Nope, it wasn't a 24-hour flu thing. It turned into a 7-day bedridden flu thing! Still worried that it might be COVID, I was doing daily lateral flow tests, all negative. Going for a PCR test kept getting suggested, but I was already bedridden - feeling dreadful, stuck in bed, doubt I could drive myself for a PCR, I was self-isolating anyway, I stayed in bed. In terms of NHS track-and-trace, Lucy had already told everyone we'd seen in the past 48-hours. I've no idea who I got the flu from.
The unfortunate side of getting ill is that we had to cancel our family visit to Liverpool - our 2nd Christmas. I felt bad for my family. Re-scheduled for when I'd recovered.
New Year's Eve, I started to feel a bit better, not quite 100%, but managed to get out of a bed for a bit.
New Year's Day, I sat our in the garden for a couple of hours - it was freezing, but after a week stuck in bed, I needed to be out in the fresh (cold) air for a while.
So that's the end of 2021. I'd managed to stick with writing up my weeknotes, (with the exception of weeks 34/35), which I'm quite happy about. Even if it has mostly been about what movies and music I'd been listening to, it was still good to keep a journal each week. Will I continue this in 2022? My current thought is no. I feel that I should focus my writing/energies on other things, whether that be articles or coding - but still keep to a regular schedule.
What I do know is that 2022 will be a different year for me, with many changes ahead.
Ah, the run up to Christmas. It was a strange week. Work had already been slowing down, but I'm not sure where the days went. The kids had already broken up for the school holiday, I guess I'd been playing more video games with them than I realised.
Wednesday, we had Gigaclear installed. Some digging up the front garden to get the cables all wired up, but was quickly done. Ultrafast internet here we come!
In the evening we went along to Light Up Bristol at Ashton Court.
Me, Lucy and LL at Light Up Bristol.
Our annual umBristol Xmas Shindig was cancelled, the rise of the COVID/Omicron variant felt too risky for a social/pub visit, especially this close to Christmas day.
Christmas Eve, whilst Lucy and the kids went shopping, I had a sneaky trip to the cinema to watch The Matrix Resurrections. (I'm a huge fan of the original movie, but I have very mixed feelings about this one, I enjoyed it, but overall undecided, I'll need to watch it again.) The cinema was completely empty, weird being the only one in there!
Christmas day, we went to Lucy's folks. All round, a pleasant, stress free day. Kids enjoyed their presents, although being at their grandparents, they didn't get full chance to enjoy them until Boxing day.
Ah, Boxing day. I came down with flu. Hit me out of the blue, (strange that I felt fine on Christmas day), totally wiped me out. Aching and sore throat. I was worried that it was COVID, but had a negative lateral flow test result. I was hoping it'd be a 24-hour virus thing, as I typically get the annual seasonal flu - but usually around September time, which passes in a couple of days. Fingers crossed. 🤞
The Omicron COVID-19 variant was on the increase in the UK. Oddly, with the 10-day self-isolation rule in place, Tuesday was the last day you could test positive for COVID-19 if you didn't want to be isolating on Christmas day. This meant that I ended up cancelling on a bunch of planned social events this week.
Wednesday, the latest MCU movie was out, Spider-Man: No Way Home. KK and I went on the opening night. No spoilers. The were a lot of MCU fans in the audience, much applauding throughout the movie.
Thursday, Lucy and I got our 3rd COVID jab - the booster. I'd anticipated that it'd wipe me out later in the day, so chilled out watching Zombieland: Double Tap in the afternoon. (I'm not sure why I hadn't seen this before, as I very much enjoyed the first Zombieland movie.) Turns out that I felt fine for the rest of the day.
Friday, spoke too soon, this was the day of the post-booster wipe out. Both Lucy and I felt exhausted. So back on the sofa, I watched Shazam! - which was alright. Slept for most of the day.
Saturday, we got our Christmas tree, (yup, a real one, pines everywhere!) LL's school choir did some carols in the precinct. The Christmas Open Mic night got cancelled, due to low numbers (which I'd already decided not to attend, still feel bad that it got cancelled). Although this did mean that we could all watch the Strictly Come Dancing final together. (I'd predicted the winner from around week 2 or 3.)
I'm late in writing up my week note. Don't get too excited, not much happened this week. 😆
I finally ordered a Gigaclear package, (400Mpbs for £20/month, one of these Cyber Monday deals). Gigaclear has dug up our road last year to install all the "fibre to the house" infrastructure. They initially offered a 6-months free package, but I had recently renewed on a 12-months contract with Plusnet. I could have bought myself out of it, but decided to stick with it until it expired... which is at the end of this month, so good timing for a Gigaclear switch over. Full Fibre will be installed on the 22nd Dec.
The Strawberry Line Cafe celebrated their 11th birthday. Lucy & I went down for lunch and cake.
At the weekend, we were invited to a friend's Christmas dinner get together, (at the White Hart in Wrington We weren't originally invited, due to number restrictions, but one of the other families had to drop out due to COVID self-isolation. Silly Christmas jumpers were worn, and we got to miss the Strictly semi-final! 😆
Sunday, my procrastination of Christmas present shopping led me to doing another jigsaw puzzle.
With advent calendars, Lucy likes to do more activity based ones for the kids, less chocolate, more craft based stuff. Much to their surprise, I got them Lindt chocolate advent calendars - so now each morning is a mix of chocolate and crafts.
I started watching The Beatles: Get Back documentary series on Disney+, I'm quite a fan of The Beatles, and this is an epic watch. I'm halfway through so far. Love watching their song writing process.
Thursday was Lucy's birthday. We out for a walk and lunch around Leigh Woods. In the evening, went for a curry at Yatton Tandoori.
It's been a while since mentioning the MCU. The Hawkeye TV show has started on Disney+. KK and I have watched the first 3 episodes.
Saturday morning was busy in little old Yatton. The Bowling Club had a coffee & cake morning, with a jigsaw puzzle sale - we bought 4 jigsaws; and a new music school/cafe/venue called The Note Warehouse had a welcome open day. In the afternoon, I did one of the jigsaws we got, a 300 piece world map, but from 1984, interesting to see how the world has changed since then.
World Map 1984. 300 pieces. Took 2 hours.
Sunday, did bits of Christmas shopping. Also went to Halfords to get the car headline bulb replaced. I'd had a look (and YouTube search) to see if I could do it, honestly, for what you'd think was a simple task turned out to be quite complex. Glad I went to Halfords, as it took 2 guys about half an hour to replace the bulb - I'd have probably given up and bought a new car instead.
Sunday family movie night, LL wanted to watch Sonic the Hedgehog. Cramming it in before the Strictly Come Dancing quarter-final results. (Only a few weeks left before it's over!) 😆
Since Shang-Chi got released on Disney+ a couple of weeks back, I'd been asking KK if/when she wanted to watch it, but she kept putting me off, so I watched it without her! 😝 (Much to her disgust when she later found out!)
I'm trying to go out for more walks during the week (and in daylight hours). I think being stuck at my desk for long periods of time has taken its toll on me.
Friday, I ventured into Bristol to attend the Umbraco Together event. I wasn't sure how the day would pan out, given it was a set of 3 simultaneous mini-festivals (the others in Glasgow and London), many of the sessions were live-streamed from London. At times it felt that Bristol & Glasgow were second-class citizens to London, but then I'm unsure how else it could have been done, difficult times, but overall a well orchestrated event.
Saturday night, (after Strictly), KK asked if we could watch Shang-Chi, so we did. I enjoyed it a second time!
Our regular Saturday family movie nights are still on-hold, LL is deeply into Strictly season now! But Lucy & I went out to the Congresbury Folk Night - the band, Topette!! was very good!
Sunday, the weather was quite nice, so went for a long walk with LL down The Strawberry Line.
A friend suggested that we watch Richard Osman's House of Games on BBC2. I love quiz shows, but generally stay away from the celebrity quiz shows - as they tend to be quite shallow. Watched it throughout the week, it was alright but probably more of an occasional watch than every day.
Tuesday was LL's "freedom" day. Straight back to school. She was excited about it, couldn't wait to see her friends.
I got around to doing another jigsaw puzzle. It'd been a month since I last did one. We have a backlog of jigsaws that we've either borrowed from friends or acquired from charity shops, so this was more of a case of pick one, do it, and move it on.
The Greatest Bookshop. 1000 pieces. Took about 5 hours with Lucy.
Work has been languishing for a while now, it's been an odd mix of feeling extremely busy, at the same time, there's not much to do. Between work tasks, I may have secretly become a bit obsessed with slither.io. Gah, it's only when you admit it, that you realise you really have become a boring middle aged man. Maybe I need a holiday?
TV wise, KK and I have been continuing with Stranger Things season 3.
A friend is building a summer house, on Saturday he was having ready mixed concrete delivered - I offered to help shift it to the garden - 4 of us had 30 minutes to shift 98 barrels! Let's just say that I'm woefully aware how unfit I am, and my shoulders ached the next day!
The week that was the COVID self-isolation week, (not for me but Lucy and LL). I hadn't quite prepared myself for effectively becoming a butler, especially with working at home, the context shift between home and work was slightly overwhelming. In hindsight I should have taken the week off work.
A positive note is that I got to spend more time with KK. Which pretty much meant watching TV and movies together in the evenings. Having seen all the MCU movies, she wanted to watch the (now "legacy") X-Men movies. We watched the first 3 during the week.
Friday evening, after the school's fireworks display, KK and I went for a family meal, (for nephew's 18th). Later, one of my neighbours was having a campfire, so joined them for a while.
Saturday was Lucy's "freedom" day, she was very excited, I was wiped out, didn't do much over the weekend. LL's "freedom" day is next Tuesday.
It was a funny old week. The kids were on school half term holiday. I had a website launch on the Monday. Lucy was at work, so I ended up juggling kids, client and launch. A bit stressful, but all successful in the end.
Tuesday, Lucy and the kids went to visit a friend near London. I dropped them off at the station, and wondered why this couldn't have happened a day earlier, aw well. Just think of the things I could get done whilst they were away for a couple of days!
I ended up binge watching Cruel Summer on Amazon. It was alright for a teen-drama, quite different to how the trailer suggested it would be, still I enjoyed it.
Thursday evening, Lucy and the girls returned. Lucy wasn't feeling to good, a bit fluey. She took a lateral flow test just to be sure it wasn't COVID... uh oh, positive result! We quickly locked her away in a bedroom! The girls did lateral flow tests straight away, both negative - thank goodness! (I hadn't left the house in a few days, so pointless testing me). Friday, Lucy went for a PCR test. The result came back on Saturday, positive. So we all did a quick lateral flow test... LL was an immediate positive result, so straight into the locked bedroom with Lucy. KK and I were negative. We've been testing daily, negative results since. Lucy's flueyness (that's not a real word!) lasted 2 days, she's feeling totally fine since, same with LL. They're just bored of being locked in the bedroom... and I'm bored of being a butler.
