Save for the rain falling on the skylight early this morning, it was very quiet all about. The family was deposited at Heathrow last night after the last, flurried run around the house trying to pack books and bunnies and bears and shoes, trying to make the baby quit stumbling up and down the stairs.

I don’t know how we did it but we did; over the course of two weeks, we woke with the baby at six-thirty or seven every morning, and took England by storm.



On the Isle of Wight, with its jujube buses coming round the bend—and really, you never knew if you were going to see a sweet blue bus, or an electric orange one—we strolled down streets lined with thatched-roof cottages and headed for cream teas, one a day, with clotted cream and Brown Betty teapots. There was that day, too, it rained and rained, this interminable English drizzle, and it was cold, and the tips of my fingers were points of ice. We stood on the Yarmouth coast and watched the Solent, grey under the grey sky. Hoods up, we huddled back in the car, and very soon I was asleep again while we criss-crossed the island.



Friday in Shanklin, the rain cleared in time for us to head down the cliffs to the beach, where, like the best of beach vacations, there was a boardwalk, a giant swirly cone and a stripey pinwheel. I was red and pink and barefoot, and the sand was soft under my feet. There was a kid, and a dog, and the shoreline stretching out. Some weeks before high season, the changing room sheds stood empty still, in mustard and blue.



So many trips we made, my little family! Another day, we moseyed on down to Embankment Pier, just past the big Savoy clock, to hop the catamaran past Tower Bridge, past the handsome old warehouses, past the glinty metal of Canary Wharf. In Greenwich, there was a fair at the dock, grilled meat smell in the air, and jolly balloons, and the ice cream stand blasting holiday tunes. Pickles and lamb burgers all around, then, and a ham-and-mushroom galette hot off the grill for variety.



Another day still, we went to Oxford on a cheap day return at eight pounds fifty each, where the sun was out for a soft toffee ice by the Magdalen Bridge. “Ee meem,” the baby said, because she is a baby, and then she demolished my father’s vanilla cone.



Then there was London, my London: the salt beef baguettes and the chilli scallops, the hunks of Comté, the extra dark truffles and the tower of fudgy brownies at Borough Market; then the South Bank walk home, past the pillars holding up nothing by the Blackfriars Bridge, past the guy who blows a birdsong whistle next to the guy who flies the smallest kite in the world, past the busker who plays a jaunty guitar right around Gabriel’s Wharf, past the booksellers under Waterloo Bridge. There was HK Diner late one Wednesday night, where we ordered off the Chinese-language menu. Late Wednesday night is for sisters at dinner, and I had my shoes off and my feet curled under me in the booth. The lights were still on at Kowloon Bakery on our way home, and CC looked at the cream horn once, then once more, then once more for the road. There was Bar Italia for a pizza primavera at a sidewalk table on a day off from work. The boys at Bar Italia, they love the baby; they winked at her and gave her candy. And the boys at Bar Italia, when they were introduced to Mowmy, quit the winking very quickly. “Ah, your mother,” they said, and then they said, nodding their heads with solemn smiles: “Hello.” There was the one hot chocolate shared between four at the Maison du Chocolat on Piccadilly, then there were the ducks and the squirrels in Saint James’s Park. “Meep,” the baby says when she sees the squirrels, because she is a baby, and “wa wa,” she says when she sees the flowers, tulips in purple or red. “Wa wa,” she says, then she wrinkles up her nose to sniff, then she says: “Nice.” There was the London Philharmonic from very far away, and the London Symphony Orchestra from very close. At the Barbican on Tuesday night, Bernard Haitink’s Beethoven was to stand up and cheer. I wished I could see the thought bubbles floating above our heads while the orchestra played: who was thinking about work? Who was thinking about sailing under the summer sun? Who was thinking of elephants dressed in red and gold? Who was thinking about the ladybugs at the ladybugs’ picnic? Who was thinking about a girl? Who was thinking about a boy? Later, up on Old Street, there were seats on the upper deck of the 243 home.



So you see. It was very quiet this morning, save for the rain on the skylight, and the sheets in the wash. Funny, the sudden stillness. I was tiptoeing around, unsure, reacclimatising, then the sun came out in time for errands and a late lunch. Cowboy boots and a red T-shirt. At Bar Italia, Luca came out to offer kisses and biscotti. The English boys on my right wanted to talk about my pizza. The Italian boys on my left wanted to talk about my book. Spring is here, finally.