A few weeks ago me and Steve went to Brussels for a long weekend. It was one of the nicest holidays I’ve ever had, as it was cheap, swanky, and we travelled by train. OK, so it wasn’t the Orient Express or the trippy and fantastic Budapest Children’s Railway (I think the drivers are out of their teens, but the conductors and station staff are all under 16), but now that flying has become so time-consuming and crap, the train is for me.

Also, we stayed at the Hilton, and it was sexy in that way only large, business-y hotels are. Sort of impersonal, and lots of gold and glass and ornate lifts. We were amazed they actually let us in, and every time we passed the doorman and entered the lobby, we’d whisper ‘keep walking… they didn’t see us yet’ to each other, and scurry to our room, where we would breathe a sigh of relief and laugh gleefully at having been allowed to stay in a place we obviously could not afford.

Saw the twins last week. At two and a half, they are chatty and smiley, and I was pleased to see that they are upholding the Jasiewicz tradition of taking off their trousers in the evening, the more comfortably to watch TV and let their dinner digest.