A simple breakfast can take a long time when the world around you is so full of much more important things to think about. Such as all the text on each package on the kitchen table. (Learning to read definitely did not help make meals go faster.) And the ceiling. And whatever is happening outside the window. And just about everything else.

My most comfortable shoes have slippery laces. For years I have simply tied the loops in an extra overhand knot to keep the laces from coming loose, and then had to fiddle with the knot afterwards when I wanted to untie it.

No more! I took 5 minutes to learn to tie a Better Bow Knot. It never comes loose (based on a week’s worth of testing) and yet I can undo it by simply pulling at the free ends, like with a normal bow not.

Why did I wait so long to spend those 5 minutes?

… drying after an afternoon of rain and sleet. Someone pressed Pause on spring.

It’s spring – gardening season has started! I’ve taken the first steps in this season’s big project, which is to plant a hedge along the retaining wall that we had built last year, all the way along the two sides of the garden that face the street. Spiderman is helping me dig a ditch for the hedge.

Spring has barely arrived in the south-facing side of our garden, and here’s a dandelion already thinking it’s summer.

Adrian and I went to pick up a package from the video rental shop/DHL parcel delivery point, and even though it was past the time they should open, they were not. We hung around for ten minutes or so, me taking photos, Adrian cycling up and down the pavement. No staff turned up so we came back home without our package.

Today is release day at work. The release responsibility rotates so most developers are reasonably proficient in pressing the right buttons, and it wasn’t my turn this time. I normally stay in the office for the release anyway, especially if the developer pressing the buttons is a junior one, because I feel ultimately responsible. Today I couldn’t stay late, so I logged in from home instead, after picking up the kids from school.

It turns out the kids are surprisingly good at entertaining themselves and doing things together if they really, really don’t have the alternative of hanging around an adult. They spent a good long while playing with kinetic sand, and they even cleaned it all up after themselves.

The first scillas are flowering on the south side of the house, and more are on the way.

My brother has been staying with us for a few days. Adrian quickly made friends with him. They’ve been playing Skylanders together, and today they built an obstacle course (at a very tiny scale) in Geomag – with monkey bars and balance beams. These are the monkey bars.