Charlie's WorldEaster in England 2015 – part 1
It’s that time of year again – another trip to England to see my children.
I arrived in England early in the morning and Heathrow was packed. As in 2 hour queue to get through passport control.
Luckily, I knew the epassport gate was on the left of the line, so I wiggled through to the unloved machines and was out within 15 minutes.
I don’t have a lot of faith in the automatic passport gate machines though, my photo is 8 years old now and I have a full beard, am a little fatter and have round glasses rather than the square ones I had in the photo and it lets me through in 20 seconds flat. How it makes the determination that I am me from that photo is quite beyond me.
It’s freezing outside – 7 degrees and dank and murky. Lovely.
I pick up my hire car – usually I look forward to my pick of cars – it’s fun to drive cars that I wouldn’t otherwise drive, but this time I was handed the keys to a brutally ugly Nissan Juke to which I had paid $500 for the privilege of driving for the week. Ugh.
Ah well. It’s a car and it works ok, even if it does look like a cross between a 4×4 and a Salvador Dali cast-off.
Next day, I pick up the kids, it’s still overcast, but warm enough, so we go for a walk to get rid of the cobwebs.
Plaxtol is a beautiful village and it’s easy to just walk around the little lanes and wind our way through the hills and valleys of the Kent countryside.
I love the simple things we do – just going for a walk and exploring is fun and the countryside is gorgeous, especially when the sun starts poking through a bit. The kids enjoy it – it’s an opportunity to find stuff in the hedgerows, plan trips down footpaths that they spy snaking off across fields and just escape from their digital lives a bit.
I think we all need more of this, to be honest.
Next up: A walk in the woods.
Charlie's World 