We left the UK fifteen years ago after living here for six. Our home was in a little village about fifteen miles outside of central London, and my hubs worked in Oxford. My girls were young teenagers then and attended an International school not too many miles from our home.
My daughter's current home is in the Cambridge area, about an hour and a half from where we once lived. We knew we wanted to spend a day there....to wander through the old neighborhood (or estate as they're called here), visit the pub, walk down the High Street, see once more some of our very favorite green spaces, and most especially catch up with some old friends.
We started the day Friday by parking outside our old house, our favorite house of all the houses we've ever lived in, and that's saying something, as we've had more than a few. A delivery van was parked on the road out front, and the driver tried to get us to sign for packages because he thought we were the owners.
Sadly we are not.
Is it creepy to lurk outside a former residence and snap some pics? Perhaps, but we did it anyway. We didn't sign for their packages so there's that.
The house looks mostly the same from the outside, but we know it's very different on the inside. I don't think I'd want to see the inside now. The garage has been closed in on one end and another added on the opposite side. They've also put up a gate which is common here, and added shrubs behind the stone wall out front, so you can't really see the house very well from the street. So glad the gate was open and I could be a little nosy.
We decided to be 'those Americans' and knock unannounced on the next door neighbor's front door. They were the loveliest couple whose children were already grown when we were living there, so several years older than us. We exchanged Christmas cards for a number of years, and we even met them for dinner in NYC one year when they were visiting the states and we were living outside the city, but it's been quite a long while.
We knocked and there was no answer at first so I started speaking to their doorbell camera because that's what you do in 2024. I figured they'd see the video and at least know we tried. But soon we heard the locks turning and the door opened a crack. It was the Mrs. and I could tell at first she didn't recognize us. Then I started speaking and it clicked and she threw the door open wide for us to come in.
So we did. Her hubs was at a doctor's appointment so we didn't get to see him, but we had the nicest catch up with her and talked about all manner of things including the political scene in the USA. She brought it up and it was so interesting to hear her take on everything. It might surprise you.
She asked about our girls and their children and we were so sorry we didn't get to see her Mr. who we adored. The sweetest man who grew a wide variety of the most beautiful heirloom peonies in his back garden which he would show us from time to time. I love an English garden.
The lovely lady on the left used to attend a women's Bible Study in my home and the one on the right, well we raised our teenage girls together. She has three daughters, but the two oldest were the same age and grade as my two and they were all great friends. The women I met and grew to love in this country are still some of my favorite people on the planet.
Honestly I could have stayed at that table all day, but we're visitors in this place now and time marches on.
We eventually peeled ourselves away and hubs and I walked down the High Street, which we thought had changed a lot since we were last in town. So many more people. So many more cars.
Most of the shops had changed names, hands, and product but there were a handful that remained the same.
My younger daughter had a job in this little cafe once upon a time and we snapped a photo to show her it's still standing.
Next we walked into The Camp, which thankfully had not changed a bit. Actually I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed in the last thousand years or so. The camp is a piece of land classified as a plateau hillfort because it's not on a hill, but is a slightly elevated spot sitting between two rivers.
There are theories as to it's original use but some thoughts are that it was of Roman construction, that the Saxons built it to fight the Danes, or that the Danes built it to fight the Saxons. The age of the camp is uncertain but it's old, really old, most likely from the Early Iron Age, around 600-500 B.C.
It may have been constructed by the Romans a long long time ago, but when we lived here we walked our dog in this camp several times a week. Sometimes there'd be people on horseback there too, and that was always fun to see. We had our sweet Gordon Setter when we lived in England and walking the camp was one of her favorite things to do. Ours too.We used to say she walked five miles for every one we walked.
Walking. Another thing I miss. We walked nearly everywhere when we lived here. To town. To church. To the pub, the shops, the library, the bank, the cinema, the pharmacy. I miss that.
After the camp we got back in the car and made a couple of small drive-by trips to nearby favorite villages before heading back to Cambridge. The grands were happy to see us and we all walked to a nearby pub for dinner.
Saturday morning was spent at the pitch.
Both boys are playing soccer futbol and we were able to watch their practice, which is a rare treat. I will add that the program is so well run, so organized, and the coaches were wonderful with the kids.
They had a plan for the entire hour and moved seamlessly from one drill to another, with a short match at the end. The program is mostly focused on skill building and they had the kids attention every minute. The grandboys are in two different age groups but conveniently their practices are back to back.
