Jam packed family-filled, exploring, food-lovin’ holiday

A trip to celebrate 50

This is kind of a big year for me - I turned 50 in March and though age has never had a big affect me, it is a half a century and a mark of time. Who am I? what can I say for myself? what am I proud of and what do I value? Though I feel young and healthy, one thing that 50 has brought me is clarity of who I am and what I cherish: my family, having peace in my life, traveling and exposing myself to new place and people, and pausing to notice that the people, place, space around me are the very things that bring joy and love to my life.

It’s been almost a month since we left for our two-week holiday in England. Both my husband and myself celebrate our 50th this year, marking this our 50-year celebration trip. When we started talking doing a 50 trip, we thought of different places to go, and England came up time and again - because we both enjoy it so much and he wanted to show me The Lake District - a place he has talked about since the day we met. So with much nudging from me, we booked tickets, created our 4-leg holiday that including visiting his family, time in the Lake District, London, and visiting his Uni - Nottingham University where he studied Chemistry. One thing worth notting is our experience studying at University are very similar. We both went to college in 1991 and have similar memories packing up and moving away, getting into trouble (but not really), and our love for Pearl Jam and Nirvana which was heavily played for both of us when we were at school.

So with a pencil sketched map of our trip, we packed our bags and grabbed our passports and set out for jam-packed, lovin’ holiday full of family, food, laughs, gardens, hikes and more.

The 4-leg Chi-mon England Holiday

Leg 1 - Norwich - hometown, family visit (4 days)
Leg 2 - Lake District - country area with lots of hiking and beautiful sittes (6 days)
Leg 3 - Nottingham - Simon’s University (2 days)
Leg 4 - London - more family and tourist things (3 days)

It’s hard to capture the entire experience in a blog but there are some themes, moments, and highlights worth noting and that many of you who like to travel and/or are married can relate to.

MAN PLANNING

Simon and I have a fun banter about his ‘man planning’ which means no planning at all and figuring it out on a whim. For him, it works and sometimes doesn’t work (which for him, works too). He doesn’t get upset either way; and so yes, for him, it works just fine. For example, if he wants to ride with the boys, there is no time, no meet up and no route. Then the night before when I ask him how his man planning is going, often times he will say “ummm… no one can make it so I’ll go ride by myself”. This would drive me nuts unless I wanted to ride by myself in the first place. So when planning this trip, we had some things planned and many things he left to Man Planning.

Here’s what we did book - round trip flights, car rental, 6-night Bed & Breakfast in the Lake District, and 2 nights in Nottingham. Everything else was done on the fly - namely connecting with family and coordinating time. Though, I would have preferred to have all of these things coordinated, since he only visits every couple of years, it was not for me to step on his feet and I let him do his thing (okay maybe I did badger him a little ). And I must say, Man Planning worked. Everything seemed to fall into place nicely. Having the few things set up gave us the structure we needed and having everything else work itself out, made for unexpected surprises along the way.

LETTING GO

Disconnecting from my day to day life and its structure is very hard for me to do. As an entrepreneur, I run the show, the whole show at Outdoor Fitness Coach, namely coaching 20+ athletes, social media content creation, financials/budgets, planning and coordinating of training rides and clinics, creating strength training videos, Local Legends productions, and more. I keep myself on a tight schedule to be effective and efficient. With monthly goals, weekly goals, and daily goals, I GSD - Get Shit Done! The idea of walking away from this tidy, structured and very purposeful day gave me anxiety and stress. I spent many nights anticipating and planning way in advance as to not let anything drop. Not to mention, we left two cats home in the care of my oldest daughter (who was in the process of moving out of her apartment and had a full schedule herself). So with all my boxes checked, clients training updated, and A/P and A/R in good order, I turned off my phone and my brain.

