And by too old I mean to fit into the social scene, not for boring work reasons.

That and frites being murder on the cholesterol

The cod smell is that bad, huh?

There's a social scene in Brussels?

Would it in any way reduce the levels of complaining?

I think it's very smug tho, pp. Like a roomful of young strutterses.

The cod smell has gone. Yesterday I almost dropped a sausage then thankfully didn't. 

There is more than one  social scene. If you would like a safe space in which to drink wine, accompanied by not enough food to absorb it, with other angry, middle-aged, Anglophone women, that option certainly exists.