Autumn Term

September to 31 December 2024

We spend a lot of our time writing blogs about our travels – which probably makes for a more compelling read – but, for the sake of posterity, we should also cover off the gaps in the year between our trips. Which is to say ‘real life’ in London.

Life in London goes quick.

Mondays roll into Fridays at the blink of an eye, as the weeks are consumed by the drumbeat of school timetables, back to back meetings, demanding border collies and various activities.

Weekends are consumed with sporting events, domestic duties and more than the odd social occasion.

The 6-7 week ‘half term’ cadence that the schools run to makes it feel like you’re never far from a holiday – we often feel like we’ve barely unpacked before it’s time to start packing all over again.

Work is hectic and school is relentless. Liz oscillates from Board meetings at Whitehall to muddy dog walks with Gus;

Ant bounces from project to project and pitch to pitch; and the kids seem to be subjected to near constant testing in addition to gruelling homework schedules – particularly for Ellie who is somewhat unbelievably now in Year 10, and almost as ridiculously Jessie, who is now apparently well into Year 8.

Time is literally flying by, leaving no time for blog writing. So here we go for a quick catch up….

September

In September the days are still long but noticeably getting shorter – and the weather is mostly good. You can almost convince yourself that it’s still summer, except for the fact that almost everyone (at least everyone with kids) is back from holidays and school is back in full swing. Everyone is trying desperately to hang on to their tans and the remnants of summer heat before the cold and darkness sets in.

We arrived back in London from our trip to Turkey and Club Med with accidental tans that would make have made the actors from ‘Les Bronzés’ proud. Ellie strutted into school sporting her tan lines from her bikini top – which apparently represents the height of coolness if you’re a 14 year old girl from south east London.

La rentrée this year could not have been more different from the year before. After 2 months of holidays, the girls were actually looking forward to getting back to school to see their mates. Sena in particular was beside herself at the prospect of seeing her friends. Gone were the nerves that dominated September 2023. All 3 girls strode into the school gate, confident and assured with their place in the world.

The coaxing (and in some cases flat out bribery) that was required 12 months ago to get the girls to ‘lean in’ to school life was not required this time around, and timetables were rapidly filled with co-curricula activities.

It’s worth also calling out the level of ‘academic commitment’ that the girls were showing too. I’m not sure if this is ‘normal’ for the UK, but our girls were certainly putting in the hours when it came to homework. Every afternoon was pretty much a sweatshop after school, as all 3 worked through set homework, revision or exam prep. They were all getting smashed, particularly the further up into high school they went.

Pleasingly the hard work seemed to be getting rewarded, as Ellie and Jessie both found themselves in ‘set 1’ for their streamed classes and the marks started to reflect the effort. It appeared that, after a year of ‘acclimatisation’ they were now understanding what was expected of them in the UK school system.

Our push to get the girls representing the school was also delivering fruit – Jessie found herself in the Hockey team (notwithstanding her somewhat patchy knowledge of the rules), and the netball team; Sienna was a regular in the netball team and, to our surprise, the football team (despite never having played).

Speaking of participation, Ellie also survived her Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award expedition, as Sydenham unleashed 30 or so city girls on the Surrey countryside in 3 degree temperatures. Despite woeful under-preparation (we tried to stay relatively true to the idea that the girls needed to prepare for themselves) and almost no food, they surprisingly made it back in one piece (at least most of them did) and eager to progress to Silver next year.

September is also the month of cricket trials … just when Liz thought the season was over (hint: it’s never over). Ellie was selected into the Kent U15 County Performance team, and Sienna into the Kent U11 Metro Regional team which was wonderful for both of them. Ellie was also invited to train with the Beacons netball academy, so there would be a bit of sport to keep everyone busy through the cold winter months.

Just to keep us on our toes, the weekends were also taken up with netball (Jessie and Sienna), tennis (Jessie) and cricket (all of them), so there was plenty going on.

Also in September, we were lucky enough to have cousin Ben come to visit en route to a friend’s wedding, and we also had the chance to catch up with Marc Antony, Sach and Lisa in Whitstable.

Ant also made a trip to Monte Carlo to speak at the ‘Reinsurance Rendezvous’ event – somewhat surprisingly the biggest annual event in Monte Carlo after the Grand Prix.