It seems silly but getting charged $10 per day (per person) for international phone service seems like unnecessary expense. This was the big motivator to shut off my phone. Yes I could access the internet when service was available but when we did have service, we were with family or enjoying a meal and being on my phone wasn’t where I wanted to spend my time nor my energy. And I did..I let go of my lists, my goals, my shoulds, coulds and woulds. I even walked away from my daily training regimen (which I do enjoy that includes riding, running, yoga, walking, strength training). For two weeks, I just was without any guardrails or direction and it gave me the chance to decompress from my core and realized I needed that decompression more than I thought.

alex

Our family is a blended family which means I bring three girls to the family and Simon brings in her daughter. Simon is a big part of my daughters’ lives and having them experience England offers little more insight into Simon’s world. Traveling to one's roots helps to shape a person and the world around them. I remember when I went to Chile with my father and he showed me his hometown of Santiago, Chile and what a magical time that was.

On this trip, I was grateful to be able to bring Alexandria on this trip for the first week. There were a lot of moving parts when organizing this trip and one of the things is where all of our children would be. While my youngest daughter, Alex, is a 16-year old, licensed driver, and responsibility teenager - leaving her at home for two weeks didn’t sit right with me. Leaving her home for one-week however..did. With the older children still in Uni, we decided to have her join us for Leg 1 - Norwich. She has traveled a bit but this was for sure the biggest, longest trip she has ever experienced.

It was a delight to have Alex visit Simon’s hometown of Norwich. We stayed with his sister, Hansie, and brother-in-law, James, and she got to spend time with her cousins, Charlie and Ozzie. She got to experience England from a local’s perspective including a cricket match, curry house, and walking by Cathedrals and Castles dating back hundreds of years. She also got to experience the English pace which allowed for leisure time and not the hustle and bustle we have here. Alex also got a chance to meet Simon’s father and childhood friend.

As we were ending our first leg of our trip, Alex stayed with Hansie and family and they went to London for the day and then later flew home alone. Then upon getting home, she was home for a week getting herself to school, soccer practice, and work. And she excelled. In fact, she embraced the opportunity. She gets freedom and autonomy through how she shows up and follows through - it is not just given but earned and she has earned this (and I’ve told her such).

I’m very proud of Alex and how she is becoming a confident, responsibile young adult.

HISTORY, art, KNOWLEDGE

Another major theme seen throughout England is the amount of history at practically at every corner. During our 4-leg holiday, I visited hundred year old Cathedral and Castles, went to the oldest pub in England, and got to see the Crown Jewels and the monarch legacy. I’ve read about these places and things in school and especially when studying Western Heritage at Pepperdine but seeing, smelling, feeling and being among albeit inert objects, you felt a bit of reverence at history in itself and the millions of humans that have lived, traveled, fought for their lives, evolved and created solutions to where we are today. Awe inspiring.

And to our surprise, many of the places we visited were all free to the public, including

Tate Modern Art Museum
Norwich Catherdral
The National Gallery - where we saw original art from Monet, Van Gogh and DeVinci
National History Museum - had fossils dating back to mankind. Again, reverence of time and the people before us and what life was like. This place is so big you need a whole day to see every exhibit.

There were only two museums we paid for - Tower of London and Clink Prison (see picture above).

LOVE OF TIME AND TIME TO LOVE

Two weeks with Simon to travel and spending this quality time together was a gift all in itself. I feel very fortunate to have a loving husband (being British is a bonus :) and the means to travel. Because I disconnected completely, because we made some plans and not made plans, because we got to share this trip with Alex and because I knew she was able to fly home alone and see for herself and because we both enjoy being outdoors and hiking and because we also love art, history and food, we had the chance to absorb this trip to its fullest and enjoy each other - laughing, talking, sharing stories, and just being together.

We also joke that we got lucky on this trip - we would get the last table at a booked restaurant, we were always going the opposite direction of traffic, we had warm, sunny skies at the Lake District (which for the locals NEVER happens), the passport machine crashed the day after we arrived, we got the ugliest green rental car which ensured no one would want the car..lol. And his family received us with open arms and were the best host you could imagine.

Cheers!

Chi

English Holiday 2023