Positive and Negative

In August we will be making a short trip to Belgium. We have adapted our schedule to the bizarre, random pricing of the Eurostar timetable, making allowance for the fact that it may take longer to check in than to make the journey. We have dug deep into the complexities of booking connecting trains - discovering the advantage of booking tickets, not to St Pancras, but to 'London International CIV'. It's the same platform at the same place, of course, but if you think a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, you have not dealt with the British railway system lately

You may know of "The man in seat 61"; we are long-term disciples. He says it is possible to buy a Eurostar ticket to a destination called "any Belgian station", which we thought would reduce some of the hassle, as are travelling on from Brussels. Well maybe you can, but not in any corridor of the website we could find. We were, however, reassured to read that "Belgian trains work on a 'turn up, buy a ticket and hop' on basis, with fixed prices based on distance and seat reservations unnecessary and not possible; no need to pre-book and no price advantage on doing so". What a truly radical system; if only we had thought of that

The closely guarded secret of rail tickets to the 'CIV' destination can only be bought on one website (bizzarely, trainsplit) and, even then, you can't buy an e-ticket, you must go to a station, show your credit card to a machine and print out your tickets on cardboard. I fully expect us to depart from platform nine-and-three-quarters

One step defeated us - how to buy a car park permit for the length of our trip at our departure station. The internet knows everything, but only if you ask the right questions. We decided we would ask someone while printing out our retro, cardboard tickets. A very helpful woman left her ticket office and showed us the buttons to press before we flash our card. This is an experience we should cherish - today's newspaper reports that the Government plans to shut down almost all ticket offices nationwide as soon as possible. Next time, we will have to find our own buttons

Lucky us that the town museum has a sculpture exhibition with work by some of the most significant artists of the 20th century. Most of the big names even I have heard of are there: Epstein, Moore, Hepworth, Frink, Gormley, Whiteread, along with some less familiar names from the post-war generation to whom the phrase 'geometry of fear' was applied. To our surprise, we found the whole thing unmoving. Perhaps Monday morning is not the perfect moment for art appreciation; perhaps the rather stark gallery and prosaic commentary on the works did not help; perhaps this stratum of sculpture is beyond my untrained eye

I did like the shadows on the wall thrown by one of them, though. I think this was entirely unintended. I've incuded the work itself as an extra: Girl and Boy, a 1951 work by Reg Butler