In parallel to our COVID situation, Friday was the Umbraco Hacktoberfest 24-hour Hacktoberthon, (I know, quite the mouthful!) I attended for a few hours on the Friday, and early Saturday morning. I managed to get a few code patches in for various Umbraco projects. Nice to be involved in an Umbraco community event, as CodeGarden feels like a long time ago.
The weekend was mostly us trying to get to grips with the self-isolation situation. But KK did convince me to watch the rest of Stranger Things together, (we finished series 2).
Concerning start to the week, some of LL's friends tested positive for COVID-19, a few of them she'd been in close contact with at the previous weekend's Brownies camp, and Lucy had driven the girls to the camp. So it was off for a PCR test for Lucy and LL, and self-isolation while they waited for the results. Next day the results came back as negative. Funny how it goes.
Past several days I had a dull nagging toothache, one of my older crowns. I got an appointment with the dentist on Wednesday, took an x-ray, I had an infection under the crown. On a course of antibiotics for the next week. (Which pretty much cleared the toothache after a day.)
Wednesday, I finally released the latest version of my Umbraco package, Contentment v3.0.0. Good to get it out of beta and stable.
Saturday was my Mum's birthday. I took the kids up to Liverpool for a surprise visit. Left early Saturday morning, stayed overnight, headed back early Sunday. Short and sweet, a flying visit.
Strange week, I'd been feeling out of sorts. I decided to not work from my office at the start of the week - kind of a "working from home" at home, sort of thing.
I've been enjoying the 1001 Albums generator that I mentioned a couple of weeks back. It's been an interesting mix of music that I already knew, but also some hidden gems. I've been enjoying Milton Nascimento's Clube Da Esquina, something I doubt I'd ever have discovered on my own.
Wednesday evening, our local open-mic night started back up again. I ended up not going, I wasn't feeling too good, (kind of felt like pre-flu aches, or maybe I'm just exhausted?) Shame though as I was really looking forward to it, practised a couple of covers to play. Next month!
Thursday, I worked back in my office. But had internet/network issues, bloomin' Ethernet didn't work. Spent a few hours trying to get it back up and running. Eventually I tried the next Ethernet port on the back of the modem and it all started working again. No idea what was up with the first Ethernet port.
Friday, LL was going away again! This time for the weekend at Brownies camp. More adventuring!
Saturday, because LL was away we could skip Strictly Come Dancing! Lucy and I went to along to the first post-lockdown Congresbury Folk Night, leaving KK at home (with a friend) for a pizza & movie night.
Sunday, Lucy's nephew's baptism. A larger family gathering that I felt comfortable with (since post-lockdown). All went well, but I didn't stay around for too long after the church.
First thing Monday morning we were at school, sending LL off for a week long trip to Morfa Bay Adventure. It's not the first time she'd been away from home without us, but still felt quite emotional. Odd without her being around all week.
Tuesday, I got a new release of Contentment out, v2.2.0 - couple of new features and bug fixes. Also updated the v3.0 alpha release for Umbraco v9. I'm slowly working towards unifying the releases to support but Umbraco v8 and v9.
Finished up on Squid Game, I enjoy it, but still intense. I was looking for something more light-hearted to watch. A few of my mates had been suggesting The Detectorists for a while - I gave it a go. First episode was alright, but the second episode - those Simon & Garfunkel gags cracked me up!
Thursday evening, bored of TV, did another jigsaw...
The Hat Boutique. 500 pieces. Took about 3 hours.
I received a parcel from Umbraco HQ... an axe! I'm not entirely sure why they sent me an axe, but thank you all the same, I appreciate it. Tweeted a photo of me shaving with it.
LL came home from Morfa Bay, totally exhausted. All she wanted to do was play Streets of Rage 2 with me (on the Wii's Sega Mega Drive emulator). Funny how it goes.
Friday night my neighbour and I had a little gathering in our field. Music, banter and campfire. I may have got to bed around 4am, eek!
A gathering in the field - lights, music, achtung!
Saturday was a complete write off. I'm getting too old for hangovers.
Our regular Saturday family movie nights have been put on-hold, since the kids want to watch Strictly Come Dancing.
Sunday, went for a lovely walk around the woodlands of Tyntesfield (National Trust). Gorgeous weather for October. By complete coincidence, bumped into James and family, who I'd not seen in about 5 years!
Oops, I did it again. I'm a week late writing up my notes. I'm managing to keep rough notes during the week, but procrastinating on the write-up. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the time of the year, less daylight, bit burned out from recent work, not sure. I'll persevere.
Tuesday was the big release for Umbraco v9! HQ put on an excellent webinar for the launch. All very well received by the community, with a fair amount of excitement surrounding it. In the evening we had an umBristol in-person meet-up, our first in 18 months. We'd previously dabbled with virtual meet-ups, but found they didn't have the same experience for our meet-up group. It was great to catch up with everyone. At the end of the night, Steve gave us a lift home in his Tesla, first time I'd been in one, very impressive!
It's been a while since mentioning MCU. I've been watching What If... with the kids. Good fun.
Friday night we had another band practice, this time we booked out a rehearsal studio - we recently got a new member (on lead guitar) and been struggling to find a good practice space. We tried out White Noise Studio down in Weston-super-Mare. At first it felt an unusual set-up, a warehouse unit in the middle of nowhere, turned out quite good. Most likely go back there soon.
Over the weekend, it was raining - so no gardening - decided to hacking around on Contentment - preparing for next release. I always forget how much work goes into making an release - even more now I'm developing/testing against Umbraco v8 and v9!
Whilst coding, I had Squid Game (Netflix) on in the background. About halfway through episode one, I think the coding became the background task. Oh my days, the tug of war scene was nerve wracking! Watched most of it over the weekend - it's a familiar plot, (I'm a big fan of Battle Royale anyway), but the writing and characters are great. Definitely worth a watch.
Sunday, one of our friends was doing the Virtual London Marathon around the local towns/villages. We went to various milestones to cheer him on, and back to his house for a big finish line. Later on we went to The Pear Orchard (again) for a late-lunch/early-dinner.
Sunday evening was spent packing LL's bags, for her week long school trip to Morfa Bay Adventure.
I'd started with the week off with a bit of coding. Since Matt has been talking about multi-targeting Umbraco packages, I'd been toying with the idea of doing the same with Contentment. My initial thought had been to abandon v8 compatibility once v9 came out, but there was always a niggle that v8 support may be needed for a while longer, and I didn't want the headache of supporting two codebases. It's a work-in-progress, but so far it's looking good.
Monday evening we had band practice, (I think our last one was in June), long overdue! It was great to go through all the songs again.
The rest of the week has been work, work, work, work. My current projects are due to launch during October. Then I can breathe. Meh.
TV wise, I started watching American Horror Stories (on Disney+). It's a spin-off show from American Horror Story, which I haven't watched. But I do like a horror anthology show, Tales from the Darkside / Tales of the Unexpected are right up my street. It's been good so far, maybe a little like an adult version of Goosebumps, still watchable.
Friday evening I challenged Lucy to a "jigsaw off" - I'm not sure what that even means?! Maybe like a dance-off but with jigsaws? A race to see who could complete a 500 piece jigsaw first. Lucy did the Clifton Bridge jigsaw that I did last week, and I tackled this one...
At The Races. 500 pieces. Took about 3 hours.
...and frustratingly, Lucy beat me by about 20 minutes! Bah! Next time, next time!
The weekend was lots of gardening again. It's the end of summer, so one of those that if you don't do certain things now the growth will be overwhelming next year. Saturday evening, I decided to avoid the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, (I can't be arsed with it this year), so went out to the field to burn some garden waste... and have a few beers... and listen to some music... until the early hours of Sunday morning... to the annoyance of my neighbours. 😬
It'd been another week of work, work, work, work. It must be slightly easing up though, as I found a bit of time to play bass and do a bit of open-source coding.
Saturday, Lucy took us into Bristol for a surprise... a visit to the History of Video Games arcade at the Galleries. I got to reminisce and show the girls all the old computers and consoles I used to have and play on. They quickly got bored of that and wanted to play all the retro games. LL took a liking to Streets of Rage 2 on the Sega Mega Drive, and KK enjoyed Dance Dance Revolution - of which I found myself feeling very unfit! 😆
Saturday family movie night was LL's choice... Cats & Dogs.
Sunday, did a bit of gardening - well butchered a hedge, and managed to fit in a 500 piece jigsaw.
Clifton Bridge, Bristol. 500 pieces. Took about 3 hours.
It feels like non-stop work, work, work for the past month or so. I'm still a few weeks behind with publishing my weeknotes. Fortunately, I kept making rough notes, so I can write them up whenever I get the chance. I'm looking forward to completing my current work projects, I've noticed my energy for other hobbies (band practice, open-source/Umbraco projects) has been zapped, (others have noticed this too). Feeling like my home/work life balance needs calibrating again.
Had a mix of weather over the past week, first few days were very sunny, pretty much how it was during July. Then last few days, the rain hit. I did try to make the most of the sunnier days, sat out in the field with a cuppa.
Tuesday, the season finale of the Package Manifest podcast came out. I joined other Umbraco community members to chat about the previous episodes and future topics for season 2.
Friday night was the Claverham Beer Festival. It'd been cancelled in 2020 (of course), and re-scheduled from July 2021. It's a great local event to support local breweries, whilst socialising with local mates, to fundraise for local charities... and the beer wasn't too bad either! 😉
Saturday afternoon, we'd organised a CODECABIN virtual reunion. I ended up missing it. (Partly hungover, partly family responsibilities, partly my bad planning, overall just me being rubbish.) 🤦♂️
Saturday family movie night was my choice... classic Jim Carrey, The Mask! Initially, the kids weren't too impressed by my choice, but ended up laughing throughout.
Sunday, we went for brunch at The Pear Orchard (in Kingston Seymour), weather was much better than the previous time we went, good food, good vibes.
Preamble: Argh, it's happened again, late in publishing up my weeknotes! (I'm writing this during Week 36, hello!) The past month has been quite busy with work and family life, school summer holiday, of course! Okay, back to Week 33...
More work, work, work. My current client project has been quite intense, taking up most of my energy.
Monday, heard the news that Umbraco had been acquired, along with Niels Hartvig leaving Umbraco. I have mixed emotions about the acquisition and Niels exit, as a major part of Umbraco's attraction was Niels' vision for the CMS, (especially in the earlier years). I wish Niels all the best with whatever he chooses to do in future. Thank you for a great Open Source CMS! 🙏
Wednesday, I had an Umbraco MVP Connect call, to ask questions about the Umbraco acquisition. It's interesting as most of the Umbraco chat seems happens on the back channels these days, not so much in public (well, I mean, Twitter).
Friday night, went to the pub, played card games. It's one of those things that I do with the family, but hardly with mates having a beer. Good nostalgic fun.
