Post Holiday Post

We've been back for a week, but I haven't felt much like writing.  It's always exhausting going back to the UK.  Most of our family are in the north of England (and Wales) and some of my family are in the southwest; in the road-trip between the two, we try and incorporate meals with a few friends in the south, and then there's always a pack of mutual friends from university who we meet up with for one weekend.  It's insanely fun and I love it, but it's not at all restful.

The annual trip is something I consider hugely important, all the moreso for our children, so they get to meet their extended family and get some experience of England.  Thinking about it though, this wasn't something I had the option of in my childhood.  My father was in the navy, and we moved to Hong Kong for three years when I was one, back to the UK when I was four, and then to the States when I was nine (we came back when I was eleven, at which point I started boarding school and gained a permanent base in the UK, wherever my parents traveled). 

During those posts, I never saw England, though in my earliest memories I was always very clear that we would go home there one day.  My mother's sister and my father's parents were up for traveling out to visit us, but I would only see the rest of the family when we lived in England.  On the other hand, when I grew older, I was very conscientious about making the trip abroad to see my parents every year, and this has carried on now that I'm the one living abroad. 

While some people have felt that I must lack roots, leading such a childhood, I've always identified very strongly as British and been very firm that England is my home (even when my husband and I moved out to the States, I insisted on the proviso that it was only temporary).  That said, there's a cultural knowledge base that I lacked.... not so obvious these days, but I remember struggling with it through high school and university.

I hope to assuage this in my children.  It's a lot easier for me to keep in touch with the UK than it was for my parents.  When we were in Hong Kong, international phone calls had to be carefully scheduled by letter and kept as brief as possible owing to the cost; today, my parents and I video chat most weeks in my living room, with the camera trained on the children playing on the rug.  BBC America is a channel, and it's not difficult for us to get hold of current British children's programmes.

That said, you can't beat the firsthand experience of a trip through the motherland.  Not to mention so many of our friends have children the same age as ours, who (for now!) our children are eager to play with.  Just having some idea of what British children are into is going to be such a big deal when we do come home and the children have to make a fresh start at a British school.
 
I'm realistic enough to know that I can't give them a completely British childhood, nor would I want to.  They're American too, and I think it's absurd to dismiss that or make them feel its undesirable.  I'm just trying to give them as much familiarity with the UK as I can.  Because that's where we'll go, "when we go home."