“Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.” ― Alain de Botton

On holiday. On the list: Big Ben and fish and chips, Victoria and Albert and Natural History, scones and tea and crisps… at the Ritz! Hamley’s and Picadilly Circus and the Observatory. Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey… Big suitcase, plans, camera poised for big memories: photos of children on horses, in kilts, at the British Library, engaged in a deep, unforgettable conversation with the Queen…

Day One: transatlantic flight. Two travelers under three.

Photo: two children on seats, in other people’s seats, falling asleep, minutes before landing, under seats…

Arrival. End of Day One. Day Two Plan: Sightseeing.

Day Two, amended: jetlag, at one in the morning. Cold, unstickered, foreign beds, foreign-smelling sheets. Foreign shadows on the wall; foreign lights from foreign streets. One fifteen a.m.: warm milk, soft white bread, soft singing. Photo: two children softly snoring, mouth open, at three,

famished, trampolining on the big bed at eleven fifteen. And no bread left. Day Two, update: off to the bakery! Departure delayed by rain. Umbrellas, wellies. Twelve twenty, photo: two children, in the rain, singing, in London, on the pavement, puddling, sightseeing:

Red buses and telephone booths and bricks and chimneys! And Look at them driving on the wrong side of the street! No big palaces or clocks—Maman, look! They have swings! Photo: children in a playground. Not Hamley’s. Corner bakery.Not the Ritz, but at least there will be—

Sorry Miss; it is alreadytwelve thirty. No scones, crumpets, biscuits, buns left. Come back on Day Three. But Day Three is Museum of Natural History. Meanwhile, twenty-four big hours and two small, very hungry, stomachs to fill. No photos. At the end of the street…

a supermarket! Plan update: holiday shopping! Photo: two baskets, six hands. An hour purchasing clementines, grapes, little chocolates, breads, cheese. Two little cartons of milk. Straws! Napkins! Strawberries? Strawberries. On top of a hill, on soggy red tartan on verdant green, glistening and shimmering, a photo of two children on a picnic, beaming.

Day Three: Pre-planned, pre-purchased tickets, timed: Nine thirty. At nine oh three, dash, creak, trip, tumble, down the steep stairs. Howling. Kissing of elbows and knees. Wiping noses, stained cheeks. Invalid museum tickets by nine forty-three. No Natural History…

No horses, tea parties, conversations with the Queen… and again,it is raining. And the holidays  are almost over. And I promised memories, big memories, an education, the world, to little children. Tea, which they do not drink. Modern art. Fish and chips, and they are vegetarian…

on Day Three, on the lowest of the cold, oak stairs, staring at the door, still ajar, watching the gray day, heavy sky and passing—

Red bus! Maman! Look! Hurry!

A photo, on holiday: Two children, no, three, on top of the world, on a double decker bus, riding, alighting, climbing… seeing the world, devouring, sharing purple grapes, clementines, cheese. Big beautiful smiles, tangled arms and legs and hair and scarves and mittens. Children on shoulders, on laps, eyes wide, craning, reaching, “their mute, defiant delight seems to be saying, … I can win the Nobel Prize in Physics… can be chancellor,”

Oh look, Westminster—

“can go as high as I please, damned be gravity and grace, so I can peer at broader horizons.”

On Day Four, I promise, we’ll ride the Big Wheel, feed pigeons, and chase them, and go see the trains at King’s Cross Station and then…

Ride the bus again?

Yes.