Saturday, we took the kids (and their friends) to Legends Festival at Blaise Castle. A full day of tribute acts. It's the first music festival we'd taken the kids to, they really enjoyed it. For the last few acts they were up by the front of the stage, loving it. My highlight was the Queen tribute (Killer Queen), and was surprisingly impressed at the Robbie Williams tribute (Dan Budd), he had all the mannerisms down to a tee.
Not to go into too much detail, we mourned the passing of two friends this week, RIP Gill, RIP Dot. You and your families are in our thoughts. 🙏
Last couple of weeks I'd been late writing up my notes, this week I'm early - here goes.
Monday was a slow one, recovering from the Claverham Sounds family day at the cricket club, and juggling a heavy workload, fun times. Now the kids were back, I'm reminded how much juggling is involved with working from home during school holidays, didn't help that Lucy was at work too, (not from home).
Work wise, same as last week - work, work, work - not much time for anything else, no movies, no jigsaws (well, not yet), no Umbraco'ing, no band.
Tuesday evening, I took a break, to spend a lovely midsummer evening with Pete Duncanson. Pete was heading back from Cornwall with his son. Camped overnight, we had a campfire in our field. Yes, we had S'mores, well maybe, British S'mores - toasted marshmallow between chocolate digestives. Calorie overload!
Friday evening, I did start another jigsaw - a late birthday present from Lucy. For whatever reason I thought it was a 1,000 piece puzzle, only half an hour later I realised it was 1,500 pieces! This meant my usual cardboard base was too small, luckily it would fit on the coffee table... but that puts the coffee table out of action until it's complete. (At the time of writing, Sunday, it's still not complete.)
Saturday family movie night was LL's choice... A Goofy Movie on Disney+. I'm not sure what to say about this. LL is 10yo. 🤷♂️
The rest of the weekend has been bits of gardening, ferry kids around to various friends, parties... oh and jigsaw'ing! Even LL has got into it. I'll post a photo once it's complete.
I'm a week late in writing up my notes (again), well to be fair, I've had them written up, but hadn't made time to edit and add links, etc.
After my surprise birthday party, it took me a few days to recover, I'm getting too old for these late night parties - or more that my liver is much slower at recovering!
Lucy and the girls had headed back to camp. Just as well, as my current workload ramped up significantly - I finally had a new greenfield client project to build. So pretty much everyday was work, work, work, cook dinner, wash up, then zonk out. I'd tried to stay away from getting takeaway meals and cook myself - well, I mean, I tried for a few days, then succumbed to that bachelor lifestyle.
The jigsaw was a beast, took 4 evenings to complete. Probably took me longer than usual because I really enjoyed a few of those movies.
All the world's a stage. 1000 piece jigsaw. Took about 12 hours, over 4 evenings.
By Thursday I was movie'd out, couldn't bring myself to watch TV, or look at another jigsaw. I put music on, had a good sing song (I mean, who's listening?), and wrote up my previous week's notes.
Saturday afternoon, Lucy and kids returned home. Just in time for Saturday family movie night, which was my choice... Raya and the Last Dragon (on Disney+).
Sunday, we went along to a local family fun day at the cricket club, Claverham Sounds, there were 11 bands on during the day. My band was originally asked to play, but our drummer was on holiday, so I enjoyed the day instead. (Maybe enjoyed it a little too much, my poor liver!)
I'm late again writing up these weeknotes, I'll explain next week. (That's just how these weeknotes work.)
Lucy and LL went away camping, KK stayed at home with me for a couple more days - her self-isolation finished on the Sunday, so she wanted Monday to catch up with her mates before heading off to camp on the Tuesday. Teenagers are funny creatures, I foolishly thought any usual angst would settle with just two of us in the house, but the typical "urgh, I'm not eating that! I'm not hungry anyway" quickly came back, guess I'm having lasagna for the rest of the week then.
Friday was my birthday. 43 years old, all alone, woe is me. 😜 Wait a minute? What's that noise? I hear something from the side of the house. Surprise! Lucy and the girls returned from camp for a birthday surprise visit. 🎉
In the evening, I had planned for a small get together in our field with a few friends and neighbours. I put the feelers out, but most friends were either busy or away on holiday - it was looking like it'd just be me and Sam (next door neighbour) - and with Lucy and kids being back I was 50/50 on cancelling that, to have a family night in, but Lucy insisted I go down the field. The weather was looking indecisive, would it rain or not? Sam, suggested putting up a shelter tent just in case - okay, sure - I went down to help get set up. But I kept being called back to the house by the kids, with very random requests, ("Dad, can you help me find my crocs?" - find some other shoes!) 🤷♂️.
By the time I got back down to the field...
"SURPRISE!"
All those mates who were busy or away, were there - tricksy devils! 😆 I hadn't had a surprise party before, I honestly had no idea how to react. I'm amazed that I had no idea, it was a lovely surprise and a great evening. A mini-FortyFest, a 43Fest so to speak.
Saturday and Sunday were a write-off. Lucy and the girls headed back to camp for the 2nd week.
Heatwave in the UK. Too hot to spend a minute longer than necessary in my office. Week 28's notes had to wait a little longer.
KK was doing another 10-day self-isolation stint. Negative results on her lateral flow tests throughout the week. School finished on the Wednesday, but she had to isolate until Sunday.
Saturday family movie night was KK's choice... Luca on Disney+. I've mentioned before that I'm quite sceptical of the newer Disney/Pixar movies - probably because I worry about quantity over quality - churning out animated movies at a scheduled factory production line pace. As usual, I'm happy to be wrong, Luca was a good family movie, we all enjoyed it.
The kids wanted me to watch a trailer for Raya and the Last Dragon (also on Disney+), as a potential for a future movie night. It looked quite good. I told KK that the martial art bits reminded me of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She was curious, so we ended up watching it later on. It's still an excellent movie, one of my favourites, hasn't dated.
Sunday night, to celebrate the end of KK's 2nd self-isolation, I took her to watch Black Widow at the Curzon cinema (Clevedon). Great to be able to go back to the cinema!
I'm a week late writing up my notes for week 28. We had a bit of a heatwave in the UK, it was one of those where I tried to spend more time outside instead of being stuck in-front of a screen. So now I'm trying to recall what I did the previous week.
I finished the doughnuts jigsaw...
Mid-Morning Snack. 1000 piece jigsaw. 'Puzzle Impossible'. Took about 5 hours.
KK and I watched the end of the first season of Loki. It was a weird one, we were expecting an action packed finale, but turned out to be a more dialogue driven character piece, setting up for future MCU plots.
All of The Walking Dead seasons got added to Disney+. I used to watch it regularly, (I've read all the comic books too), but once the main characters (Rick and Carl) got killed off, I lost interest and stopped watching after season 9. So since it's been a year or so, I thought I'd give season 10 a go. I enjoyed it. I still like many of the original/early characters. Always interesting to see how closely it follows the comic book storyline and where it veers off from it.
Friday, we got a call from KK's school... yup, a positive COVID-19 case on her bus, so 10-days self-isolation again! Worse part is that there was only 3 days of school left before the summer break.
Saturday family movie night was Lucy's choice... and because of the heatwave, she chose for us to have a BBQ in the field and watch the sunset.
Being from Liverpool, some folk have an assumption that I must be a huge football fan. I'm not. My passions were always more the musical side of Liverpool. I'd rather spend 90 minutes (+ stoppage time) listening to an album or playing guitar. That said, this past week has been interesting, as KK has caught by England's Euro 2020 football fever, so I've been watching the matches with her. Parental bonding over anything else.
I had some vested interest in Wednesday's England v Denmark match - the friendly rivalry of my Danish Umbraco friends.
Speaking of Umbraco, Thursday was the day I'd been looking forward to, the release candidate of Umbraco 9. I managed to get alpha version of my plugin (Contentment 3) released on the same day. I hit a couple of hiccups with the distribution, that I quickly resolved, still enough to add a few more grey hairs to my head, (like I didn't have enough already).
A quick mention and thank you to my newest GitHub Sponsors, I very much appreciate it.
Flicking through the recent additions on Amazon Prime, noticed Seven had been added, it'd been years since I'd seen it, well worth a re-watch. Some parts feel a bit dated, although the killer's reveal does make it a little more menacing. Overall it still pack its punches, and the ending, oh man!
Saturday family movie night didn't happen, Lucy and the kids were off doing various thing. We would have done it Sunday evening, but ya know... football!
Sunday, LL had her first cricket match, the Claverham girls under 11s played Portishead, Taunton and Wells. The weather was terrible, heavy rain, poor kids were soaked. Still LL said she enjoyed it.
KK spent last week self-isolating, all her COVID testing had negative results, hopefully she'll be back at school on Tuesday. Although summer break is only 3 weeks away now.
Lucy went away with her friend, Nell, camping for a couple of days - they claimed it was a reccy for a potential OWC camp site - sounded more like a jolly to me! Anyway, I was left holding the fort - all fine, juggling kids/work/house - luckily KK hadn't got any cabin fever at that point.
Over the past couple of months I've been watching Too Old to Die Young on Amazon Prime. It came out in 2019, I hadn't heard anything about it until I saw an article about Ed Brubaker, (who I've enjoyed many of his crime fiction comics), and that he'd written this TV series, thought I'd give it a go. A word of warning, it is too long, too slow and very violent. That said the acting, visuals and cinematography are beautiful. Each episode was about an hour and a half, far too long to binge-watch - if it was a 3 hour movie, it'd be quite epic. No wonder Amazon buried it, they had no idea what to do with it. I mean, who would sit through a total of 14 hours runtime? Umm, yeah, don't answer that one! 🙄
Wednesday, LL had an unauthorised day off school to go watch the Women's 2nd ODI cricket, England vs India at Taunton. She's recently joined the under-11s team and all the girls got free tickets for the day. She thoroughly enjoyed it.
During our various UK lockdowns, the last thing that I wanted to watch was "content that had been created during lockdown, that was about lockdown". I've stayed away from things like Staged, (regardless of enjoying Sheen and Tennant - I liked Good Omens). Anyway, Netflix keeps recommending Bo Burnham: Inside to me, nah, no thanks. Then a couple of friends told me that it was actually quite good - so I watched it. I had no knowledge of Bo Burnham, so wasn't sure what type of humour it'd be. The interesting part of the film is the idea of constraints and pushing the creatively beyond the boundaries that have been set upon you. The music, the wit, the lighting effects, the comedy, the truth. All without a direct reference on COVID-19 pandemic - it went without saying. The ending was brilliant, Bo goes outside the room and gets locked out, then desperately tries to get back inside. I can relate.
I nursed my hangover watching The Ice Road on Amazon Prime. It was exactly as I thought it'd be, Liam Neeson, action packed, nothing serious - fine for a self-pitying hungover sofa watch.
