ENGLAND
I have
to admit that I had never considered England a “sexy” destination for travel. For
me England, outside of London, never had the cache of Paris or Rome or was an
exotic destination like the Dalmatian coast or Greece. Even Australia, as
American a country in all my experiences, continues to hold such a place in my
heart because it is so exotic, but perhaps this is because it so very far away,
and in a sense quite inaccessible.
This
has all changed. Previously I had been loath to return to a destination. The
world is so very vast and inviting that it would be impractical on a timely or
monetary basis to revisit a destination.
Previously I could never see the allure of returning to, say, the same
New Jersey beach house year after year. What’s the fun in that to
limit one’s lifetime experiences? I would hazard to state that endeavor was a
complete waste of time. Even my number one destination in the world, Hawaii,
which I’ve been to for work and play 7 times now, has probably seen the last of
me.
But my
thinking has changed with the growing VFH brood and I’ve enjoyed a fairly
steady diet of Full Monty breakfasts and bitters while visiting the kids and
their family in England. I’ve been to Northern England 3 times over the past
five years, splitting time between the kids in either Liverpool or
Newton-le-Willows, or at the in-laws in Nantwich, and although there’s only so much one can take sitting around on the couch being family-like and yammering about the weather
this recent trip has changed things up a bit and we’ve begun to explore the
area. Like the expansive breakfasts, we’ve gone Full Monty in the English
experiences and the family and Janet have planned an assortment of small and
large trips while here and what little down time there has been has been filled with chasing after young Patrick!
