England, Wales, Old-Fashioned Vacation Log

This trip should be called “Nothing Went According to Plan.”

All the best of our meticulous plans were laid to waste by a combination of Acts of God/Climate Change/Strep and exhaustion. Mostly to the good, I think. After all, it had been my goal to be in the moment, to refrain from thinking about work (which I did!), and to have a great time with my family. Below you will see in BOLD all the things we were supposed to do that we did not do.

Day One: Super Jet Lagged. Try not to freak out as Tom attempts driving rental on the left side of road. Almost die several times. Arrive Oxford flat 9am, go immediately to sleep. Do not go on Harry Potter tour. Do not see the inside of any Oxford building. Barely see the outsides. Wake at 2pm. Drive into town, be amazed. Eat a delicious meal at Salsa Del Sol—a sort of SweetGreens, fewer choices but better quality. Walk drunkly as you’ve had little sleep. Meet an American-turned-Brit who has lived here 30+ years at checkout of Blackwell’s Bookstore. Begin to foment plan to move here. Must convince immediate family, then Dave and Katryna and their progeny. Then the rest of them will possibly follow, though not my mom who hates the cold. Rejoice in the cooler temperatures, lack of humidity and bugs. Regret the lack of cold beverages. Eat a home-cooked meal of chicken, rice, veggies, using a sprig of fresh rosemary from the lovely and tiny English garden of our AirBnB. 

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Day Two: pack up, be sad to leave Oxford which is probably your dream city. (Marvel at its similarity to Yale, because those Eli copycats wanted Yale to look like Oxford.) Drive in the rain to Reading. Have the most amazing time meeting friends you’ve previously only met on Zoom. Talk about the terrors of American politics. Talk about music, show off Richard Thompson hat.

Drive to Marlborough. Have coffee at a place called Coffi Lab which allows dogs. You will soon discover that every establishment (outside London) in the UK allows dogs, and there are possibly more dogs per capita than children. Establishments sell the dogs an ice cream product called “Utterly Mutterly.”

Drive to Bath via tiny roads because Tom has become cocky about his left-lane skills. Recall that on small British roads, there are no breakdown lanes, that the lane literally ends vertically, and that losing one’s side mirror is a not infrequent occurrence. Almost die several times. Also, sit in the back seat because Johnny is now car sick and must have the front.

Arrive Bath in the evening. Say good bye to Tom and Lila who head off to Chepstow to see Hozier, only two minutes after saying goodbye, they return because the show’s been cancelled due to floods. Go out to a restaurant called Bill’s which looks sus but is actually fantastic. The chicken Caesar salad is the best you will have. Tom’s eggplant with burrata is out of this world. After dinner, scope out a spot that allows those under 18 years to watch the Euros the following evening. Strike out until you come upon The Pig & Fiddle. Rejoice.

Day Three: Go for a run around Bath. Afterward, bring Tom, Lila and Johnny down to Pulteney street bridge. Take a nap in afternoon, read Northanger Abbey. Go to Pig & Fiddle, fight off the feral pigeons, and cheer when England wins! Fall in love.

Begin to compile list of plusses for each country

Day Four: Despair because Johnny wakes at 1:30 with a raging fever. Research what to do in case of COVID. Decide not to go to the famed Roman Baths even though you’ve already spent a ton of $$ on that reservation. Make him take COVID test when he finally wakes. Rejoice in its negativity.* Walk all around Bath with Lila and take in the views. Do not go to Jane Austen Museum nor the Pump-Room. Instead, wander into Mr. B’s Book Emporium. Meet Ed, the wonderful manager who recommends three novels that you must buy.** Decide this is the best indie bookstore in the world. Learn that in England, bookstores have no real competition from Amazon. Have dinner in an outdoor restaurant called Stables. Walk all around the city in the evening with Johnny, who now feels fine, and be extremely happy.

Day Five: leave Bath with sad tears. Try to see Stone Henge but sold out so instead, go to Avebury where The Largest Neolithic Stone Circle in the World happens to be. Walk all around it. Decide the ancient peoples worshipped goddesses. See a whole lot of sheep up close. Meet nice Catalonian people. Attempt to communicate in French and Spanish. Your question for the Catalonians is: where do you think the rams have gone? Which you translate into “the man sheep.” Talk for ten minutes and never get an answer. Have lunch at Red Lion Inn outdoors where you leave behind your rain coat.