Saturday family movie night was LL's choice... Onward on Disney+. This was another one of those animated movies that I wasn't immediately interested in. Saw the trailer, Chris Pratt's "theatrical" voice (or was it a Jack Black impression?) put me off a bit. Anyway LL insisted, so that was that. The first half is a bit meh, second half had a much better pace. Predictable, good fun and sentimental towards the end. Curse those itchy eyes! 🥺
Sunday, after too much screen time, we all got busy around the house. LL did a load of baking. I helped KK to sand down and paint her bedroom door. I know fathers are meant to know what they're doing with DIY, I was making it up as I went along, I don't think KK noticed. 😆
Last week started off with my rescheduled trip to the dentist to have an impression taken for a replacement crown. I'll go back in 3 weeks time for the fitting.
Mostly been focused on client work, rolling out new features and updates on Neon Futures for EngineeringUK.
Thursday, I finally started recording my bass parts for our album. We have 9 songs to do, it's going to take a while to get them all done and finalised. Hopefully, we can release it around autumn time.
Also on Thursday, I noticed a small note sticking out of the letter box, TNT saying they'd attempted to deliver something, but no one home, (I was, but in my office), so they'd try again Friday. I hadn't ordered anything recently, so no idea what it would be. Searched up the tracking reference number, nada, no info about it, no idea what time it'd be re-delivered. So Friday, I worked from the dining table, TNT delivered around noon, and it was... my Umbraco package award statue!
Umbraco CodeGarden 2021 Package Award statue.
Saturday. We had another full band practice. Went through all the songs, sounding tight, rocking away!
Saturday family movie night was my choice... Instant Family on Netflix. I say my choice, but I made a trade with KK for last week's Spiderman movie. Instant Family was alright, funny in places and sentimental. Few too many curse words, nothing too bad - it was rated 12, (and LL is 10), and we try not go OTT on censorship, but the frequency of minor swearing was noticeable. Apart from that, it's still a good (older kids) family movie.
Sunday turned out to be eventful. In the morning, Lucy and I had our second COVID-19 vaccination jab. 🎉 In the afternoon, LL's first cricket tournament got cancelled due to the rain, so Lucy and LL went to poultry sale at a local village hall, and we now have 7 new hens! We still have 3 hens left from the original batch - so we needed to segregate them for the next 2 weeks. A few spare pallets and left-over chicken wire, we built a wall! (Don't worry little ones, you'll soon be free and united!)
Later in the afternoon, KK got a message from a school friend saying they'd tested positive for COVID-19. That's an automatic 10-day self-isolation, and we're back to remote-learning again. (Oh hello Microsoft Teams! We haven't missed you!) KK did a lateral flow test last night, it's negative, but secretly I think she likes the idea of hiding in her bedroom for the next 10 days. 😆
Caught up watching Time on BBC iPlayer. I'd seen it advertised over the past couple of weeks, looked good, but I thought the subject matter would be too heavy, so didn't watch it on BBC 1. After seeing a few reviews, decided to give it a go. It's an excellent drama, not the easiest to stomach, but the writing and acting - especially Sean Bean and Stephen Graham - are top notch.
KK and I are back in MCU land... started watching Loki on Disney+. Seen the first two episodes so far. Already had plenty of discussions about time travel in fiction, I'm sure some of this conflicts with the "rules" from Avengers Endgame, but who cares? It's a comic book TV show, you suspend all logic when you press the play button.
I finally rearranged my home office. A bit of a post-"spring-clean" and moved my desk so I now look out the window. As they say, 'A change is as good as a rest'.
Matt and Kevin invited me on the next episode of their Package Manifest podcast. We recorded the episode on Thursday, it should be out in a couple of weeks. Always great fun to catch up with these guys.
Saturday family movie night was KK's choice... Spider-Man: Far From Home. I say KK's choice, okay, heavy influenced by me. I'd missed this at the cinema (I can't remember the reason why), and hadn't got around to renting it, so had been waiting for it to hit Netflix. The plot twists weren't a big surprise as I already knew who Mysterio was in the comic books. The story was alright, formulaic. There was a moment when I thought I didn't really care for the big action sequences and would have rather watched a full-length high-school rom-com about these teenagers on a European trip. I still enjoy these movies as the characters are fun. KK made a cracking gag when Peter Parker got locked up in a police cell in The Netherlands... "Look, it's Tom Holland in Holland!" 🤣
The weekend was gardening and more gardening. Clearing brambles, making space for our new grass composting box. Lots of bending down, I'm getting old, my knees are shot.
Father's Day. The kids (and Lucy) wanted to spoil me. We went for brunch at The Pear Orchard (in Kingston Seymour), weather was a bit rubbish and drizly, but we must definitely go back on a warm sunny day, it'd be awesome. Later we went tenpin bowling. I can't remember the last time we went bowling, must have been at least 2 years. I did alright - well, given my dodgy knees, haha!
Afterwards we went home and surprised the kids with a new (old) game... LEGO Harry Potter (Years 5-7) on the Wii. (Yeah, yeah, I still have a Wii.) They love the LEGO games.
Last week's rubbish cold & cough lingered around for most of the week, not as bad as the previous week, mostly an annoying cough. Which everyone kept asking me if it was COVID-19, it wasn't.
For Umbraco Community Secret Santa last year, I was gifted a lovely custom jigsaw of the CodeGarden 2020 group photo. (Of course, CG20 didn't happen, due to COVID, but we were all missing each other, so a fake/virtual/mash-up group photo was the only solution!) I'd been waiting to do the jigsaw in the run up to CG21, so I did it on Wednesday. I'd given myself several hours to complete it, turns out that I did it in just over 2 hours.
A time lapse of the Umbraco CodeGarden 2020 500-piece jigsaw.
...and here's the completed jigsaw...
Umbraco CodeGarden 2020 Group Photo. 500-piece jigsaw. Took about 2 hours.
Wednesday evening was the CG21 pre-party show, Lotte was hosting and invited me, Matt and Kevin on for a chat about Umbraco stuff. I dusted off my Tux for the show, bit daft really. 🤣
Thursday morning was the MVP award announcement, I've been renewed again... for the 11th time! 🤯 (I know, it's getting a bit silly now).
I didn't watch all of the sessions, as had to juggle work commitments. Virtual conferences are a bit odd - whilst Umbraco did an excellent job with it - there is a lot of time sat at a computer, I look forward to IRL conferences.
Contentment - Umbraco Package winner for Best Editor Experience at CodeGarden 2021.
Saturday family movie night got postponed again, as KK had a camp out at her friends.
The weekend was relaxed, bits of gardening on Saturday, followed by our local Open Mic in the park in the afternoon (socially distanced, of course). In the evening, another campfire in the field. Sunday, went around to Lucy's sisters at the farm, (for any old friends, the farm where we had FortyFest).
Past couple of weeks have been a bit of struggle to write up these weeknotes. Time feels to be flying by, along with feeling that I'm not being very productive. But I've told myself to stick with it, so here we are.
School half term holiday time again. My work schedule thrown up in the air. Oh and one of the kids brought home a lovely cold to share with the family. Yup, suffered the whole week with a cold, cough, sore throat - rubbish! 🤧 (To note, this wasn't COVID-19, just your plain old boring frustrating cold/cough.)
Because I felt so rubbish, I'd avoid various social gathering on Bank Holiday Monday - and it was so lovely and sunny - I felt even more rubbish for staying in-doors. I forced myself to do a jigsaw, since it'd been a couple of weeks since the last one.
Jan van Haasteren - Eleven City Icetour. 1000 piece jigsaw. Took about 5 hours.
Despite the rubbish cold/cough/sore throat, I tried to get out the house at various points of the week. Walks with the kids. Campfires in the field.
Ah, the great outdoors!
I cancelled my dentist appointment, didn't feel right given the rubbish cold. Strange thing is, I wonder if this was before lockdown, would have I still gone to the appointment? Funny how our perceptions have change.
Saturday. Weeks ago we planned a band practice, first time we'd all played together since the first lockdown. Despite still feeling rubbish and not wanting to let the rest of the band down, I went ahead with it. We still know all our songs, good thing really.
Saturday family movie night didn't happen, Lucy's sister and niece had a joint birthday party - well just immediate family, given lockdown easing numbers (up to 30 people gathering outdoors). I went along for a few hours, but zonked out - tired after band practice and the rubbish cold.
Sunday, I did something that I hadn't done in a long time - lay on the sofa all day, (literally all day), I felt so lousy, just watched movies all day. Felt more rubbish afterwards though. Anyway, I watched... Palm Springs, Premonition, Brightburn and Color Out of Space. I think that last one really messed with my head. 🤯
Next week is Umbraco CodeGarden virtual conference. I do miss my annual trip to Denmark, but I'm looking forward to catching up with old friends and hopefully make some new ones.
Another week has flown by, where it feels that not much as happened. Mostly focusing on a client delivery, which has all gone pretty well, happy client.
Well, after a few weeks of no dental issues, one of my older crowns came loose. Spoke to the dentist about it as this crown was put in over 10 years ago - wow, starting to feel old - and that over that time my jawline may have changed slightly, meaning that if I had the crown put back in, it'd only come loose again within the year. So it's new crown time! I'm back next week for an impression. Afterwards, I went home and told my kids of the perils of drinking too much cola during my teenage years.
The weather has been much better this past week, lovely and sunny. Went for a nice long walk in the woods at Brockley Coombe, (up near Bristol Airport).
Bank Holiday weekend (again), coinciding with school half term... throws my routine in the air. Spent most of Saturday out in the garden, mostly clearing brambles, preparing for sunnier weather. Had a campfire out in the field with neighbours, stayed up way too late - paid for it on Sunday though, hangovers, urgh.
We delayed our usual Saturday family movie night to Sunday, it was Lucy's choice... Black Beauty(the 2020 Disney remake). It was alright, probably more enjoyable for horsey people. Lucy and the girls enjoyed it. It wasn't really my cup of tea, there were a couple of good scenes and I liked Iain Glen's performance - felt that he was channelling Clint Eastwood. If only they'd remade this film 40 years ago - oh wait, they did, several times!
Where did the last week go? Most of my focus has been on a new phase of work for a client project, it's been full on, probably why it feels like the days have flown by.
I haven't spent much time on Umbraco community/package related activities this past week. My free time has mostly been bass guitar practising. Gearing closer to recording our album.
Friday night, I went to the pub for the first time since they re-opened. Met up with the band, planning out upcoming practices, recordings and gigs. Nice to go back to a pub, but hangovers are less nice, urgh.
Saturday family movie night didn't happen this week. Lucy had bought a ticket for the virtual Glastonbury live-stream - yup, she got caught up in the frustrating "invalid code" muck up. I ended up watching Eurovision anyway, love the chaos of the scoring system at the end.
