England Part 1

Hello from cold and rainy England! We’ve basically taken the spring weather we had in Toronto and transported it to England for the summer. Sigh. I know it’s totally boring to complain about the weather all the time, but it has rained the majority of the time since we left Melbourne in March, no matter where we have been (Toronto, California and now England). We must be bad luck. I am in desperate need of some sunshine in my life people!

We’ve been here just over two weeks and are staying with Andy’s parents, who live in the village of Horndean, in Hampshire. Horndean is just north of Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. It’s about 65 miles southwest of London. The main reason for our visit this summer is that Andy’s brother, Russ, is getting married at the beginning of July. We have SIX whole weeks here to see Andy’s family, catch up with friends and even have a holiday-within-a-holiday to Spain for a week. (It should definitely be sunny and warm in Spain. I am going to be super annoyed if it rains the week we are there.)

This post is a summary of our first week (or so) in England.

We flew here with Air Canada, on a 9am flight from Toronto to London. We had to leave our place at 5:30am, so it was an early morning for everyone. When we got to the airport it was pretty quiet. Check-in and security were a breeze, and we had plenty of time to get some coffee and breakfast and chill out on in the airport lounge before our flight. Travelling outside of school holidays is a rare treat for us. What a difference it makes to start your journey in a calm and quiet airport!

We didn’t get a bassinet for Ollie, but the lovely gate attendants managed to move us to a section of the plane with empty seats. We ended up with a seat for Ollie and an extra seat beside Ella, so that was a major win. 

The flight passed without incident. Both Ella and Ollie napped, sleeping across the empty seats. The flight was seven hours long, which feels pretty quick compared with the 24 hour flight times we are used to from Australia! We arrived in London at 9pm, and it was nearly midnight by the time we arrived at Andy’s parents house. However it was only 7pm Toronto time so it worked out perfectly - we gave the kids a bath and put them to bed and it was almost like a normal night.

Ollie: in the airport and sleeping on the plane

We visited Russ and his fiancée Lauren at their house for a BBQ on our first full day. Russ and Lauren’s house backs on to this unbelievable garden, which includes a stream that runs through it, complete with a bridge and ducks. It is English-country picture perfect and you could spend every day just gazing out at the garden from the conservatory. Ella had a blast running around the garden and (over)feeding the ducks.

It was great to spend time with Russ and Lauren. They've come round to Andy's parents a few times  after work and now Lauren is Ella's newest BFF.

In between rain showers we've spent a lot of time at the local park. It's had a huge upgrade since we were here last, with two seperate areas for bigger and smaller children. There is even a zip line, which I will admit I have enjoyed myself on one or two occasions!

To get to the playground we walk about 1km down a narrow country lane. It is covered in a canopy of trees (so even when we get caught in the rain we don't get too wet) and is a lovely walk. Country lanes like this are so English, and such a different feel from the wide roads in Canada and Australia.

When the weather has been rainy we’ve explored some of the local indoor play centres. There is a huge one at the Waterlooville Leisure centre, just a five minute drive down the road. We visited this place when we were here three years ago, but Ella was only one year old then so most of the structures were too big for her. She’s the perfect age for it now, and has happily spent hours here while Andy’s dad and I have a coffee and discuss all the drama surrounding British politics at the moment. (Currently it’s all about who will replace Theresa May as Prime Minister. Please, please, please not Boris…)

We also checked out Air Arena, a trampoline park in Chichester. This place doesn’t have a dedicated area for younger kids, so anyone under 5 years old has to have a parent jumping with them. I'm not sure who had more fun, Ella or Andy! Poor Ollie is too little and just had to watch the fun from the viewing area:

Chichester has a very cute shopping area so Andy’s mum and I left the kids, Andy and his dad trampolining while we snuck off for a bit of retail therapy. I was desperately searching for a raincoat, but as it is June there are only summer clothes in the shops. Am I the only person that thinks they should stock raincoats year round in England?!

I noticed signs around for a village fete in nearby Blendworth on the first weekend we were here, so we went to check it out on the Saturday. It was an outdoor event and very rainy, but we managed find an hour of dry weather. It was pretty small, with a few market stalls, some baked goods and BBQ to eat, and a few games. They did have a small bouncy castle though so I'm sure Ella thought it was great!

The next day was beautiful and sunny so we headed down to Southsea. We had lunch and then headed over to the model village, but not before having an ice cream once Ella spotted this outside:

The model village was so, so cute. It's really well done and much bigger than I was expecting. Ella was enthralled, checking out the different scenes and watching the trains driving around. Ella loved it so much that Andy's parents ended up taking her there a second time the next week. I took so many pictures as I was just as impressed with the whole thing. We thought we'd head to the beach to check out the sea afterwards but we spent so long there that we ran out of time!

And that's it for our first week in England. I'll hopefully post the next part of our trip in England before we head off to Spain in four days!