February 2025: Zoo Days, Steak Nights, and Network Tinkering

There’s something about February that always catches me off guard. It’s the shortest month, yet somehow it always manages to pack in more than you’d expect. Looking back at my camera roll, February 2025 was no exception.

Colchester Zoo

We kicked off the month with a trip to Colchester Zoo. Alex and I were down in Colchester anyway, so we figured why not make a day of it? Turned out to be a great call. The weather held up surprisingly well for February, and there’s something really relaxing about wandering around a zoo with no particular agenda.

We saw red pandas, meerkats, spotted pigs, and plenty more. It’s a decent sized zoo with a good variety of animals. Already talking about when we might go back.

Tomahawk Steak House with Friends

One of the highlights of February was a meal out at Tomahawk Steak House with the gang – me and Alex, Michelle and Paul, Claire and Kingy, and Adam. There’s nothing quite like catching up with good friends over even better food.

The steaks were incredible – proper tomahawks with all the trimmings. Creamy mash, peppercorn sauce, mac and cheese on the side. Good food, good company, and plenty of laughs. Definitely need to make this a regular thing.

Planning Ahead

February also saw us booking a trip to Alton Towers for March – a short break at the Woodland Lodges with theme park access. Nothing like having something to look forward to, especially as the days start getting longer and spring feels like it might actually arrive at some point.

Tech Corner: Network Monitoring Made Simple

I’ve been doing some work on my home network this month, and thought I’d share a quick tip that’s been helpful.

If you’re running a home lab or just want to keep an eye on your network, Uptime Kuma is an absolute gem. It’s a self-hosted monitoring tool that’s incredibly easy to set up with Docker:

docker run -d \
  --name uptime-kuma \
  -p 3001:3001 \
  -v uptime-kuma:/app/data \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  louislam/uptime-kuma:1

Once running, you can monitor websites, ping servers, check TCP ports, and even monitor Docker containers. The interface is clean, notifications are customisable (Discord, Telegram, email, you name it), and it runs beautifully on minimal hardware. I’ve got it watching my key services, and it’s already saved me from a few “is it just me or is the internet down?” moments.

Pro tip: Set up a status page for your family to check before they come asking why the Plex server is down. Trust me on this one.

Looking Forward

March is shaping up to be exciting with the Alton Towers trip on the horizon. The clocks go forward soon, which means lighter evenings and (hopefully) some garden time. But for now, February was a good one – time with Alex, catching up with friends, and a bit of tinkering. Can’t ask for much more than that.

Until next time!