It's generally been a trip where every stop has lived up to or exceeded expectations, but our day trip to Cheddar Gorge felt like our first misfire. Not because of the gorge itself, which was stunning. But the caves have been turned into a series of "experiences," for which they charge a pretty penny. During our visit, the main cave had the seasonal addition of neon-light Easter displays, which rather detracted from the caves qua caves. Mainly, we were disappointed that we didn't have as much time to explore the gorge itself — next time, we'd bypass all the

Since we last visited Stonehenge 20+ years ago, they have reconfigured the site so you park some distance away and either walk or take a shuttle bus up to the stone circles. The current set-up gives the tourists a bit more room to spread out and creates a bit more of a sense of grandeur — in the old days the carpark was right next to the site, and you felt like you were being shuffled past as quickly as possible. English Heritage have also done a good job on the new visitors centre, putting a lot of oomph into

We decided to stay in Bath for a full week, using it as a base to explore the surrounding area. We had lovely accommodations in Bathwick, a short walk up Great Pultney Street to the town centre, but also near to lots of green space. Our location inspired us to do a long walk (10k, definitely long for 5 year-old legs!) around the outskirts of the city. Of course, we also hit the tourist hot spots: a tour around the Roman Baths, Evensong at Bath Abbey, and a walk to admire the Georgian architecture. It's a really pretty place to

In memory, Oxford is always bathed in the golden light of youth and love and learning and endless possibility. We we did get one such golden day in Oxford, where we showed the boys around our old college and the chapel where we got married; they were entirely unimpressed with Mom and Dad's nostalgia tour. They were much more keen when we took them punting on the river and treated them to ice-cream at one of our old student haunts. When the next day proved damp and dreary (there were lots of student days like that too; we just remember

In spite of all the rain, we did occasionally see the sun during our visit to London and its surrounds. Watching the deer in Knole Park Knole House The old Royal Naval College, from the Queen's House, in Greenwich A goose struts her stuff in St. James's Park Hever Castle Hever Castle Lake And even some green grass and sunshine at The Valley

Our wonderful weather luck came to a grinding halt in London. I was gratified to read that southern England saw only 10% of its typical sunshine in the first half of March — at least the terrible weather wasn't all in our heads. The good new is the grey and damp wasn't much of an impediment to a London itinerary loaded with weather-agnostic museums. A quick run-down, ranked from the perspective of two small boys who favour vehicles and firepower above most other things. Maritime Museum The Maritime Museum in Greenwich was such a favourite that we went twice. There

We landed at Heathrow with plans to spend almost four full weeks based at Sam's parents house in the London suburbs, giving us ample opportunity to play tourist in central London. First on our list of iconic London sights was a trip to the Tower Of London. It is a quite an expensive day out, so it's not something I had ever done before. The entry queue for the Tower starts to form around 9:30, but it didn't feel overly busy apart from the line-up to see the Crown Jewels. We missed out on the Imperial State Crown as it