I watched Army of the Dead on Netflix... there was some hype around it leading up to its release, and I generally like post-apocalyptic movies. It was alright, zombie heist genre mash-up, it has its moments. It tried to add a spin on the typical zombie hoards by having "alpha" zombies, which was different. The characters were likeable enough, but overall, quite predictable and a long runtime (2.5 hours), could have probably been cut by an hour.
Continued my migration work on Contentment v3 (for Umbraco v9/.NET Core). It's progressing nicely, albeit I'm finding the incremental rebuilds quite slow at the moment, still working to resolve that. (Probably to do with my frontend bundling/minification scripts.) I had a good chat with Andy Butland about our approaches on tackling this. My latest updates are up on my GitHub repo. I'm edging closer to an alpha release soon.
TV viewing, Monday marked the return of Inside No. 9 (for it's sixth series on BBC2). I love this show, and very much enjoyed the first episode of this new series, very meta, very funny. Looking forward to upcoming episodes.
I bought a new bass, (yep, another one, that's now 4 basses and 3 guitars, eek!) I'd been thinking about getting a new practice bass for a while. Last year I bought an expensive Fender Precision Bass, (that I love), but found that I'm being overly precious with it - always putting it back in boxcase between practices, just that tiny bit more effort to get it out and put away. I end up practising on my acoustic bass, which I leave out on a stand, easily accessible. But I'd be recording our album on my P-Bass, that I should be practising on that, so decided to get a cheaper P-Bass that I would be less precision of. I went for a Squier Affinity Precision PJ Bass. Paid for it with money from my GitHub sponsorships - huge thank you to all who sponsor me! ❤🙏🌟
Wednesday, I hadn't left the house in a couple of days, Lucy dragged me out for a long walk in the morning. She has a knack with these walks, of wiping me out for the rest of the day. When I got home, a parcel had arrived - wasn't the new bass, that was later in the day - but a copy of a book called Out of Home. It's an insightful look at how the homeless viewed London during the COVID-19 lockdown. I find it sad to think back that we were all told to "stay at home", but what if you didn't have a home?
At the weekend, the weather forecast suggested rain, lots of rain. I planned indoor jobs, mostly to re-arrange my office, I'm desperate for a change in there, too gloomy. But the weather turned out to be sunny (so far), I ended up out in the garden all day, doing random "gardening" stuff, well mostly moving logs around and collecting firewood. Manual labour isn't my thing, once again I was wiped out for the rest of the day. (Unfit and/or getting old, bah!) 😆
Saturday family movie night was my choice... Adventures in Babysitting. I had fond memories of this movie as a kid - probably because I secretly wanted Elisabeth Shue to be my babysitter. Thought it'd be a hoot to re-watch it with the kids. On my initial suggestion, the kids eyes rolled, but I insisted... and they really enjoyed it. Plenty of laughs, tuts, and edge of the seat moments.
KK does rugby training on Sundays. When it's my turn to drive her there, I've been taking my laptop to write up these weeknotes - gives me a solid hour, sat in the car, to focus on writing without distraction.
Did a jigsaw, 500 pieces one. Another one of these kid-friendly extra large size pieces. Started it this morning, before writing up these notes, then LL helped me finish it off in the afternoon. It's the first time she'd shown an interest in helping out, a lovely bit of family collaboration time.
Making Hay. 500 XXL piece jigsaw. Took about 3 hours, with LL.
The past week, I spent a significant amount of time on the migrating of my Contentment package over to Umbraco v9 (e.g. .NET Core version). Hit various snags, found workarounds, I'm still journaling my progress, if you wanted to follow along at home.
It'd been several weeks since I'd last done a larger jigsaw, so decided to tackle this one that my Dad recently gave us.
Secret Temple. 1,000 piece jigsaw. Took about 7 hours with Lucy.
I'd started it Tuesday evening for a couple of hours, sorted the edges. The rest was done during Wednesday, an hour or so in the morning, again at lunch, then a few hours in the evening. That's the trouble with these jigsaws, once we've got going on them, can't seem to stop until it's done.
A couple of my good Umbraco friends, Matt and Kevin, have started a podcast! Package Manifest - which is all about Umbraco package development and the people that create them. Matt did ask me to be one of the co-hosts, but I politely declined - I'm making an effort not to over-commit myself these days. I'm sure I'll be on as a guest at some point.
Mentioning commitments, prior to the first UK COVID-19 lockdown, my band had started recording our first album - we actually recorded the drums on the weekend before the lockdown happened. I was due to record the bass shortly after. We did try to do it all remotely, but it got a bit stressful - mostly due to technical frustrations, unfamiliar with the software, juggling work + kids + general lockdown woes. I mean, we did manage to get a couple of songs together - they're up on YouTube - but for the whole album we wanted to aim for higher quality, so the album got put on-hold.
That is, until after the 17th May - when the next lockdown easing happens and we can meet up indoors! So I've been frantically practising (and re-learning) all the songs. Feels a bit like a fitness regime, maybe I need a montage?!
Saturday family movie night was KK's choice... Ratatouille. KK claims to have never had seen it - I'm sure we had. It's a great movie, kids loved it, but I fell asleep halfway through.
Sunday, at a bit of a loose end, thought I'd start off another jigsaw - do the edges and leave it for a bit. That didn't go to plan - 5 hours later...
Pop Art Puzzle. 1,000 piece jigsaw. Took about 5 hours.
Last week I was late writing up my weeknote, same again this week! I can't blame the COVID-19 vaccine side-effects again! 😆
It did take me a few days to feel fully normal again after the jab, I'm not sure whether it's a known side-effect or more disrupted sleep, I was very irritable - literally anything and everything would annoy me, quite the mardy bum! Seemed to clear up by Thursday.
I'd been busy again with my Contentment package, did another patch release - v1.4.2, few bug fixes (and hidden features). 🤫
Umbraco v9 (beta) was released. This is the re-platforming to .NET 5 version, with initiatives to encourage established package developers to migrate their code over to the upcoming version. Historically, I have bad form in conforming to this - I've been known 'to let the chips fall where they may' - deal with the consequences later. After all, I give my time and energy for free, there should be no expectation of me.
But! I've had a change of heart. Maybe because Umbraco HQ are more forthcoming for this major version release, I felt more compelled. Let's do it! I've been keeping a log of my developer journey - actually, that's where I've probably spent most of my "writing energy" these past days, no wonder I'm late on this weeknote! Go read it, it's a lot of words, and links, and code.
I haven't been completely sat in-front of a screen the past week. Over the bank holiday weekend, spent a lot of time outside, couple of walks, helping out my neighbours, being "Dad taxi driver" (oh heck, that's a thing now isn't it?!). Had a few beers around the campfire on Saturday night, I'm not liking hangovers again, urgh.
We postponed our usual Saturday family movie night, as we were out in the field - camping, (well not me, I was socialising with neighbours at said campfire). So we got around to family movie night on Bank Holiday Monday evening, it was Lucy's choice - I say "choice", the kids pressurised her to pick... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. Yes!!! It is done! The Horcruxes have been destroyed, Voldemort vanquished and in future we can pick some non-franchise movies!
I did watch Stowaway on Netflix. Yet another one of these movies that popped up out of nowhere, decent trailer, solid cast, potentially predictable but good - gave it a go, it was good - but feels like another one of those fleeting Netflix titles, it'll disappear in a week or so, cast away to a distant memory.
Been a while since I've done a jigsaw. I now have a backlog of them. I guess doing the development work on Umbraco Contentment code has filled that void in recent weeks. I'll aim to do a jigsaw this week.
Sunday morning, I had my first COVID-19 vaccination jab. 🎉 Hurray! Another step towards "normality". I'd started to write up my week's notes up on Sunday evening, but one of the side-effects kicked in, aching all over. Having been pre-warned this may happen, I'd already dosed up on paracetamol, and had an early night.
I'd planned on getting my notes finished yesterday (Monday, yup now on Week 17), but still didn't feel 100%. Also had a dentist appointment early afternoon - my tooth implant work is finally complete! It's funny, the implant at the back, not even noticeable when I smile. Functionally, at least I can chew on both sides again! Hurray! 🎉
OK, last week. Easter holiday is over, the kids went back to school! 🎉
Decided to work back in my office. It's quite horrible in there. Cold and dark. Trying to recall how I accepted it for all those years. Definitely need to do something about it, fresh paint, more light, new desk.
For years my laptop's docking station (Surface Dock) had been acting quirky, randomly disconnecting the monitor or USB devices, always at the wrong time and frustrating. I'd spent a fair amount of time searching up the issues, installing various drivers and firmware updates. Can't be doing with it now. Within half-an-hour of moving back in my office, the Surface Dock was ripped out and thrown out the window, piece of trash! I've now got wires all over the place, but no random disconnect quirks! 🎉
After a week or so of KK's nagging, we've started watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, 3 episodes in so far (no spoilers please!).
In Umbraco-land, I've been fairly busy with Contentment again. I'd been asked if it integrates with Umbraco Forms - which it doesn't, but it gave me that "developer's itch" to see if it could. Ending up with some nice bridging code, to pull out a configured data-source to be used with form field options. Still a prototype, the code is available on a GitHub gist.
Now that Umbraco v8.13.0 is out, I've started work on Contentment v2.0, bumping up the Umbraco dependency and making all those breaking-changes that I'd been holding off on. Nothing too major, all incremental improvements that I couldn't do in a minor or patch release.
Friday, I attended the Umbraco Application Integration training course. The hosts have got the courses down to a tee - nice, friendly and professional. Some of the course material was a bit dubious - in as far as their recommended approach is not what I'd do professional, but like most aspects of Umbraco - there are many ways to skin a cat, (so to speak).
Saturday family movie night was KK's choice... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1. Oh yes, we're getting closer to the end of these (current) movie franchises! 😆 The random in-depth trivia my kids have about Harry Potter books is mad, like... when Hermione is caught in the woods by the snatchers, she says her name is Penelope Clearwater - which is actually the name of Percy Weasley's girlfriend! 🤷♂️
Sunday. Already mentioned my COVID-19 jab. I was impressed with how efficient the process was, not much waiting around - in, out, all done within 15 minutes. 🎉
I had a haircut! Yes, I've had a haircut! Finally. In my mind this was the peak moment of the current lockdown, where I can now mentally and socially prepare myself for "getting back to normal" (whatever that means anymore). High hopes and sunny days ahead. Yup, I've had a haircut!
I'd spent a lot of time the past week working on my Umbraco plugin, Contentment. Did another release, v1.4.0, (for any fans that have been following, they'll be tired of me overusing the shushing face 🤫 emoji this week, I'll stop soon). I spend a lot of time deliberating many details of the plugin. Mostly related to the editor experience, or rather the developer's configuration experience. Finding ways to reduce cognitive overload, sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed. Always learning, always progressive.
