Returning to Europe each summer is a treat for us. A strawberries and cream or Mr Whippy with flake-style indulgence. We return to our roots and manage to see as many of our family and friends as we can. We look forward to it.
Having lived far and away from this "home" for fifteen years, there is always a strong sense of nostalgia, rather than reality, that pervades these return trips. The people, locations and occasions are usually the same, but time has moved on and places change.
We drift back into the lives of our parents who patiently accommodate us for over sixty days, saying they'd not want it any other way. Apart from the fact they'd love it if we returned back to live in the same country or even continent as them. We've been likened to the swallows who fly back to Britain every year. They couldn't do without the return visits.
We are lucky. I've worked as a secondary school English teacher at international schools for many years and so I'm spoilt to have always had long periods when I've not needed to stay in the country where I'm working. It's also made for a balanced work-life regime allowing me to shift from a work schedule of lessons, marking, curriculum planning and other subject coordination to a home schedule of childcare, entertainment, settling of sibling arguments and added household coordination. I know that others have a much harder time of working out their summer plans, especially if they live a distance from their family, so I don't complain.
'What are your plans?' 'How long will you stay?' 'When will you be coming back?' 'Where will you live when you return?' are the questions that pepper conversations throughout our visits. They are questions I don't know the answers to and which always make me feel uncomfortable.
What I do know is that the moments I spend with my sisters, my parents, my in-laws, my nephews and nieces, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my relatives and my best friends are a much-needed energy source. Though we speak often online and send messages all the time, for me, the physical presence really is important.
Our visits and outings have been fantastic this summer. I've enjoyed time in and around Crowborough where my parents live, day trips to Lewes, the Ashdown Forest, Brighton, Oxted and even Eastbourne to see the tennis.
We've stayed with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law in Brixton during which we made our way to the American Embassy to renew our L1/L2 visas, we enjoyed playing with cousins and table tennis tournaments in their back garden. A day out together in Hyde Park with walks along the Serpentine and drinks at various cafes and bars was a relaxing time for all. We took the children to Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus and the Lego Store, Borough Market, the Golden Hinde, Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge and walks along the Thames. We've been busy.
Work commitments in London and The Hague, The Netherlands, kept my husband occupied, but I was fortunate to be able to join him for a while so visited Westminster, Fleet Street, the Tate Britain, and the city we lived in and loved for ten years as a young family back in 2009 until 2018. The Hague holds a special part of my heart since it's the place where all four of our children were born. There's something special about the first memories you make with your newborns and their early years and this was the city that helped me make friends, not only colleagues. Having babies gave me confidence in myself and I loved the times I spent with neighbourly friends who also had babies at the same time as us. This year, I managed to walk a lot of the city, Theresiastraat where we lived in three apartments over the years we lived there, the central Plein and Malieveld, Binnenhof and Noordeinde shopping.
