bit of tidying up and decorating too. All in all making the house a little bit nicer every week.

first weekend

My partner was ill so this was time spent with the kids mostly. We started to watch the Karate Kid movies as I figured it would teach a bit about balance and focus etc. Having now watched the original trilogy of movies in a week it is safe to say that the character of Miyagi is absolutely amazing. Played to perfection.

second weekend

My brother and his partner were in town to see the strongest man competition and came over for lunch before heading over. It was nice to see them even if it was only a brief visit.

third weekend

I took some days off work and took the family down to the borders for a long weekend. This was hands down the most relaxing holiday I have had since having kids. The drive down and up went well without major tantrums. We met up with a friend and met their very lovely dog.

Exploring Kircudbright (pronounced ker-coo-bree) was relaxing. I had enough headspace to buy a book from the local book shop and then to read a few chapters too.

This was the most relaxed I have been in a long time. Seriously.

fourth Weekend

When we built the kids a bunkbed I put a storage pocket onto the top bunk and clipped a reading light up there too. It was actually the sweetest thing to see $eldest get hugely excited by this. Now they can read for a bit before falling asleep and it has reduced them coming out saying they are bored.

This weekend we went off to the Library on Saturday morning. Loaded the kids up with books and $eldest was reading for hours. Given how hard they fought to NOT TRY to learn to read at all a few years ago this is huge. They still have issues but it was definitely at peak levels when trying to get them to look at a page to learn the mysterious symbols. Now they can unlock a lifetime of knowledge and adventure and I am so happy that this is apparently life now :D.

On the Sunday I tried to take the kids out for breakfast to leave my partner alone to study. We had a really horrible trip to MacDonalds. A really filthy one. With poor service. With bad food. It was pretty damn grim.

Then we played our new favourite board game “monopoly junior”. This is just interesting enough to play and yet simple enough for the kids. It ends really quickly in about 15 minutes a round.

short bits

Mass Effect Andromeda – a few hours of this were played.

Football Manager – I started a game where I manage Scotland to untold heights. In my alternative reality the most fun thing to happen was me qualifying for the world cup in Qatar. Then having Craig Gordon retire about 3 months before the world cup! The timeline was weird. I called him up for a camp where we had 3 fixtures. He announced his retirement but he was still part of the camp. I could not pick a replacement for him. He played a blinder in the first game of the camp and then retired before game 2. Still unable to call up a replacement and suddenly needing to find a goalkeeper for the world cup when literally every other Scottish goalkeeper was playing backup at their clubs or having a pretty torrid time playing in relegation battles. I mention this purely for how much I love this game and how weird the alternative realities get.

Audio Books 1 – Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari I have listened to about another hour or two of this. It has sparked lots of juicy thoughts in my brain.

Lower Decks – I finally started to watch this and it is basically like Futurama in a Star Trek universe. Pretty much as awesome as that sounds too.