It’s been too long since my last post. Some of that is due to our travels in August to visit our son Joe, his wife Steph, and their two children, Freya, 11, and James, 9, in the town of Hythe, Kent, UK, where they live.

Hythe is a beautiful town on the Channel coast, just southeast of Dover and Folkestone. (Map here for anyone interested.) Due to Covid and its after-effects, it’s been several years since we last visited them there. They’ve done most of the traveling to visit us in these past years, but with a growing family, that becomes less and less convenient for them. This year, my husband and I made the journey visit them.

Day 1: The trip itself went very smoothly with all flights on time, no weather issues or missed connections, but nonetheless, it included a short flight from the Greensboro, NC airport to Atlanta, a hike through the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport to get to our international departure gate, then the longer flight complete with an abbreviated, mostly sleepless night, leading to jetlag and exhaustion on arrival the next day. I’ve tried all sorts of things, but I’m just not good at sleeping on planes. (Okay, I haven’t tried first class with lay-flat seats, but I’m afraid that’s a bit beyond my price range.)

Day 2: Joe, bless him, made the two-hour drive to London to meet us and take us back to Hythe. We checked into the hotel, dumped our suitcases, and went to visit the family, trying to ignore the fact that we’d had almost no sleep on the overnight flight from Atlanta to London. In an effort to adapt to the local schedule, we pushed ourselves to stay awake until ten. I slept until one, when I woke and had a hard time getting back to sleep. After an hour or so, though, I did and slept until 8:30 the next morning.

Day 3: The good sleep, plus a shower and breakfast, had us feeling almost human again. We met Joe and his wife and two children, 9 and 11, on the Hythe seafront. Our hotel, the Hythe Imperial is located on the shore, so it was a short walk. The promenade along the seashore is a wide, paved walkway between the beach and the road, with homes on the far side. From there we walked into the town of Hythe proper, along the High Street, the main shopping area. We scoped it out and poked into a few places, then returned to the seashore for lunch at The Lazy Shack, a favorite eating place right on the seashore, where the promenade ends. They serve the most scrumptious scallop and bacon on baguette sandwiches!

We ate them at one of the picnic tables set up out front, on the beach. Seagulls keep close watch on the proceedings and we were warned to be careful with our sandwiches. The gulls had been known to snatch food right out of careless hands. One did watch us steadily as we ate, but he was a gentleman and waited until we’d moved on to check for any crumbs left behind.

Later, we returned to their house, where I spent part of the afternoon and evening doing a puzzle with my grandson. Our further adventures in future posts!

Pictured to the left is the Hythe section of the Royal Military Canal, dug during the Napoleonic era of the 19th century to provide defense against invasion from across the Channel. Below, James and Freya with a statue memorializing the men who built the canal.