see you lat­er, London

It’s that hol­i­day feel­ing again (did­n’t we just do this?). Half-term pick­up with the air full of roman­tic whis­pers of hol­i­day des­ti­na­tions: Cal­i’s off to Nor­folk, Ava to York­shire, Anna to Leeds and points beyond, and then there are the Con­ti­nen­tal types. Gigi to Val d’Is­ere, Lind­say to Zer­matt, Sophia to the south of France. And we, well, we’re nei­ther Eng­lish nor Con­ti­nen­tal, so… it’s off to New York we go! The hor­rid school uni­form has been flung into the suit­case to be worn at Cici’s school, and Avery is chic and casu­al in her hol­i­day clothes. You got your flared jeans, your dis­tressed t‑shirt, your lit­tle knit­ted shrug. She’s ready for Virgin.

And many, many books have been crammed in amongst the presents we’re tak­ing back for every­one (would you believe 10 rolls of Polo mints for the ponies on Tues­day? plus British Skit­tles for Avery’s dear for­mer babysit­ter Amy, because did you know they don’t con­tain ani­mal gela­tine and are there­fore veg­e­tar­i­an-friend­ly? nei­ther did I). And bis­cuits and lemon curd and every­thing British for our friends across the pond.

So next report: the snowy wilds of Red Gate Farm. And the excit­ing thing? Between now and next week­end, we’ll get to see so many of you!