Yesterday Lisa and I travelled down to Southend (sorry, I mean Westcliff-on-sea - it's much posher) to visit my brother and his family. Naturally we were half an hour late, but fortunately they're even worse than we are, so they weren't actually in when we got there. It turned out they'd had an important appointment at the cake shop.

We were soon inside though, and being welcomed by my six year old niece, who sarcastically rubbed in the fact that I haven't visited for a while, by asking "Have you been here before?", and then sticking this sticker on me...



... and telling me she'd chosen it especially "because you like wigs, don't you Phil".

So I take it she's seen the photo of me dressed as Elvis.

Lisa was soon kidnapped to look at Disney princesses on the computer, so I ate one of the Barbie apples I'd bought from Tescos, and accepted a gift of sausages from my sister-in-law.

The evening featured a game of 'Fishes', a complicated pastime which essentially involved violently flapping a duvet in the air and attempting to cause serious injury to a 6 year old. But on the plus side I was assured that "Mummy and Daddy don't mind". So that's alright then.

Afterwards we sat around eating take-away pizza and ice cream, while I told my sister-in-law about the diet I'm on, and she gave me the lowdown on her 24 hour detox plan. She's a big fan of Channel 4's 'You Are What You Eat', she told me as she helped herself to more garlic bread.

Meanwhile, my niece demanded to know if Lisa and I are going to get married, before taking Lisa upstairs and asking if she's going to have a baby. Which was quite sweet, until she added "If you do, you won't give it more attention than me, will you?". Personally I just stayed downstairs and tried to persuade my brother to buy me a flat in Brighton. I think I'll use Lisa's baby-sitting services as a bargaining tool.

We eventually made it home at midnight. It didn't take long - there aren't any speed cameras on the A12.