Drive to Wales. Sit in traffic for over an hour near Bristol and later on the M4. Arrive late, move into flat, worry you won’t be able to sleep because it’s above a bar where an extremely rowdy bachelorette party is occurring. Also, the windows don’t open and it is hot. BUT there is a mural of Dylan Thomas and rumours of his misbehavior in this very spot. Be glad that your family likes it. Walk down to the beach at sunset, which happens after 9pm. Love this town.

Day Six: walk all over Tenby. Do not go to Tudor Museum or Tenby Castle. Do not drive around doing day trips and visit the Wye Valley where Sex Education was filmed. Be delighted to do less. Take a boat to Caldey Island, where Cistercian Monks have lived since 600 CE. Do not meet any monks and have interesting spiritual conversations and grill them about the difference between celibacy and abstinence as you are wont to do with monks.

Walk all around Caldey. See horses, cows, and seals! Also Monterrey Cedars. Get famous chocolate made by monks. Meet a delightful couple from the Forest of Dean on boat ride back. Wish you were English. Or Welsh. Go to the beach, dip toes into the frigid water, then watch Tom and Johnny run into the waves. Be extremely happy. 

Have dinner at Italian restaurant where Tom and Johnny have fresh shellfish on their pasta. Have a strangely un-Italian Caesar salad (with yucky dressing and baby greens, which you do not care for instead of romaine) but don’t complain because family is so happy. Decide maybe to go together to a karaoke bar. Declare you will sing “American Pie.” Be discouraged by family who insist the song is too long and you will torture the patrons. A Welshman named Neal overhears you and insists that indeed you should sing it, in fact right now, and begins to sing “American Pie” very loudly in this (quite fancy) Italian restaurant. Join in gleefully until your kids threaten to mutiny. Notice, then, that many diners are not happy about “American Pie.” Notice that Tom is oblivious to your and the kids remonstrances and that he sings the song with the wrong words and also quite as loudly as Neal. Resist the urge to tell Tom and Neal the correct words when they get stuck and sing “Did you write the book of love” verse several consecutive times. Urgently ask the waiter for the bill which they immediately give you. They would very much like you gone. You oblige, but first you interview Neal and his companion Allie.

Day Seven: Go with Tom to the beach and inquire about kayaks and paddleboards. Meet a couple from Staffordshire and their little silver lab puppy named Maisie. Watch England lose to Spain in a pub with a way more subdued crowd than the one in Bath. (The viewers are, after all, Welsh, and perhaps they do not care about the triumphs of England. The pigeons did, though.)

Day Eight: Poor sick Tom (not COVID) drives in traffic and the rain to Heathrow. Spend $150 on gas/petrol doing so. Drop off rental, take Uber to London where you have rented a flat in Islington. Be amazed at the flat, which is more beautiful than the pictures and way more impressive in every way. Learn that the host is an architect/designer from Greece who MADE this entire building and furnished it with high-end German appliances which actually work and do things like wash and dry your clothes in fewer than two days. Do lots of laundry. Go out for dinner to Des Beauvoir Arms, a fabulous neighborhood pub, where you order baked Haddock, chard, and a fabulous coriander tzatziki. The kids get vanilla meringues with strawberries and cream for dessert.

Day Nine: Attempt to go thrifting but instead find yourself in Piccadilly which seems like a boring midtown Manhattan.

Go to the Globe and see an amazing production of Richard III –almost every character played by a woman. Laugh and feel ill from the similarities between dictators and tyrants everywhere in every era. Notice the red MAGA caps the actors wear in the scene where Richard is coronated. Be glad that the Globe exists and that you get to be here.

Tube delays, so walk the almost 2 miles home. Shower and go out for a delicious Indian meal at Zaffraneys.

Day ten—last day! Get up “early” and go to British Library. See Treasures: a score by Handel, many Bibles, most written by hand with illuminations by monks. See Beatles lyrics, George Eliot’s first draft of Middlemarch, and the First Folio!

Eat a picnic lunch in Russell Park. Not as many dogs in London. Go to British Museum. Wait for 20 minutes for the woman’s toilets. There is, as usual, no line for the men’s. See the Rosetta stone! See remains of the Sutton Hoo discovery! See Lewis chessmen! See early clocks! And money!

Be exhausted. Take a bus home. Have an early final night, eating up all the leftovers for dinner. Pack, watch Crazy Stupid Love and go to bed early so you can catch your 5am Uber to take you to Heathrow for your 8:25am flight. Say goodbye to beautiful England!

*While we did not ever get COVID (we tested multiple family members multiple times—COVID tests are cheap in UK), three out of four of us DID turn out to have strep throat. Worth it.

**Books we bought: