God Save the Queen ... Our Trip to England

My husband, daughter and I recently traveled to England to visit friends and family. Lily had never been and, as she was already 15 months old, we figured it was high time we took her to visit the land of her ancestors ... well, some of them anyway :).

After a very exhausting journey, we arrived at 6:30 a.m. London time and were met by Chris' sister, Corinne. She drove us to their new home in Beckenham (outskirts of London), where we were to stay for the next few days.  We spent the entire first day recovering from our journey.  Lily did really well, probably buoyed up by all the excitement of meeting her cousins, Anna (2.5 yrs) and Rowan (5 mo's).

This is Uncle Paul reading a bedtime story to Anna and Lily on the first night we arrived.

The next day we headed into central London to meet up with some friends who had flown in from Barcelona to meet up with us, Sabina and Adrian and their 1 year old son, Max.  Here we are (below) at Trafalgar Square on our way to meet up with them.

Lily had never seen a city the likes of London ... does one even exist?! ... and was fascinated by all the sights!  

Here's another shot taken in Trafalgar square with Chris blending in with the other landmarks :)

This is Lily on the 'tube'.  She's holding her brand new Paddington Bear, which we bought her at Hamley's, London's FAO Schwartz equivalent.  

Here is Chris with Anna and Lily one morning reading one of his childhood favorites, 'Tintin ' to the girls.

There's just something about the way the light filters through the old window panes in the cool crisp English mornings ...

It was so lovely to spend time with Chris' sister and her family. and Lily loved playing with her cousins and visiting their neighborhood park (below).

On our final day in London, Chris' parents and their good friends, Janet and Jim, came over to celebrate Jan's (Granny's) birthday.  The picture below captures the action pretty well .... chaos as you can imagine :).

After a celebratory lunch we were packed up and off to Bath where Chris' parents live.  Bath is also the city where we got married and a gorgeous Georgian town full of beautiful old limestone buildings and cathedrals, ancient Roman baths (hence the name) and amazingly lush grounds and parks.  

Here we are (below) on a typical British walk near Chris' parents' home.  By a typical British walk I mean getting off the roads and traveling the well-trod pathways through fields, by farms, over cattle crossings, etc. in order to arrive at a destination that is a 5 minute drive by road to an American who would never dream of walking across fields when it's so much easier to drive! 

Of course there are some Americans who choose to walk, but they are few and far between, whereas its characteristic of British people if not mandatory to go for these long walks.  I guess one reason we don't do so in America is because the beautiful pathways don't exist on public property.  So we would either have to 'walk' down highways or risk getting shot on private property.  The distances between things here in America is also generally greater so I'm not blaming us!! :)  However, I do truly love walks through the English countryside and long for the same experience state-side.     

Here's granny getting some love from Lily during one of many play sessions in their living room. 

Another highlight of any trip to England is a trip to the pub.  Pubs in England are very different from pubs in the US.  In England, we oftentimes go to the pub for 'pub lunch' which is generally something tasty like soup and 'granary' bread (i.e. amazingly hearty yet light whole grain bread) or ploughman's plate of cheeses and chutneys etc.  The pubs are very child-friendly and sometimes have a grassy area outside with picnic tables, sometimes by the river.

In Bath we visited a pub called The Boathouse for Sunday Roast.  This is another tradition in England.  On Sundays everyone MUST have Sunday Roast ... absolutely required :).  Sunday Roast consists of some roasted meat (pork, chicken, beef or lamb) served with Yorkshire pudding (a hollow roll of bread) and amazing roasted vegetables and gravy.  The roasted vegetables are really the highlight for me.  For some reason their vegetables are just so much tastier than ours and they always have something unusual like parsnips or beet root that we just don't seem to get here (or that I can't seem to find or identify at least :).

The colorful canal boat (below) was docked right outside the Boathouse pub.  It was for sale if anyone's interested in an idyllic life on a canal boat in England ... only 75,000 British pounds or around 125,000 American dollars :).

And the shot below was taken outside the pub as well ... isn't it such beautiful countryside?!  The dog looks like something out of "Hounds of the Baskervilles" and is a whippet mix of some kind (I couldn't quite understand the west country lad who owned it).  

After several wonderful and relaxing days in Bath (Jan and Alan always completely spoil us when we're there!) we headed down to Devon on the train (below).  Chris' parents had gone on ahead so that our friends, James and SJ, could come and spend a couple days with us in Bath.  

Devon is further south than Bath and is near the sea.  Chris' parents have a home in a tiny little village ... a Hamlet rather ... called Woodlands.  It sits directly across from a very old church (below)

It's called 'Oldstone Cottage'.  All the homes in England, older ones at least, have a name rather than a number.  So your address might be 'Old Priory Cottage' on Landsdown Road rather than 3074 Landsdown

Oldstone cottage (below) has a beautiful gravel path leading up to the old converted barn that makes up the main residence and a beautiful expanse of lush green grass across which the occasional wild bunny hops.  

Woodland is definitely a place to relax, nestled in the beautiful countryside with not much more than the church and the local pub.  But there are many activities on its doorstep.

One such activity is Riverford Farm, a nearby organic farm that offers a 'farm to table' concept restaurant.  Jan had booked us in for a joint celebration lunch there (we both had birthdays while I was over there).  

The food was served 'family style' (below) and was absolutely amazing.  So fresh and tasty and very inventive combinations of flavors. 

Another nearby attraction was Pennywell Farm, which was one part amusement park (though tiny and quaint as you would expect) and one part real working farm.  They had a falconry show that was amazing, with hawks and owls grazing your hair as they flew over the top of you!  It really truly almost made me want to take up the hobby of falconry!!  Wonder if the neighbors would mind ...

Here's the falconer (on the left) with a beautiful owl.  

And here we are (above) watching the show.  I finally had an opportunity to wear my new leopard-print wellies so I jumped on it :)

They had a huge number of sheep, goats, chickens etc that you could pet and hold.  We even got to hold some adorable miniature piglets (above) that I seriously considered packing in my suitcase and bringing home with me.  They do apparently sell these pigs as pets, but once we saw how big the momma pig was, my dreams dissipated (think smallish Great Dane size, only fatter!!).  

Some of Jan and Alan's friends in Woodland have just built an amazing indoor swimming pool complex on their property and were kind enough to let us use it one day while we were there.  Lily and her cousins (who had come down from London to join us) had such fun splashing about in the heated pool and jacuzzi.  It was an amazing building with large oak ceiling beams and beautiful inlaid tiles around the perimeter.  

On our last day in England we visited the famed 'Totnes Market' which is any antique lover's dream.  There are hundreds of stalls with people selling vintage jewelry, books, china, etc, as well as some stalls selling new items.  I only regretted not having more room in my suitcases!!  

Above is one of the stalls at the market selling new Cath Kidston inspired pajamas, tea towels, etc.  This is a very British style that you see everywhere in England.  

And here is Lily watching a performing street artist near the market.  He was singing traditional old songs and tapping his foot so that the puppet (a kind of scary looking thing!) danced to the music.  Lily was absolutely entranced and stomped her foot to the beat :).

All in all we spent two absolutely wonderful weeks in England and were sad to leave.  Being there made us both realize how much we miss England and all its eccentricities.  We hope to be back there soon and to expose Lily to this wonderful culture as much as possible as she grows up though, to my husband's great disappointment, I don't believe it will ever be enough to have her share his British accent :)