SUMMER OF '26
We had convinced my mum to come over from South Africa for the summer. I had plans — enough of them to keep her diary looking slightly nervous (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
There wasn’t exactly an itinerary, just a determination to make the most of the weeks she was here without overloading her.
I wanted to show her the England beyond London — country lanes and honey-coloured villages, castles sitting improbably in acres of green, gardens in full bloom, old country houses, afternoon tea and those little corners of the country that feel so quintessentially English you half expect someone to appear carrying a picnic basket and a cricket bat.
Oliver and I had places that we loved (and thought she would love too!!) and wanted her to see!
And bien sûr there were the things we hadn't planned at all.
The weather, for one.
England decided that the appropriate response to a South African mother visiting for the summer was to produce heatwave after heatwave, as though the country had something to prove.
In fact, England appeared determined to spend the summer attempting to become South Africa!!
So we packed up, climbed onto trains, got into cars, ate our way around London, visited castles, wandered through gardens, watched ABBA on a West End stage and, eventually, found ourselves dancing our way through Notting Hill Carnival.
Brockenhurst, New Forest
Our first little escape took us south to the New Forest and the impossibly pretty village of Brockenhurst, where you half expect the countryside to have been arranged deliberately for visitors.
Brockenhurst operates according to its own rather charming set of rules.
Famous for its ponies, horses, and cattle roaming freely through the forest and village, as though the roads belong to them — which, really, they probably do — they saunter about with the confidence of creatures who know perfectly well that they were here long before we were and will still be here when we've all gone home.
We had one mission - find the ponies.
It was scorching when we arrived, properly hot, and the ponies had sensibly retreated from the worst of it!
We met Oliver’s mum at the train station. She had travelled up to join us for the day, and then we set off on our mission to find the ponies — peering down roads and scanning the landscape (as though we'd somehow misplaced an entire herd of ponies!!) — hopeful but increasingly resigned to the possibility that our pony hunt might end in disappointment … until they appeared casually trotting down the street, utterly unbothered (and completely unimpressed!) by the traffic and endless stream of tourists trying to photograph them.
We then ducked into one of the delightful local pubs for a traditional and exceptionally scrumptious Sunday roast, the sort of proper English lunch that seemed like the perfect reward after a morning spent hunting ponies. And boy, did we eat until we could barely move.
It was one of those days that felt quintessentially English in the best possible way: country lanes, wandering ponies, a Sunday roast and family.
And because apparently we hadn't had quite enough Englishness for one afternoon, we headed down the road to Rhinefield House for a cream tea.
I'd been there with Oliver in January for my birthday. It had been cold, wet and gloriously miserable in the way only an English winter can be, with crackling fires inside and the delicious feeling of being somewhere warm while the weather did whatever it liked outside.
Summer had completely transformed it.
The fountain was quite literally dancing in the sunshine, the gardens had burst into bloom and everything seemed to be glittering in the warm summer light. The pool, the lawns, the flowers looked altogether more extravagant and wonderfully magical.
Same house. Completely different mood. And Mum, sitting there with her tea, was beginning to see the England I'd wanted her to see.
Mum was taking it all in and… I was rather enjoying watching her take it all in.
Motor by the Moat, Leeds Castle
London was bracing for its fifth heatwave, and the Kentish countryside was sweltering — gloriously, unapologetically summer.
Leeds Castle gardens were in full bloom, the little brooks were chuckling along, and the castle grounds were absolutely alive (in fact, they were definitely showing off!) — children running around, families stretched out on the grass, adults basking in the sunshine and everyone seemingly determined to make the most of the weather while it lasted.
But we weren't there just for the castle.
Mum loves cars. She has two types - classic and sports. Her only rule is beautiful and fast — everything else is negotiable?!
The Motor by the Moat event at Leeds Castle turned out to be her personal playground.
Now, I knew Mum liked cars, but I had underestimated this considerably. Oliver, too, had apparently failed to understand the scale of the situation.
Within minutes of arriving, she was beside the first beautiful car, camera out … then another and another!!
Every car required a photograph. Every. Single. Car.
Mum posing beside them was, of course, non-negotiable.
Some, apparently, required several photographs from different angles because one simply wasn't enough.
She was having the time of her life.
Oliver was fascinated and delighted (in equal measure!).
Then Oliver and Mum found the F1 simulator … of course they did?!
I stood there watching my mother and my husband happily throwing themselves around a virtual racetrack (both completely absorbed in the experience!) and wondered quite how my carefully planned English summer had turned into an episode of Top Gear.
It was brilliant, hilarious and rather sweet all at the same time.
We stayed overnight, and Mum was allocated the John F. Kennedy room — the very same room Oliver and I had stayed in previously, and one in which JFK himself had once slept (fact!!).
So there we were - Mum, in the bedroom with a rather famous former occupant ... at Leeds Castle(!), having spent the day surrounded by an impressive collection of cars in glorious summer sunshine — and let's not forget the F1 simulator.
Not bad, indeed (wink!)!
Painswick, The 'Queen of the Cotswold'
After the noise and excitement of Leeds Castle, Painswick felt like someone had intentionally turned the volume down.
We headed into the Cotswolds, where the stone seems to have been dipped in honey and the villages look almost indecently pretty in the summer sunshine.