… and to finish the month off, the social event of the year – Sienna’s 10th birthday – where we hosted a gaggle of crazy 9 and 10 year old girls for an afternoon at Gravity MAX Wandsworth and a sleepover.

What a way to finish the month.

October

The leaves start to turn in October, leaving the parks and streets a riot of red, orange and yellow. Sunrises push later and sunsets earlier and the days turn crisp. So long as the rain stays away (and it mostly did this year) it’s an incredibly special time to be in London.

Gus was getting big now even though he was only 6 months old. He was acting every bit the teenage boy – he liked nothing better than to rumble in the park with his mates and was becoming extremely ‘selective’ about what ‘commands’ he heard from us – or, more likely, took them more as polite suggestions to be followed or not, depending on his will.

He demanded a solid 2 walks per day or there was hell to pay, and, regardless of the number of walks, he still had a tendency of using Sena as a chew toy. We were starting to learn that having a border collie puppy in London was hard work.

In October Liz went off for a girls trip to Portugal with Dee, Krista and Lars. An amazing country spa weekend full of food, chat, hugs and laughter.

Adam and Zoe came to visit in October – spending a week with us after their German and French road trip. It was nice to see them, and good fun to have 7 of the cousins together at Thorpe Park for the day.

… and then half way through the month it was holidays again. Of course it was, because we’d been back from our last holiday for 6 weeks, and that’s just how things are over here.

So we jumped on a plane and went to the Balkans… but we’ve already written about that bit.

November

By the time November rolls around it’s dark. And it’s cold. The hardier or more stubborn leaves are still clinging to the trees, trying to convince themselves that it’s still summer. By the end of the month they’ll be gone, swept into large piles perfect for diving in (if you’re Gus) and/or weeing on. Or both. By the time the end of the month roles around, it feels like winter is already entrenched… but it hasn’t even started yet. The only thing that keeps the mood up is the emergence of Christmas lights – something London does spectacularly well – and of course, the promise of yet more holidays.

For us, November was a month of ‘normal’ – which is to say school, work, weekends in London and ‘real life’. It was wonderful.

It all kicked off though with Jessie so excited about being picked up after a long wet hockey session that she sprinted for the car and tore her achilles… terribly painful and 6 weeks out of action!

Meanwhile the rest of us got to spend weekends doing family tennis, badminton and squash at JAGS sport club and the kids got to see the a lot of their mates,

and we got to catch up with friends. Cousin Raphael also came for visit as did Alan.

And of course lots of cousin sleep overs.

Liz took off to Hamburg for a couple of days for one of her Board roles. Ant committed to doing another marathon in 2025, so the training really started with lots of early morning runs in the darkness.

Then suddenly it was December already.

December

December is dark. Really dark. The sun doesn’t get up until after 8 and sets before 4pm. It’s ridiculous. This is the pay back for the long summer nights. The only vitamin D on offer comes as a supplement – ‘sunshine in a bottle’ becomes part of the daily routine. This year it also got really cold – below zero for a week and down to -5. The lake in the park froze, fingers froze and staying warm on dog walks or early morning runs became a military operation. The pack of wippets that could normally be relied on to wear Gus out in the morning declined to leave their beds for a week.

The only thing to keep spirits high was the promise of Christmas. Christmas Tree shopping and decorating, pulling out Mum’s decorations, advent calendars, Michael Bublé’s christmas album and counting down the days until Christmas and, of course, another 3 week holiday.

Gus particularly enjoyed the Christmas tree – pulling it down on himself no less than 3 times, which was nice. Maybe because he was angry at the Christmas neutering we gave him as a surprise!

Liz can always be relied upon to lean into Christmas but she outdid herself this year.

We kicked things off with a Christmas Carol at the Old Vic where they handed out hot mince pies on arrival! What a way to start…

Ant and Liz then went to see ‘An interview with Judi Dench’ which was wonderful;

we also took Ellie to see David Tennant (her favourite actor) starring in Macbeth – probably the best play that we’ve ever been to.

The following day this award was put to the test by Sena and her class putting on their own version of Macbeth (including Sena, starring as King Duncan and stealing the show with her slightly comic death scene).

We visited the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park and took the girls ice skating with Steph and Lachlan.

Liz and Ellie had their ‘stabbing day’ – where Ellie was stabbed 22 times – 1 blood test, 19 acuppuncture needles and her ears pierced! And of course a sneaky trip to Din Tai Fung!

