We're having a luxuriously lazy Sunday morning, first one in awhile. Babe asleep, cwtching with her Mom after a feed, cool breeze coming through the window from a quiet world yet to fully stir, steam rising from our coffee cups, checking the news and randomly browsing the internet.

Lately I've been drinking plenty of low abv beers, fulfilling my prediction from just over 2 months ago – they're a sensible option in my current era of fractured sleep when I need to be a responsible handler of the wee one! So, time to give a verdict on which are my faves so far and some thoughts on which ones I might try next.

I've never needed to use CSS before. One of the most appealing things about the Write.as blogging platform is that it gets out of your way and just lets you write! However, I thought it was time to jazz up and personalise my blog a little and thus started my descent into a wormhole of swirling CSS code and endless colour hex possibilities. Fortunately, I'd attached a bungee cord to stop me descending too far into web design and never resurfacing to the land of blogging!

A few nights ago I had my first glass of whisky in 8 weeks. And it tasted good! When my daughter was born, I celebrated with a dram of 16 year old Lagavulin (naturally), a favourite of mine as well as Ron Swanson from Parks & Rec. Then came the whirlwind of 8 weeks of newborn during which I pretty much scaled back to low abv beer to survive. Finally, with my wife and daughter asleep I turned the lights down low, put on some chill-out music (Air) and poured myself a finger of Kilchoman matured in a Red Wine Cask (Douro Valley, Portugal) that I picked up from the distillery on Islay when we visited in 2018.

My wife, The Canadian, has started a Write.as blog. Check it out and give it some love over at https://write.as/mapledragon. Hopefully, having two of us on parallel blogging tracks will keep us going! I do like having shared hobbies and interests. We did both have Wordpress blogs years ago, that time around with her starting one first (on expat life and running) followed by me (on beer and homebrewing).

The wind howled through the streets last night Shaking trees, throwing rain against windows and skylights Bullets of water hurled onto panes of glass in the darkness until suddenly Silence – the calm after the storm.

As I've got older, I've come to realise more and more the importance of managing expectations. Of work/career goals and timelines. Of personal and professional relationships. Of sports teams. Of that new movie or piece of technology that's being released. Of government and political leaders. But most of all, of myself.

It's hot in the UK right now. Not hot on the global scale but certainly hot for a relatively northern island used to a temperate climate with an old, old infrastructure that isn't set up with AC in houses etc. I'm sticky and a little grouchy but I've not blogged in awhile so this will help lift my mood a little!

Through the open window comes the noise of traffic Doppler-shifted, there's less than there used to be Lazily reaching up from the street to my ears Then fading away like smoke Dissipating into the world

“Chirp chirp chirp!” says the industrious little sparrow, flying between the bushes and trees in the back yards and alleyway behind where we live. “Chirp chirp!” The resurgence of nature was a theme picked up on the world over during lockdown. Part of it real. Part of it a perceptual result of people spending more time looking out of their home windows during the day and hearing wildlife against a background of reduced traffic noise.