Dear Mrs Davies-Todd
On this last weekend of the holidays I find that I have time to pen you a missive. Holidays, as I am sure you are aware give us the time to mentally recuperate and therefore find the time to indulge in playful notes such as this.
This has been a good holiday. The first weekend was Easter weekend and we had Grandma, Grandad and Aunty Sarah to stay. This is, in my Dad’s words somewhat of a mixed blessing. We don’t really mind them coming but we are always glad when they go.
To illustrate the issue I can use our visit to Sian and Adrian’s over the back fence. We went around for an Easter Egg hunt and whilst we kids were hunting the grown ups were having a drink. Grandad was hugely surprised to the extent that he laughed afterwards that Sian offered a range of drinks including a variety of teas. Grandad’s experience was that at that time of morning one only offered coffee. Different generations!
Anyway you can imagine that this sort of thing compounded over a weekend makes for a sigh of relief when they eventually set off for home. The biggest difference in lifestyle is the fact that we are all up by 7 am (by 6 am the kids are in mum and dad’s bed). Having had breakfast well before the visitors get up it is then somewhat strange to go through the whole process again at around 9.30am and find that it is nearer 10.30 when everyone is ready to tackle the day.
After the departure of the Grandparents the family headed South to London for a few days of cultural activity. We stayed in the Regents Park Marriott Hotel which turned out to be a find. The hotel was conveniently near to Swiss Cottage Tube Station and in a very desirable area of London. Desirable that is until we arrived – no only joking of course.
We met with Mamgu, Tadcu, Aunty Mair and Aunty Sue on the first night. Also Jamie of Jamie and Janice swung by for a visit. We ended up eating in the hotel whereupon Tadcu picked up the bill. Mum and Dad were highly pleased with this.
Over the following three days we did Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the Lion King (Mum and Hannah), a tour on the open top bus, Pizza Express, The London Eye, the Tower of London and London Zoo.
The Crown Jewels were genuinely amazing and on their own worth the entry to the Tower. The other amazing thing was the size of Henry XIII’s codpiece on his suit of armour. On the last night Mum and Dad had dinner in the hotel with Aunty Sue whilst we crashed out in the rooms.
On the Friday Dad drove us up the A1 to Welwyn train station and waved goodbye. He was flying to Seattle on Saturday whilst we wended our way back to Lincoln and reality. Unfortunately Mum forgot about the road works at Long Bennington which did delay us a little.
That’s all for now.
Tom