The heatwave in UK continues — grandpa sunbathes while Olive sensibly retreats to her castle.

We're short of beds so Leo's sleeping in the cupboard.

Olive celebrated her 3rd birthday with her cousins Oscar and Ralph at Baxter Farm.

Aunty Holly arriving for Olive's party.

Sandy baked Olive's favourite cupcakes.

More cupcakes!

We like the styling but enough of the cupcakes.

Olive handing a cake to her 98-year-old great granny.

Olive dressed as Snow White and Oscar as Hank Chief ( the pirate from The Troll by Julia Donaldson).

Phil with hat.

Grandpa and Ralph under the pear tree.

The whole family wants to play with Olive's birthday presents.

Bedtime stories.

Olive hanging out with her cousins Oscar (left) and Ralph (right).

A must-stop for lunch in London is Borough Market near London Bridge.

Olive hiding behind a toasted cheese (raclette) sandwich from Kappacasein stall at Borough Market in the grounds of Southwark Cathedral.

After lunch at Borough Market, Sandy's chocolate radar soon picked up a chocolate festival being held at South Bank.

Phil enjoying chocolate samples for pudding.

Celebrating Nel's birthday under a glorious blue sky.

From the left: Grandpa, Ralph, Oscar, Nel, Olive, Phil, Holly and Granny.

Oscar and Olive cooking food on the barbecue.

I'm posting this from a luxurious villa set back from the sea and bordered by a river. The cook has ruined my diet with delicious Sri Lankan curries and the largest barbecued parrot fish I've ever seen (much less eaten). We have our own tuktuk with driver, which is lucky as the driver of the villa's MPV was in hauled into court this morning for a speeding offense.

Olive and Phil do the newspaper dance at the Christmas concert. When the music stops the couples — parent and kid (or hot Filipina maid and kid, see couple in foreground) — fold the newspaper once. This routine is repeated until the pair step off the newspaper or fall down. Phil claims he and Olive were the first to be eliminated because of their complicated dance routine, but I suspect the organizers were worried everybody might drown in the pool of sweat forming at Phil's feet.

This year we celebrated Christmas with Sandy's family up in Kuala Lumpur and avoided the whole turkey palaver by going out for Christmas lunch. Stick-in-the-mud traditionalist Phil still insisted on ordering a Christmas turkey platter with all the trimmings, while everybody else wisely chose pasta or all-day breakfast. ("Hey, does that mean I can have pizza this coming Chinese New Year instead of steamboat?" Phil)

The best thing about going out for Christmas lunch is that you don't have to eat leftover turkey for two weeks afterwards. We sat down for an al-fresco Thai meal in the heart of KL's red-light district for Christmas dinner, and on Boxing Day we went for a picnic near Templar Park and soaked up Po Po's delicious chicken curry with slices of crusty baguette.

Our hopes for a 24-hour break from diapers and high-chairs — our first 24-hour break together in two years — were dashed when Olive came down with a temperature hours before our "holiday". Sandy's family were due to come down from Malaysia to look after Olive for one night so Sandy and I could chill out in a 5-star hotel in town. We didn't feel confident to leave the country but this would have been good enough. However, Olive obviously got wind of our plans and fell sick. It was decided she couldn't be left at home so she squeezed into our room at Swissotel the Stamford and ensured we didn't sleep at all. At least the rest of the family had a good night's sleep in our flat.

Poor old Sandy never even saw the swimming pool. We couldn't lounge in bed and order room service as planned. Breakfast didn't work as Olive woke at 5am then later went back to sleep in our bed! In the end I nipped downstairs and bagged some nasty fast food from a coffee chain for breakfast. There was an Italian deli round the corner but when I tried to order the staff apologised that they'd partied too hard the previous night and weren't yet ready to serve breakfast.

The only redeeming feature of the one-night escape was the view from the room. This is the Formula 1 view. I must check out the price during this year's F1 and see if a few of us can share the cost.

With baby #2 due in a few weeks, it looks like we're not going to have a night off for another two years unless Phil's parents or sister come to stay from the UK and look after the kids. Or we hire a maid.