My sister gave us a family jigsaw - something to do over Easter weekend, but we hadn't got around to it. It's a 200 piece kids jigsaw, I say kids as the box says aged 8+ and the pieces are oversized extra large. I had a couple of hours free on Saturday afternoon, tried to get the kids to do it with me, but they weren't too interested, just as well, I'd finished it within 40 minutes. 😆
Tub Time. 200 XXL piece jigsaw. Took 40 minutes.
Saturday family movie night didn't happen this week. Lucy and the kids went to watch a Live stage show of Billionaire Boy (based on David Walliams book), it was at Bristol Airport car park, one of those where you set your car radio to the right frequency and listen/watch the performance. I wasn't too interested, so stayed at home - well sat out in the field, with several cups of tea, chatting with neighbours.
I watched Love and Monsters on Netflix. It was one of those that seemed to appear out of nowhere. I wasn't aware of any adverts or trailers, never heard of it - and there I was thinking I was reasonably in-touch with new streaming releases. The movie was okay, bit like a coming-of age teen-friendly version of Zombieland, but swap the zombies for mutant insects and Woody Harrelson for Michael Rooker. Still enjoyable.
I noticing more with these streaming titles, they're very fleeting. While they'll have a popular-ish cast, they'll be heavily marketed for a week or so, and suddenly disappear, with no one mentioning them ever again. Remember that George Clooney one back at Christmas? You know, the one he also directed? Oh yeah, what was that called again? Dunno, whatever. I feel the quantity, volume and traffic of the endless flow of streaming titles is too much. I'd prefer less quantity, more quality.
With the weather being much nicer now it's springtime, I'm feeling much more optimistic than I have recently. Re-reading some previous weeknotes, ouch, not liking "negative Lee" 😉 Here's to sunnier days!
Double Bank Holidays, great for long weekends, confusing for the following work week - especially during the current lockdown mindset. "No, I did that yesterday, on Monday", "but today is Wednesday", "No, today is Tuesday!", oops! I lost track of days (again)!
I can't wait for that bloomin' haircut!
My knee has been recovering this past week, still taking it easy, doesn't ache when I bend it now.
We had really odd weather last week, given it was so sunny over the Easter weekend, by Tuesday there were hailstorms - thought it was going to snow at one point.
Finally released an update for my Umbraco plugin, Contentment v1.3.0! Some new features and bug fixes. Since enabling the telemetry statistics, I've been enjoying seeing which features are being used, (and maybe more interestingly, which are not).
Thursday was back to the dentist for impressions... "uh huh, hulo, my name is Lee." 🤦♂️ My dentist tells me that the impressions will be sent off to Sweden for the crown modelling, that'll take between 3 to 6 weeks. Couldn't help but wonder if Brexit had any impact on those timescales. 🤷♂️
KK has now finished watching WandaVision. There are couple of things that I had to subtly prepare her for, e.g. she hadn't seen any of the X-Men movies, and I didn't want the Pietro re-cast to go over her head, so I put a few YouTube clips of cool scenes from X-Men: Days of Future Past, (with no real explanation), then when the reveal happened in the WandaVision episode she was like "wait a minute!" 😆 ...and Agatha All Along has been stuck in our heads for days!
She's now pushing to watch Falcon and Winter Soldier, but I'm pushing back for a couple of weeks, too much MCU!
Saturday family movie night was LL's choice... Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. More of the movie franchises, we're enjoying them, but they're all blurring into one for me now! (For any regular readers may have spotted that it shouldn't have been LL's turn to pick, we goofed up, it should have been KK's turn, eek, doh!)
Rest of the weekend, we've been out in the garden again. Time to get my hedge cut!(cue "Every Time A Bell Rings").
Feeling lost. We're at a confusing stage in this current UK lockdown, the roadmap of easing us out of it is happening, with the initial "rule of 6" (outdoors) date started last week. A few of my mates wanted to socialise immediately, I felt overwhelmed by it. I wasn't ready yet. I need a bloomin' haircut, for starters! Ended up declining all invites last week. I have a haircut booked for the 15th, I'm hoping that's when I'll feel renewed.
I haven't made as much progress on Contentment as I'd hoped. I have a new release ready to go, well, that is, once the documentation is done.
Monday, we had school parent's evening for LL. All good, she's fitted back into being back at school nicely. Although, no sooner as they're back at school, they're now on Easter break for the next fortnight! Preparing myself for the usual "working from home with kids" chaos!
I did my knee in again! (I didn't mention it last week as I didn't think much of it). No idea what I've done to it, must have knelt on it funny and now it aches when I bend it. Bloomin' knees, I'm getting old, bah humbug! I'll rest it up this week, see how it goes.
Saturday family movie night was Lucy's choice... Yes Day. It was alright, predictable, but fun! Now the kids want to have a "yes day", great. 🤦♂️
KK has started watching WandaVision. I'm limiting how many episode she can watch back-to-back, I keep reminding her that I had to wait a week between episodes. I don't know, this binge-watch generation, eh? 😆
Easter weekend was relaxed, good sunny weather, spent most of it outside in the garden. Had a nice campfire on Sunday evening.
I forgot to mention last week that I'd completed the Census. As a web-dev, I was impressed how well the digital forms had been done, a solid example of accessible web design.
Tuesday, I worked back in my office. It was horrible. Quite lonely. Doing brownfield client work didn't help much either. Moved back to the dining table on Wednesday. Think it's going to take me a while longer to re-adjust to my old set-up.
In-between work tasks, I'd been hacking around with my Umbraco plug-in, Contentment - plenty of new surprises to come.
Friday evening was our local monthly Yatton 'Skype' Open Mic Night(the Lockdown Anniversary!) I did do a few of the compering links again. Good daft fun.
However, I didn't actually watch the Open Mic night live, as KK had been putting a lot of pressure on me to watch Avengers: Endgame, and given that I'd already seen many of the Open Mic submissions before doing the links, I gave in to KK.
Avengers: Endgame. What to say. After the emotional ending of Infinity War, KK's anticpation was high, and oh man, did she have an emotional rollercoaster during Endgame! Thrills, shocks, laughs and tears. It's been lovely to share the movie journey with her.
Saturday, out in the garden all day. Great to be outside all day, but my garden requires so much maintainence, and I'm quite a lazy person! 🤣
Saturday family movie night was LL's choice... Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We're whizzing through them now! LL has been reading the books on her own, she seems to have acquired her sister's passion for speed-reading too!
Later on Saturday night, I'd spotted Unforgiven was available on Amazon Video. It's another one of those films that I'd been wanting to watch for years but never got around to, so thought why not now. It's a great movie, enjoyed it a lot.
Through out writing these weeknotes, feels like all I'm doing it watching movies and doing jigsaws. Whereas in the past week, I hardly watched any TV until Friday night, then 3 movies within 24 hours, and nothing since!
Did a quick jigsaw on Sunday morning...
Ladybird Vintage Collection Fairytale. 256 piece jigsaw. Took 36 minutes.
Sunday evening, KK did her first COVID-19 self-test, I've been impressed with how maturely she's been handling the whole testing situation, I'm not sure I would have at her age. The self-test is interesting, the indictator device is a bit like a pregancy test - (as a father, that's such an odd thing to think) - you sit waiting half-an-hour for the result... negative! So back to school for KK! 😆
The past week went by quite quickly, I can't really think what happened. With both kids now back to school, I've spent most of my time focusing on work tasks. I'm still working from the dining table, I haven't quite felt the need to get back to my office just yet. I suspect as the spring seasons kicks in I'll get back in there.
KK has been pushing for more MCU movies... this week we've watched Doctor Strange, Thor 3 (Ragnarok), (one of my favourites from the series), and then Avengers: Infinity War(last night). KK's reaction at the end of Infinity War, wow! She's pleading me to watch Endgame immediately, ha!
Renewing our mortgage, always a pain in the backside. We're at the end of our fixed interest rate term, our mortgage advisor wants to find us the best deals, but given my business situation it's that hassle of gathering accurate financials. I fall into that grey area of business ownership, I'm a company director, so not an employed, nor self-employed, I get paid with dividends, so no salary, no payslips. It's all sortable, just that little more hassle than presenting recent payslips. 🤷♂️
Saturday family movie night was my choice... La La Land. It'd been on my watchlist for a long time, but kept putting off - probably because it felt overhyped when it came out, (and all the Oscars stuff). But I wanted us to have a change from the usual Disney, Marvel, Harry Potter franchise movies and enjoy a modern musical. La La Land did not disappoint, we enjoyed it very much! It had a great balance of modern romance with a callback to classic Hollywood movies, (I was a fan of Rebel Without a Cause in my late-teens, so those references were cherished). LL thought the ending was sad because they didn't get back together, but I explained that it was a happy ending as they did make their own dreams come true.
Continue watching I May Destroy You, turning out to be an impressive show, it tackles much more than I was expecting. I think in time this will be one of those pivotal shows for the Millennial generation.
I did a couple more attempts at jigsaw time-lapse videos, but haven't uploaded them as they feel very samey as last weeks one.
Could this be, a glimmer of the return to "normality"? KK's last week of remote learning, back to "in person" school on Monday, (that's today, at the time of writing, bah to my self-imposed Sunday evening deadlines!).
It was a funny moment when LL returned to school last Monday, my initial reaction was to rejoice, hurrah! A small piece of my freedom returned. By lunch, I remembered that we usually sat down to eat whilst watching old quiz shows on Challenge TV, like Catchphrase or Wheel of Fortune, (all very dated), and I felt a pang of sadness that LL wasn't there to enjoy this with us, as she usually did.
Tuesday, Lucy completed the jigsaw we'd started the week before, I say completed, there was 1 missing piece! Although we later found out that Lucy's dad had it. He'd been wondering which jigsaw this random sky-blue piece had came from, mystery solved.
Downham Village. This is the one that I gave up on after I'd finished the edging, Lucy completed over a few days. 1 missing piece.
Wednesday, My mum had her first COVID-19 vaccine. Another small piece of returning to "normality". 🧩❤
My neighbour lent me The Harry Hill Movie on DVD, which itself is funny as my DVD player has been packed in a box since I moved house over 3 years ago! I used to love watching TV Burp, my neighbour recommended that it was one for the whole family... and he wasn't wrong, it's a dreadful story, cringe-worthy gags, plenty of facepalm moments... we loved it! 🤣(I say we. KK made a swift exit halfway through, she'd had enough of the cringe.) The chicken scene just cracked me up, hilarious!
Thursday, KK was desperate to start Phase Three of the MCU, with Captain America: Civil War - which is pretty much an Avengers movie. KK is loving these movies, picking up on all the fan-service references, (some of which I'm only noticing after a few viewings).
Lucy and I have started watching I May Destroy You on BBC iPlayer. It'd been something that I heard a lot about, had loads of good reviews and press, but I'd put off because I thought subject-wise it'd be too heavy. So far, (we're about 4 episodes in), it has a good balance of humour to offset the darker moments.
