It was stupidly hot yesterday, but the weather broke about six in the evening, and today, despite blue skies it was comparatively chilly. So, rather than being hotboxed in the house, hunched over my computer, I was blessed with a temperate environment to work within.

After all the stress, the party was remarkably relaxed: we drove the kids to the pool, they frolicked for an hour, we went to the park, they ate and sunbathed and ran around, and then they smashed open their piñatas and got more sweets, and then we drove home.

It was La Serpiente’s birthday today, and after spending half the night wrapping presents and writing riddles for her to follow to find them, I was a shambling mess, following her around the house as she tried to decipher my handwriting and then the various clues. (I’m now thinking that for Christmas there should be […]

I went to the office today; I’d had my desk reassigned to a different floor. My old desk was with a nice view of the street outside, enough natural light to brighten my mood without so much that there was glare. My new desk, on a different floor, is right next to the door to […]

I slept badly, getting to sleep about two this morning, and that coloured my day. My concentration was off all day, and then when I discovered that somebody had stolen my electric bike from the porch of our house, that was just the capper on it all. I suppose I hadn’t ridden it much for […]

Yesterday we walked out on the Hoh River trail, which goes 18 miles up the valley – we just slogged through the mud to the first bridge by a waterfall, at about 2.7 miles in. The kids rushed off at great pace while we slowly shambled after them. Stopping at the waterfall for a breather […]

After a surprisingly uneventful night (with the exception of a 3am and 5am wake up, the kids slept, allowing us to rest too) we had a short breakfast, packed up the car and drove down to Forks, for our second breakfast at an ok-but-not-great diner, before taking half an hour at Forks’ public library, and […]

School finished early at 1:25 today, and then we bundled the girls into the car and drove up to the Edmonds ferry terminal. Where there was a two hour wait to get on a ferry, so we drove for an hour down to the Seattle ferry terminal and waited an hour there for a different […]

My wife had her book group come over tonight to go over Sophie’s World, while I put the kids to bed. I didn’t sleep at all well last night and so I fell asleep on the floor next to La Serpiente, struggling to wake up at 9pm and go downstairs to be sociable.

Our neighbours have been putting uneaten catfood out for the crows, and this seems to have paid dividends, as this afternoon the crows dropped two dead rats in the back of our garden. They’d been properly eviscerated, their bellies pecked out, and then their bodies discarded as a warning to other rats to stay clear. […]