Speaking of futbol...my son-in-law had tickets to the Tottenham-Brentford match in London on Saturday, so the plan was he would take the Mancub to the match (which he absolutely loved) while hubs, Little Miss, Daughter1, Max, and I would all go into London a different direction and see what we could see.
Let's talk public transportation. We live in the country now, and we're a little bit out of practice when it comes to all all the various modes of transport city living requires. We do have a car here, but parking is always a concern. Quite often taking public transport is much easier than getting a car into a congested city center with a lot of one way streets and bus lanes and very limited parking in teeny tiny itty bitt spaces.
Public transport it is.
First we walked to the nearby bus stop and rode a bus to the train station. Then we took a train to the city, but not before grabbing a Cornish pastie from the West Cornwall Pasty stand on the platform for lunch.
Once we got to London we took the tube to the part of the city we needed to get to. It's a lot and you kind of forget that.
We took the tube to the Tower Hill stop and were going to walk across Tower Bridge, but did I mention the city was absolutely mobbed?
We snapped a couple of pics thinking we'd come back by there later, but changed course midday given the crowds.
Hubs and I have plans to come back into the city another day so we just rolled with the crowds and the walking and the people and having little ones in tow.
Also, my daughter is an absolute rock star. Just sayin'.
We ended up walking across London Bridge (which is not the same as Tower Bridge), and were able to see some of the Great River Race happening on the Thames just below.
I read there were 300 boats competing which I'm sure was exciting, but only added to the downtown masses.
So what did we see on Saturday?
People. That's what we saw. Have mercy there were so.many people. One of my favorite places in London used to be Borough Market. It was a collection of mostly food stalls beneath London Bridge and you could buy the most delicious Chorizo sandwich from a little cart there.
All kinds of goodies were for sale, both sweet and savory. There was always a ginormous skillet of paella cooking, lots of fresh produce, cheeses, sausages, pastries, and more. 'Back in the day' the market was only open Thursday-Friday-Saturday and the internet hadn't completely exploded so a lot of tourists didn't even know the market was there.
Not so anymore. Hoo boy it was jam packed. Of course it was a sunny September Saturday afternoon but the stalls were four and five people deep and you really couldn't even see what was for sale. The market has doubled or maybe tripled in size and it's now open six days a week.
Daughter1 carried Little Miss and we had Max by the hand. It was ka-razy! I always used to tell people not to miss the market, but not sure I'd recommend it now. At least not on a sunny Saturday.
We finally made our way out, no easy feat given the crowd, and treated Max to a gelato because he was a real trooper.
We came out near the riverwalk and were greeted with a rainbow.
We walked some more before crossing the 'WobblyBridge' aka the Millennium Bridge, and landing in front of St. Paul's.
Still such a beauty.
We didn't go inside this trip, and instead found a pub so hubs could finally have a pint of London Pride. So many of the pubs are now run by Greene King and London Pride is a Fullers pour so it took some searching. We finally caught the tube back to Kings Cross, the train back to Cambridge, and the bus back home. By then we were all pooped and ordered carry out from a Thai place for dinner, which was delivered to the front door by a guy on a bike. City livin' y'all.
Sunday we slept in. Everyone was tired and we needed a slow morning. After breakfast hubs and I made a run to the local grocery store. I love to visit grocery stores when we travel outside the US and we walked up and down every single aisle, thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
It was fun to see so many of the foods and treats we'd forgotten about on the shelves. The choice of creams and dairy products in general, prepared meals, cuts of meat, baked goods, a whole section of cream cakes, and all those flowers.
Hubs reminded me we have fresh flowers in our stores in the states, but not like this. You don't buy a bouquet of roses for $4. The flowers are so reasonably priced here, and so fresh. I used to buy a bunch every week just because.
Add that to my list of things I miss. There are of course things I don't miss, but that list isn't nearly as long.
We bought jammy dodgers, but there's no picture because we ate the whole bag when we got home lol. It was only eight cookies and there are 7 of us. We also grabbed a bag of our favorite flavored crisps-Thai Sweet chili, which is similar to a barbecue chip only not exactly.
You can say that about many things in the market here. Some things you just have to try.
After lunch the two dads went off to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford to check out the British planes on display. The little boys worked their legos, Little Miss slept, and Daughter1 and I sipped tea, chatted, and worked on our blogs.
We all met up for dinner at yet another local pub (this never gets old) before calling it a night. Today hubs and I are off to York for a couple of days, a place I've never been and look forward to seeing.
So how was your weekend? I hope it was full of the people and places you love too.
