The Beginning of the End

It starts with the invitation from a friend who asks us to a concert in September.  


Then the new issue of TimeOut Magazine arrives, advertising events that are too far in the future.  And we realize that soon the festivals and carnivals, events and every days will start happening in London, without us.  The things we looked forward to last year are still gonna happen next year, but it will be someone else’s Chocolate Festival at Borough Market, it will be their opening day of the Football season.

The final trips are being planned, the social engagements we’d been putting off get booked and the bucket list of items we needed to get done in London gets a re-write.

The real estate agent starts showing our house, we made an inventory of things we need to get rid of like the UK X-Box, the sheets that won’t fit on a bed at home, the trampoline in the back yard.  


There is un-opened roll of packing tape on the kitchen counter.


And the kids talk about their plans for a return visit.  And I wonder what it will be like when we come back.  Usually when you return to a vacation spot you want to do all your favorites:  That store you love, the restaurant you can't forget, the park that was so special.  But all the London things we'd come back for can’t be achieved in a day, recreated in a week or a month’s visit.  How do you replicate everyday living?