One of the joys of living overseas is having family come to visit. When we were in Malaysia, all of our children came to visit. The same held true when we moved to the Caribbean, though with a four-hour direct flight from Toronto, and an Idyllic spot in the Caribbean, that is not surprising.

Now, after being in England for nearly a year, we finally got a visit from our son Jon, his wife Nicole, and their three children. Admittedly, it was a stop over for a trip that included both France and Germany, but we were so happy to see them and planned to pack their days.

Of course we took them on a tour of our little town of Horsham, but we also took them down to Arundel, which is a lovely little village less than an hour south of here. We took a small detour through Amberley to see its little thatched roofed houses, took them into the fairly recently constructed Cathedral in Arundel built by the family that owns the Arundel Castle.

The Castle itself is well worth a visit, not only for its implements of war and other antiquities that it has on display, but for its lush and spacious gardens. The Lord had given us plenty of sunshine and Pam had packed a lunch, so we were able to sit on the grass and enjoy a little sun while we ate.

And of course, no trip to this part of the world would be complete without a trip to London. We are fortunate to live just an hour from the city by train, and we can come in at either Victoria Station or London Bridge depending on which side of town we want to be on.

Of course, we had to see Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square, and the kids were great as we walked them all the way through town for hours on end. They never complained about the distance or the route, but seemed to content to follow what we had planned out for them and their company was just a delight.

One of the places that I had loved to visit when I came to England as child was the National Gallery on the north side of Trafalgar Square. The entrance to this and many of the wonderful sites in London is free, but I had to book well in advance as they only allow a certain number of visitors in each hour. Once you are in, you can stay as long as you like and all of our grandkids seemed to enjoy the paintings as much as we do.

However, the highlight of the whole trip was not the buildings or the parks but the Harry Potter show at the Palace theatre. We had talked about this for some time, and we knew that the kids, especially Eli, were looking forward to it. We were not disappointed.

The show lasted over five hours in total. After the first part we went out for dinner at a local pub where we had booked a table. Then we went back for the second part. There is something magical about London theatre. It is not the best place in the world to see live theater for nothing and the show was just spectacular with very dramatic special effects they we are still trying to figure out. It was a lot of fun

We had three glorious days in London and saw all that we could in that time. Jon and Nic went on to France and Germany after they left us, and we are sure they had a wonderful time there as well. But it was just grand to have them here in England for a few days and it looks like they enjoyed themselves as well.

June 2022