The we fulfilled the family tradition… Joseph v Joseph gingerbread house decorating showdown including full story explaining the setup. Joseph won last year…. and no surprises but also claimed the highest award this time around.

Within days the whole family yearning for a bit of home was back at Din Tai Fung for lunch at Selfridges (yum) and Christmas Pantomime starring Julien Clarey who tried to prove that there is no use by date on extravagant outfits and gay sex jokes (sadly it felt like time had caught up with him a bit and what was previously ‘naughty’ now just felt a bit dated).

After the show we wandered the streets admiring the Christmas lights around the west end – absolutely spectacular.

The shortest day of the year came around and suddenly it was winter.

What? Hadn’t it already been winter for the last … forever?

No, that was autumn. Winter comes next. And there will be no Christmas lights to raise your spirits.

NOOOOO! Went the whole of the UK.

But not yet. First there was Christmas, New Years, School Holidays.

Darkness, cold and depression be dammed. They could wait until January.

Then it was Christmas. We spent the morning opening presents and eating smoked salmon.

The rest of the day was spent baking our Christmas ham to Mum’s recipe and preparing her salads in preparation for Christmas dinner with Jeff, Izabela and the kids.

Early on Boxing Day we rolled out of London, our Peugeot creaking under the weight of a fully loaded roof box and the 6 of us, including Gus, on our way to France. Gus was under the impression that we were driving to the park (because that’s what we always do), and was increasingly perturbed as the normal 5 mins drive turned into a 10 hour trek across France to Lyon.

We spent our first night in Lyon in a hotel (another new experience for Gus), and took him on the metro (unconvinced, and down right anti the muzzle he was obliged to wear on the train).

We then went to the amazing Restaurant Vieux Lyon for a traditional lyonnaise dinner, where Gus behaved perfectly, mainly due to Liz feeding him almost all of her entrecôte. It’s always wonderful to go back to Lyon.

The following day we made our way to Fred and Noemie’s place where we got to spend the day and night catching up with the whole family and enjoying their always amazing hospitality.

Gus formally became French, getting a passport which should make future trips a bit easier.

From there we spent the obligatory 7 hours driving from Lyon to the ski fields – in ‘normal’ conditions this is a 2-3 hour journey, but not on Saturdays in winter. This year we headed to La Plagne for an awesome week skiing.

La Plagne delivered us some wonderful weather – blue skies every day and 2 feet + of fresh snow on the second last night. We stayed at the enormous ‘Residence Haut Bois’ with it’s 14 floors of apartments, pool and gym. The whole resort comprised large almost cruise ship sized blocks of flats – not the prettiest but very functional.

Sena got her 2 star award, Jessie her Bronze Etoile. Ellie enjoyed the ‘Teenage Group’ and Ant joined an adult group that effectively meant that we spent each morning being guided around backcountry, tree runs and off piste. Overall a wonderful week skiing and boarding, and a great way for the girls to meet other people their own age (including boys for a change) and practice their french.

Early mornings were spent walking Gus, trying desperately to find dogs for him to play with.

He seemed to like the snow until the last day when an avalanche canon fired just above us, and he almost jumped into our arms. He took quite a lot of convincing after that to reacclimatise!

Lunches were spent together as a family, enjoying Liz’s ability to create meals out of the world’s smallest kitchen.

And then the occasional sunset walk before dinner.

Evenings were spent in the pool or watching Married at First Sight Australia (much to Ant’s dismay). Except NYE where we all stayed up until the crack of 1202am!

Overall another really successful week. We’ll definitely be back.

Will Gus? Let’s see. I don’t think any of us are quite ready to commit on that one just yet. Including him.

From La Plagne we schlepped our way back across France to Normandy, through an appalling storm with incredible winds and horizontal rain. It was one of those storms that gets named. The drive should have taken 9 hours; it took 14. Fair to say we were all pretty wrecked by the time we arrived.

Another hotel room for Gus!

And then an accidentally very nice dinner at Gourmandise & Tradition in the pretty town of Bayeux that night (where, it must be said, Gus was very well behaved again).

The following day we visited Omaha Beach and learned about the D-Day landings, before going to the excellent Caen Memorial Museum – which was amazing.