[13–19 Jun]
We celebrated Breaker of Horses' first birthday — a couple of times, in fact. There's another birthday very close in time, and so we joined my stepfamily twice and at two locations. All birthday parties were great.
[6–12 Jun]
On Saturday the family (including my parents) attended Miss Entropy's “graduation ceremony”.
[30 May – 5 Jun]
This week we all went to two nearby towns to visit two flats for sale.
Also, I fought bad UX, and found even more evidence that, as in many other areas, in higher education it is men who are worst off.
[23–29 May]
This week was mostly uneventful.
On Monday, I took Miss Entropy to her weekly swimming “lesson”. On Tuesday, my wife went to work to her office until late, I went for a routine visit with my ENT doctor, and my parents came along. On Thursday we both commuted to work; I had a nice (and free) lunch on the rooftop of our office building with several of my colleagues, and my parents picked up the kids around 15:30 and took them to the park. On Friday we went with the kids to a park nearby again, and it was deserted (it's hot in the afternoons already!), and later at night we moved Breaker of Horses to the bigger crib in the other room (so that now the siblings sleep together in the same room, and wife & I have recovered our own at last).
[16–22 May]
On Monday (a public holiday) we drove back from Sagunto to our home in Madrid. We stopped twice to recharge the car because we didn't want to risk finding our one planned charging station busy or out of order; although energy consumption was higher this time, we could very well have made it with just one stop (as in the outbound trip). Because of that extra stop, and also some intense traffic near Madrid, the journey was a bit tiring for us all.
On Tuesday around 7:50 AM I left riding my bike for a picturesque town near Madrid for a three-day event organised by my company. There I met more than 250 of my colleagues, mostly engineers, for a packed agenda of presentations, workshops, and off-topic activities. It was all very well organised, we accomplished so much, and the meals, excursions and other activities were great fun. For me it was especially valuable to meet physically for the first time a few brilliant workmates with whom I've been working for two years or more, but had never seen IRL.
[9–15 May]
Warm days already; sometimes even hot. After work/nursery, we often went to nearby parks with the kids, or spent time in the evenings down here in our estate, where we met our neighbours and their little ones too. Breaker of Horses plays a lot with the sand now.
We also attended our friend C.'s second birthday party and had a great time with her, her parents, and some acquaintances.
It seems my wife and I now drag assorted, quasi-permanent mild physical discomforts of one sort or another. (Is this the new normal, now that we're parents of two? 😤) This week it was her back aching intermittently, and me experiencing slight bumps from my nauseating tiredness of the previous weekend.
[2–8 May]
Monday was a public holiday. My wife took the lift down to the storage room and up again a couple of times, carrying accessories and clothing back and forth. As a result, that very evening the kids bathed together for the first time (Breaker of Horses sitting in a special plastic chair inside the bathtub), and we all could squeeze in the kitchen for dinner (my son at a high chair with his own little tray).
On Tuesday my parents came along and helped with the kids. I took Miss Entropy to the paediatrician (it was nothing serious).
[25 Apr – 1 May]
On Monday I took our brand new car to a local official repair shop (which is very close, too) to tell them about an issue that we had the same day we got the car. Their answer was as expected as unsatisfactory.
On Tuesday my wife charged the car for the first time, in the parking lot of her company — just a bit, and very slowly: only the two slow charging points were available, and anyway we were still experimenting with the whole electric thing. In the afternoon I took the kids to a park, but it started pouring and I had to run with them to find shelter. Miss Entropy and I ended up standing helplessly in the street with our backs pushing against the side of an apartment building, while I tried to keep Breaker of Horses' stroller dry under a plastic bag that I had spread out. I called my wife, who was wrapping up at work anyway, and fortunately she appeared soon after riding her beautiful electric beast, and rescued us.
[18–24 Apr]
This was a busy week.
[11–17 Apr]
We spent most of Easter in Granada with my parents. It was sunny and warm, at times even hot, both in Granada and back in Madrid during the weekend. We also met my uncle & aunt twice (and even my cousin B. for a few minutes).