family,  London

Vacation Plans

January 18, 2017 /
London at night

I might possibly have mentioned before that I love London.  Does that sound familiar?  Do you have a vague memory of me rhapsodizing about England and bookstores and gardens?

I thought you might.

Well.

We are going to do it all over again.  We are going to England again in April and this time we are taking the kids with us.

london underground

I know.  Just think of all the posts I am going to get out of this trip.  Prepare to be inundated with London photos.

It is going to be a very different trip since we will have the kids with us.  London has always been our place.  We spend the rest of the year being parents and while we love our kids it has always been wonderful to spend one week just being a couple.  However, our son is getting older and we can see the writing on the wall.  In the not too distant future he will have his own independent life and even if he comes on vacation with us it won’t be the same.  He will want to do his own thing.  He will be an adult.  We want to do this one big trip while he is still a kid, while we are still parents doing things with our kids, not adults doing things with other independent adults.  We want to take our kids to the zoo and the museums and show them the sights.  So that is exactly what we are going to do.  We are going to show our children the things we have come to love and we are going to hope they have just a little bit of the feeling we do about England.  The kids are very excited and so are we.

Greenwich

When my husband and I go to London we spend a lot of time touring stately homes, wandering through gardens, browsing in bookshops, and sitting in coffee shops.  I think we are going to be experiencing a very different London with the kids.  Our son has already requested that we tour Emirates Stadium where Arsenal plays.  You can be sure that has never been on my list of things to do in London before.  Our daughter wants to go to the zoo. It doesn’t matter what city we are in, she always wants to go to the zoo.  We are going to show them a lot of the major tourist attractions and we are hoping to fit in a train trip out into the countryside.  I have been researching castles because our son is fascinated by the medieval time period and I think it would be fun to tour a castle that recreates that time.  Please, let me know if you have any suggestions.

You can also be sure that I will be visiting as many bookshops as I can get away with.  It isn’t a trip to London if I don’t go to Persephone Books and Daunt Books and Waterstones and well, the list just goes on and on.

We are going back to London with its noise and commotion, its gardens and its beautiful buildings.  We are going to eat fish and chips and tea and cake.  We are going to walk until our feet hurt and then be crushed onto the underground with too many people.  We will decide everyone’s accent sounds cooler than ours.  I will drive my family crazy by taking too many photographs.  We will show the kids a bigger world.  We will marvel at the history.  We will spend the week telling our daughter she can’t buy every single stuffed animal she sees.  I will try to buy every book I see.  We will enjoy our time with our kids because they grow up faster than you ever would believe possible.

A blog by a book lover, tea drinker, and over-analyzer of life.

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18 Comments

  • Carolann Chambers

    January 18, 2017 at 8:12 pm Reply

    As important as it is to have couple time, I think that it's amazing that you are taking your kids this time! This will be such a special trip for your family, something your kids will never forget. Some of my best memories with my parents are from vacations.

  • Anonymous

    January 18, 2017 at 9:21 pm Reply

    Oh, oh, I live in Cheltenham, famed for its cheeserolling & posh shops! You can come see me. 😉 Honestly, it is too far for a day out, but let me know if you venture westward. Would be lovely to meet you. PS I'm working industriously on your hat!

  • Lisa

    January 19, 2017 at 11:51 am Reply

    How exciting! I am of course already & officially envious. Greenwich is at the top of my list for my next visit. I can't figure out how I missed it on my (all too few) other trips.

    • jllee656

      January 20, 2017 at 1:11 pm Reply

      It is exciting. Thank goodness the kids are excited too. It would be terrible if we were planning something like this and they just accepted it as a standard vacation.

      Greenwich is fun. You should definitely go. Of course, I think everyone should go to England all the time…. This will be our last trip for a while though. There are too many practical things we need to do.

  • Anonymous

    January 21, 2017 at 4:12 am Reply

    How exciting! I miss London and I shall live vicariously through your future photos. Also, I cannot believe I have never been to Daunt Books…

    Alas, I have no good recommendations for medieval castles at the top of my head. Do you know where in the countryside you are going? Yorkshire has that beautiful, wild and windswept landscape your son might appreciate — less manicured, I mean. And if I'm not mistaken, Yorkshire has some castles (Skipton Castle, maybe?) and ruins that date around or even before the period…

    • jllee656

      January 22, 2017 at 11:33 pm Reply

      You absolutely need to go to Daunt Books one of these days. Of course, you just got home from a trip to Japan. I don't think I will ever make it there, too far and too expensive. I am really hoping to see some photos on your blog.

      I would love to go to Yorkshire but I don't think that is going to happen this trip. I think we are going to stay pretty close to London. We don't want to try to do too much. Someone on Twitter recommended Arundel Castle to me. It looks like that should be a good day trip.

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