Better known as the ‘Queen of the Cotswolds’, Painswick appears to have been carefully arranged for the benefit of anyone who has ever wanted to romanticise the English countryside.
It was beautiful in the way that makes you lower your voice without quite knowing why.
The roads narrowed, houses gathered themselves around little lanes, gardens tumbled over old walls and the countryside stretched away in every direction.
We walked up the road to the Rococo Gardens, wandered through the grounds, taking in the old-fashioned romance of it all, and the peculiar pleasure of being somewhere where there was no obvious reason to hurry.
That was the thing about Painswick. There wasn't much reason to hurry.
We had afternoon tea at the Painswick Hotel, sitting in the garden, and at some point I realised Mum had stopped asking what we were doing next.
For anyone who knows my mother, this was significant.
There is usually a next.
Where are we going?
What time are we leaving?
What's happening afterwards?
But now there was just tea, the lavender garden, the countryside view and a couple of hours in which absolutely nothing needed to happen.
It was perhaps her first taste of that particular English pleasure of doing very little and feeling absolutely no guilt about it.
There’s a beautiful Italian expression for the art of doing absolutely nothing - il dolce far niente - the sweetness of doing nothing, just the delicious decision, for once, not to be anywhere else or doing anything else. I first came across it in Eat Pray Love, with Julia Roberts, and I’ve always loved the idea of it.
Mum was perfectly happy sitting there.
And I think she liked it… a lot?!
Mamma Mia, obviously!
Back in London, Oliver's mum and sister came down for a couple of days and we went to see Mamma Mia! in the West End, as Oliver's ex-student was playing one of the lead roles (Can you believe it?!).
There isn't much to explain about Mamma Mia! The music starts and everyone suddenly knows all the words.
Mum loved it. We all did.
There was singing, laughing and that strange little thrill of sitting in a theatre full of complete strangers who, for a couple of hours, somehow become part of the same very enthusiastic ABBA choir.
It was a lovely evening (not because it was some great cultural event that needed analysing!!) because we were all together, enjoying ourselves, and occasionally singing considerably louder than the people sitting nearby would probably have preferred.
For the love of football
My mum is also a football enthusiast. Oliver, a lifetime Gooner, had luckily got his hands on tickets to watch the first game of the new Premier League season.
With Arsenal having won the Premier League title and being the reigning champions, he took Mum up to the grounds, and they just had the most wonderful time together, cheering and soaking up the atmosphere.
Mum had to be held down a couple of times, as she had only been given one instruction: to be well behaved, as she herself is a Liverpool supporter and, you know what happens — one wrong move and she could have been escorted out!
The serious business of eating
In between all of this, there was London and food — in fact, quite a lot of food!
We went to Borough Market and just had to investigate the viral strawberries. You know the ones that the internet decided we all needed to eat, photograph and tell everyone about. So we did … I was exceptionally disappointed, to say the least — especially in myself for having believed all the hype!!
There was paella (which was absolutely DIVINELY delish and had me wanting more and more, but at £28 a serving — wow, that might have to wait a bit for round two!), delectable gooey doughnuts, flaky pastries and all sorts of delicious breads.
We wandered around Carnaby Street and South Bank, explored neighbourhoods and did all the little things that make up everyday London life.
And those ‘ordinary bits’ became some of my favourite parts of the summer because, for a few weeks, Mum was living in our London.
Our neighbourhood, some of our favourite places and our daily routines. Sometimes I'd think ... I have walked past that a hundred times and never really seen it.
That's the funny thing about having someone come to stay from somewhere far away.
You start seeing your own life from a slightly different angle.
Festival time ... baby!!
No summer visit is complete without a visit to the Notting Hill Carnival, and this year it was the 60th anniversary celebrations — the largest Caribbean festival of its kind outside the Caribbean. It’s the one event I never miss.
Mum was excited, and so was I!
The streets seemed to vibrate.
Music poured out from absolutely everywhere, food stalls throwing up clouds of spice and smoke.
There were feathers, sequins, flags, costumes and colour in every direction, and people moving to the rhythm with uninhibited joy, as though the whole street had become one enormous dance floor ... (makes you wonder why we don't all do it more often?!)
The steel bands made their way down the streets, and the sound was something else — bright, rhythmic and joyful, getting under your skin before you'd quite realised you were moving with it.
We wandered through the crowds, stopped for food, watched the dancers and tried to take in everything happening around us.
Mum swayed to the music, and I remember looking at her and thinking about the summer we'd just had.
Summer Lovin'
The summer went far too quickly … of course it did(!!) … it always does when you're having a good one.
And before you're quite ready, the suitcase is back by the door, the house suddenly a little quieter, and that slightly strange feeling of going back to normal after weeks of having someone you love woven into the everyday.
What I will remember most about our Summer of ’26 was Mum being here.
The laughter, the food, the family, the ridiculous photographs, the long conversations, the little journeys and the days that somehow seemed to disappear far too quickly.
We set out to make memories, and we certainly did.
And the UK, for a few weeks, felt a little more like home.
P.S. There was one thing Mum had asked for before she came to England. Edinburgh. She wanted to see the bagpipes. So, of course, we went. But that's a completely different story…
[Read: Edinburgh — Bagpipes, the Fringe and everthing Scottish except Haggis → ]
