Again, first things first: the Belgian numbers are slightly better than ten days ago, and a little better again than twenty or thirty days ago. Considering that the famously infectious British strain has thoroughly overtaken the country, it could be a lot worse (as it is in the UK).

There seems to have been an extraordinary flap on Friday evening about an EU proposal, quickly withdrawn, to limit provision of vaccines to Northern Ireland. To be honest, I have not formed an opinion about this yet, as I have been taking the weekend off, a bit ground down by aches and pains (annoying rather than serious) – what impresses me in passing is how strongly people feel that their rapid hot take is important, despite having little more information than I do. It's clear that the EU screwed up, and that some in the UK are being gleeful at one EU mis-step after five and a half years of British blundering, but I tend to think it will have been forgotten by the middle of next month, if not next week.

Nominations for the Hugo awards were safely launched on Tuesday. I cannot claim a lot of credit for this – the previous team had left things in good shape, needing only a few more tweaks after we took over. Of course, much remains uncertain about this year's Worldcon, but you can be pretty sure that there will be Hugo Awards.

I was reflecting that it's exactly two years since F and I went to Bosnia and Croatia, reliving old memories for me and creating new ones for us both. Those days will come again.

I do miss travel. I have not even been to Brussels since mid-December.

Still, there are always new things to do. I took B today to a park I had not visited before, De Beemden in Landen. She was disappointed that there was not enough sunlight to make hand shadows on the ground, but otherwise seemed to enjoy the change of scene.

Stay well, everyone.