Saturday family movie night was KK's choice... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This is the first of them that is rated 12, LL felt a bit awkward about watching a movie that she "shouldn't be watching", but given she'd played the LEGO game and already knew most of the story, it was less of a risk. To be honest, the most noticeable things were Ron saying "Bloody Hell!" a few more times than usual.
Sunday, Mothering Sunday. ❤ Much love and respect to all your mothers!
Jigsaws. Nothing this week. But I have been experimenting with the idea of doing a time-lapse video of completing a jigsaw. Trying to figure out how to best tackle it was a struggle, turns out that the built-in time-lapse feature on my Android phone (Pixel 4a) has a limit of 20 minutes. I tried using my old GoPro (HERO4 Session), but the resulting video felt janky. After searching and searching, I found an Android app called Framelapse, which seems to do the job well. Here's my test footage...
Time-lapse of my doing an 88-piece jigsaw, took about 10 minutes to complete, reduced down to a 10 second clip..
That was it, the last week of remote learning 🎉 - except not quite. LL goes back from Monday, (today, I'm late writing this note up), but KK's school is doing a staggered start, so she's back next Monday. Still, it's going to be quiter during the day in our house.
KK ramped up on watching MCU movies. We watched Captain America 2 on Monday night, I'd been trying to keep any spoilers from KK, her face was priceless when she found out who The Winter Solider was, classic! Wednesday night, we watched Avengers 2, which was good timing for me, to revisit the backstory in preparation for WandaVision.
re: WandaVision, (the finale, it was very good!), without much of a spoiler, there's a scene where the Ship of Theseus dilemma is discussed - I couldn't help but think of that Only Fools and Horses sketch, Trigger's Broom.
Watched the concluding episodes of The Serpent, really good, enjoyed this show.
Started another jigsaw, a 1000 piece one, this time with a view to take it at a slower pace. Not several hours in a single sitting, but over the course of several days. By the end of Tuesday I had edging done. Came back to it on Wednesday for an hour or so, struggled to make any progress. By Thursday, Lucy had took over, she's been enjoying it, so I left her to it. I'm probably having that typical programmer syndrome of "flow", in a single sitting I could keep a mental model of the problem, whereas doing it in piecemeal it takes time for me to get back up to speed.
Saturday family movie night was Lucy's choice... Pan. It was alright, kids seemed to enjoy it, but I couldn't escape the question of why?! Did anyone actually want a prequel for Peter Pan? Maybe the film-makers were hoping for a big series of follow up movies? I don't know, just felt odd.
Sunday. I did another collage!
As I was about to throw out the OK! and Vogue magazines, I thought I'd take one last flick through them. Noticed a few nice black & white shots, so I got the scissors and glue out again. Bit of a simplier one this time around, tried to keep it classy.
Counting down the days until the schools fully reopen, (8th March). Although, while I'm looking forward to regaining some "normality", I'm sure I'll miss them being around all day.
Previous week, I made a tweet about the latest Umbraco install stats, (it's going in the right direction), this triggered a follow up conversation with Lars from Umbraco about historical stats and HQ's efforts moving forwards. All part of the evolution of a maturing CMS.
Started watching The Serpent on BBC iPlayer. Reminict of our own backpacking experiences, making friends with everyone, it is scary how you could easily fall into being decieved, (or worse). I remembered about the time we were in Bali and a driver was acting very suspuctious, anything could have happened. We wrote about our Bali experiences on our old travelblog.
Since completing LEGO Harry Potter, (in Week 05), I'd been playing LEGO Indiana Jones with LL. Tuesday evening we were so close to completing it 100%, so we agreed to get up early Wednesday morning and finish it off.
LEGO Indiana Jones on Wii, 100% complete. (Hi, Han Solo!) Did you know there is an upper limit of 4 billion studs?
Finally cancelled my mobile phone contract with EE. I'd been with them since 2006, (well started with T-Mobile), never really had any problems with them, but recent years price increases and additional charges just got a bit too much, so have moved over to GiffGaff, (similar package for a third of the price!) Kept my same number, all seamless.
Caught up with Matt & Lucy about CODECABIN. Figuring out the possible logistics of doing it this year, with COVID-19 there are so many factors to consider. First and foremost is the safety of our CODECABIN guests.
Stumbled upon a website called Songlink/Odesli that gathers all the link for various services for a particular song or album. For the Alphabet Albums I've been linking to Spotify as that's what I use, but the Songlink embed offers links to the available alternatives too.
Here's the one for The Eagles - Hotel California.
Received a letter from the ICO, stating that my company hadn't paid a Data Protection fee. Which was the first time I was hearing about such a fee. I don't think it applies to us, but will follow up during the next week.
Saturday family movie night was LL's choice, and she finally picked... Pocahontas, (see Week 03 for relevance). I'm not sure if I was feeling tired, but I struggled to connect with the characters and story, felt a bit meh. Kids seemed to enjoy it though.
No jigsaws or collages this week. I guess I am tired. (I hadn't even mentioned MCU or WandaVision this week!) 😉
Lockdown + school half term + working from home = a fragile balancing act.
I've been working from home since 2006, so I'm used to the normal turbulence that comes with school holidays, but with lockdown, urgh! I'm not sure where the expectation comes from of being constantly available at a moment's notice - "let's go for a long walk!" - doesn't quite fit in with my work schedule... but then, what schedule? I'm my own boss, I can set my own hours, right?! I guess my aim throughout these lockdowns has been to find structure to my day... but this week, efforts were thrown out the window! 😆
Let's get the weekly MCU out the way. KK's interest came back, we watched Thor 2, which I felt was one of the weaker MCU movies, but KK enjoys the relationship between Thor and Jane Foster, mostly because she's read the recent comics where Jane has become Thor. Watched latest WandaVision episode too, again no spoilers! I like where the story is heading.
Wednesday was KK's 13th birthday - cue Harry Enfield's Kevin sketch. I did an acrostic of THIRTEEN for her birthday card. She had a lovely day.
My acrostic for KK's 13th birthday card. KK had to find out what eclectic meant.
Thursday, had the lovely job of unclogging our sewer drain. Rods at the ready! 🤢 Ah, the joys of children using too much toilet paper! 🧻 I'll say no more. 🤐
GitHub Skyline - a 3D model of your GitHub contribution graph. Mine looks busy enough. Although, remember it's quality not quantity in your open-source contributions!
Completed the last part of my recent "jigsaw trilogy"...
Getting Away From It All (part 2 of 3). 1,000 pieces each. Took about 5 hours with Lucy.Expand for a rambling about my jigsaw process.
When I do these jigsaws, I have been asked what I do with them afterwards. Do I keep them? Frame them? Put them up on a wall? It's an odd question to me, as I put them away almost immediately after I've taken a photo of the completed jigsaw. To me, a pleasure and process of doing a jigsaw is the journey not the destination. I enjoy the solving the problem in front of me, piecing it together, (as obvious as that sounds) are part of the creation. After the completion - achievement unlocked - then comes the destruction, taking apart, a hard reset. I take comfort in the symmetry - we create, we destroy.
Our Saturday family movie night we watched Pete's Dragon on Disney+, was predictable, but a good enjoyable family movie!
Watched part 2 of Adam Curtis' Can't Get You Out of My Head. Whilst I find it interesting, I can't help but think that it could have been done in half the time, total runtime of 6+ hours feels like it's labouring the point.
I think I may be going mad. I wasn't sure whether to write this next part or not. But as I've mentioned before, I'm not writing this for you (dear reader), I'm writing this for myself, my future self. Some reality, some humour, some truth.
I may have gone mad, not that I care, expand if you dare.
Sunday. The kids had watched several episodes of whatever on Netflix, totally zonked out, I had to get them away from the TV. I suggest that we do something creative. "What like?" they retort. I see a couple of magazines, ready for recycling - OK! and Vogue - not that we read these, (they were a gift from Lucy's friend, a cheer-me-up). I flick through them and suggest that we do a collage poster. Take random heads, put them on random bodies, random objects in random environments. The kids looked at me as if I was daft - probably right - "No thanks!" and they were off, escaping to their rooms.
"But it'll be fun." I call after them. No response.
I'm stubborn. It will be fun! I flick through the magazines looking for any inspiration. I start cutting, cutting and more cutting. Then gluing, gluing and more gluing, until... this...
Ballet Royale - a collage
Later, my youngest came back, saw the collage and chuckled. She picked up the scissors, flicked through the magazine, cut, cut, cut, glue, glue, glue, youthful creativity ensue.
I sent a photo of the collage around to a few friends, who thought it was amusing and had some artistic merit - well maybe that of a 14 year-old Y9 student 😆 - so I thought I'd share on this weeknote. Will I do more? Not sure. Could be something, could be nothing, more likely a mad moment in time.
Threw myself into work mode at the start of the week, Monday, Tuesday were fine, they flowed nicely. Maybe too nicely - might have even zoned out, as by Wednesday I thought it was Thursday! Losing track of days (again), welcome to Lockdown Britain 2021.
Biscuit of the week is Chocolate Hobnobs. Oh, how I missed thee, it has been too long.
Found the new feature in Chrome web-browser, to generate a QR code from a website's URL. There I was thinking that QR codes were a passing fad, but now it's upfront in browser address bar! Here's one for my weeknotes...
Chrome web-browser generated QR code for my weeknotes page.
Loving the T-Rex from Chrome's offline dinosaur game. Also TIL that you can play the Chrome dinosaur game whilst online, by typing chrome://dino/ in the address bar, (I think Chrome disallows you to click on the link directly).
Thursday evening we had school Parents Evening for KK. Of course, thanks to COVID-19, it was all done online. The school use a platform called School Cloud, a week earlier we went in, selected which teachers to see at which time slot, then on the night we logged on, had the full schedule all set up. All we had to do was wait for each video call to start - up pops the teacher, have a 5 minute chat, then on to the next one. Other parents I've chatted to have all been very impressed with the platform - even more than doing in-person Parents Evenings!
Afterwards, I joined the Umbraco London meetup - lots of great info about re-platforming to .NET 5 and future Umbraco roadmap. Although I've become very weary of Zoom calls - especially with larger audiences, I started to keep my video off and not really interact much - felt odd for me. Hoping that's just a lockdown thing.
Friday - as one of my friends told me - was a Palindrome Day! . I guess that is better than Groundhog Day... oh no wait, does that it's the same, but backwards?!
Didn't watch too much TV this past week. Watched the latest WandaVision episode, but I don't want to say much about it yet - no spoilers, still enjoying it. Adam Curtis has a new documentary film series out, Can't Get You Out of My Head, only watched part 1 so far.
Saturday family movie night would have been my choice, but KK was having a virtual sleep over - is that a thing now? A continuous video call with a few friends, watching Netflix together using some sync party app thing - I'm told it's called Teleparty. Anyway, so I let LL pick a movie instead... Monsters, Inc.
My sister got me a "jigsaw trilogy" for Christmas, two 500 pieces, and one 1,000 pieces. I did the 500 piece ones over the weekend...
Getting Away From It All (parts 1 and 3, of 3). 500 pieces each. Took about 2 hours each, done alone.
Sunday evening, we tried to find a nice romantic comedy movie to watch for Valentine's Day - not that we usually do anything for valentines - couldn't find anything classy, so we picked Penguin Bloom - a good heartfelt movie.
Noticing how I start off these weeknotes with a comment on how the past week has been a struggle, I can see a pattern emerging with me. Mondays, I try to get back into a work mindset - except my current work is somewhat lacking, both in substance and motivation - that is, along with juggling the kids' home-school schedule. Tuesdays, I feel awful. Guilt. Probably why I keep having those "what day is it again?" moments. By Wednesday, I've given myself a kick up the backside and feel that I have a grip on things again, an optimism. Thursdays, Fridays, I feel fine, but then the weekend breaks routine and I find myself back at the start of a vicious cycle. C'est la vie.
Whilst we're on a downer, here comes the "Dad joke of the week"...
When does a joke become a dad joke? When it becomes apparent.
🤦♂️ OK, enough, I'll stop these now!
Thursday, back to the dentist, (oh, should have made the "tooth-hurty" joke instead!), for what I thought would be another impression taken for the implant, oh no, it was the implant itself. I'm not sure how I didn't know in advance, (I blame lockdown; convenient scapegoat), but I was not prepared for it. I knew I'd be numbed up, so no physical pain, but still the thought of drilling and stitches didn't fill me with a warm happy feeling. The implant screw/socket thing all went fine, was done within an hour, no pain, just a bit achy once the novocaine had worn off. Spent most of the day in bed, sleeping it off, (any excuse!)
Friday evening was our local monthly Yatton 'Skype' Open Mic Night! (It's actually on Zoom.) My band didn't do any songs for this one, but I did do a few of the compering links. Good fun to do something different and creative.
MCU time! Not to give any spoilers with the episode 5 of WandaVision, let's say that I'm excited and intrigued about how future stories will open up and tie together. KK hasn't mentioned carrying on with Phase 2 movies yet.
At the weekend, we went out for a family walk - as we'd got out of the habit of our daily walks - so took a longer walk to make up for it, that's how it works, right?
Saturday family movie night was KK's choice... Mulan (the new live action version). It was one of those that I wasn't too interested in seeing, but KK was eager so we gave it a go. As usual, Disney deliver, ended up being an enjoyable adventure/action movie. As I'm getting older, any emotional father/daughter scenes pull on my heart string! Huh? tears? oh, my eye was itchy.
Sunday, after months of (infrequent) searching for the "last Gold Brick", LL and I have 100% completed Lego Harry Potter (Years 1–4) on the Wii! (Yes, I still have a Wii.) If you're familiar with it, (or any of the LEGO-themed movie games), you'll know how frustrating and time consuming it is to find all the last little bits and pieces. LL was super happy that we got 100%, (and could play as Lord Voldemort!)
LEGO Harry Potter on Wii, 100% complete. Yup, that's 15 billion studs!
For most of the week, I didn't watch any TV shows or movies - maybe because in writing these weeknotes I realise how much TV I was watching? Not sure. On the positive side, we did play more family games in the evenings.
We did a series of Downfall play-offs, (not the crappy modern version, but Lucy's original blue version from the 80s! Nostalgia!) Ultimately, Lucy won, LL came 2nd, with KK and I in joint 3rd.
🤦♂️ Bonus points if you tell this joke while the kids are playing Among Us.
Paid my personal tax bill - tends to pain me, I mean, yes, paying tax is a good thing, think it's more that bitter pill to swallow at the start of the year! On a positive note, Beatles' Taxman always gets stuck in my head - great song!
Friday, I had a call with Filip from Umbraco for a general chat and my thoughts on support for legacy releases - sparked from a tweet I made earlier in the week. Good feedback all round.
re: MCU, (because I've mentioned it every week now), the latest WandaVision episode was the only one I watched. Enjoying where the story is heading.
I did a jigsaw on Saturday afternoon...
Brighton Bound. 500 piece jigsaw. Took about 5 hours, alone. The sky took ages!
Saturday family movie night was Lucy's choice... Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Re-watching the films closer together, it's incredible seeing how much the actors age between them. Great movie, one of my favourites out of the series.
These lockdown weeks seem to be getting tougher. This past week has mentally taken its toll on us - at this point I always acknowledge that we (as a family) are in a much more privileged position than others, so I shouldn't complain - although everything is relative to your own circumstances. Oh, how very English of me.
Monday, I received the replacement Umbraco MVP New Year's gift, (the first one arrived in several shattered pieces, eek!), just in time for the afternoon's Umbraco HQ Hew Year webinar. Main announcement being that this year's CodeGarden will be a virtual event.
re: (the now regular slot of) MCU movies - I gave in, we watched Iron Man 3 on Monday night. During the week I watched the first 3 episodes of WandaVision - I didn't watch with KK, didn't know if it'd spoil the other movies for her. WandaVision is interesting, at face value it's fun, while the underlying psycho-drama is apparent. Curious how much of the comic's House of M storyline plays out in the show.
Tuesday was one of those weird days again where I thought it was Wednesday, lost all track of time. I wasn't feeling too great, had a stomach ache - couldn't concentrate on work, had to escape the house - went for a long walk, few miles to get some fresh air and clear my head. A good opportunity to listen to the current Alphabet Albums.
Wednesday - the actual Wednesday - I had an Umbraco MVP Connect call, covered similar to Monday's main HQ webinar, but with extra insider news - well, things that will be announced in due course, (or on Friday's umbraCoffee).
I've been winding the kids up with corny "dad jokes", so I don't see why you (dear reader) should get off so lightly. I hereby present my dubious (and meta) "Dad joke of the week"...
Is it appropriate to make a 'dad joke' if you're not a dad? No, it's a faux pa!
Cue face-palm 🤦♂️
Thursday evening, I missed the Umbraco Manchester meet-up! It looked a good one, I'm always curious about insights on Content Modeling. In my defence, I was preparing for LL's 10th birthday... I seem to get carried away with doodling on their birthday cards.
My illustration on LL's 10th birthday card. OK, the number of days hasn't taken leap years into account, doh!
Saturday we went out for a 6 mile walk, an elaborate round trip to Lucy's folks to drop off some birthday cake.
Saturday family movie night was LL's choice... Lilo and Stitch 2 - she had suggest Pocahontas, (which none of us have actually seen before), but she suddenly changed her mind last minute. I like the original Stitch movie, the sequel was daft, but it was only about an hour long, and it had Elvis references!
Once the kids were in bed, I watched Dark Waters - I do like a good "inspired by a true story" political/legal thriller, I'd been wanting to watch it for a while - but knew the subject matter would be quite heavy, so been putting it off. Great acting and writing, I couldn't get to sleep afterwards, the details kept playing on my mind. Will we ever understand the darker impacts of our own inventions, on the environment, on our humanity?
The week started with a dentist appointment to get an x-ray and impression for a potential implant, (had a tooth extract a few months ago). Back again early February for further impression and tooth modelling.
Slowly getting back into the swing with work. Still working from the dining table, I haven't braved my garage-office yet, (too cold). Built a couple of nice features for the Neon platform.
In the muddle of work and the kid's remote-learning, everyday has become lockdown groundhog day. I spent most of Wednesday thinking it was Tuesday (almost to the point of argument), then Thursday felt like Wednesday, and Friday who knows. Days lost, sanity questioned.
I've been enjoying hacking around on my personal website. I've ripped out the static site generator and gone back to hand-coding with good old HTML, CSS and PHP. Put together a page for the jigsaws I've completed. In the spirit of learning, I took a look at Tailwind CSS for making the Jigsaws page. I gave it a couple of hours, but cognitively struggled with getting the syntax in my head, spent more time searching the reference documentation - so sacked it off, went with plain old trustworthy CSS. I wanted something up there fast. I'm sure Tailwind is super productive for those who've invested the time, alas, maybe next time.
I'm feeling quite comfortable with my personal website being a mess, by that I mean unstructured. For many years I wanted to have an over-arching structure for the whole website, but that lead me to a long road of procrastination. My current idea is to have a collection of microsites for my various interests.
Successfully avoided any MCU movies this week, much to the disappointment of KK. Probably a few more days until I cave in. Watched the final few episodes of The Fall - 3rd series felt slow, but overall enjoyed it, more interested in the psychiatric aspects than the drama.
Not too much went on at the weekend, spent most of Saturday out in the garden - sounds idyllic, well if de-weeding, pruning and shifting paving stones takes your fancy. Good to be outside though.
Saturday family movie night, we attempted to watch Bristol Old Vic's "At Home" performance of Swallows and Amazons, but we hit buffering problems, (not sure if it was a Chromecast issue or something else, we'll try again next week), so we paused it and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets instead, (it's LL's first time watching the series, she was very excited).
Sunday, quiet day - had planned on a jigsaw, but ended up mucking around on the piano, re-learning some old Beatles tunes, like The Fool on the Hill.
After a few weeks of yo-yo'ing between Tier 2 and Tier 3, we welcomed in the New Year with a full national lockdown!
School started back up, with remote learning in full swing, and both kids having full schedules. The primary school schedule is a little more flexible, but secondary school is pretty much full lessons between 9am and 3pm, (with lunch and breaks, of course).
I'm not sure how we got through the previous national lockdowns with only one laptop between the kids, but this time it wasn't going to cut it, so had to buy an extra laptop. After much research to find a decently priced, well spec'd laptop - basically it had to be able to run Microsoft Teams (full app) and Roblox (for the kids own sanity), I settled on a Surface Laptop Go. Reasonably priced forthe spec, slightly higher than my budget in mind, but I've had other Surface devices and know what I'm dealing with, plus minimal adware/bloat.
I've struggled to get myself back into a work mindset. I'd relocated from my garage-office to back inside the house, at the dining table, a couple of weeks before Christmas, as my garage-office was starting to feel too cold, (poorly insulated). This was fine whilst the kids were at school, but the past week of remote-learning has proven to be not very productive for me.
Daily walks, mostly around the local park, quite repetitive towards the end of the week.
Our Saturday family movie night we watched Soul on Disney+, we enjoyed it very much.
Another lockdown thing I'm doing with a couple of my music-loving neighbours is, Alphabet Albums. Starting with "A", each fortnight we take the next letter of the alphabet and pick an album starting with the artist (band name or surname). Selections for "A" are: ABBA - The Visitors, Tori Amos - Under The Pink, and Paul Anka - Rock Swings.
I also completed a couple of jigsaws...
Where are The Beatles? 300 piece jigsaw. Took about 90 minutes, alone.Balloon Festival. 500 piece jigsaw. Took about 3 hours with Lucy.
