There’s a particular kind of pride in showing your parents the life you’ve built so far from home. On April 25, 2024, my wife and I welcomed my parents to our place in Camberley for a two-month stay. What followed was a slow unravelling of England — local High Streets one week, Roman ruins the next, and the coast by early summer. This is a look back at those eight weeks.
Settling in Camberley
We let them find their feet first. Two days after they landed, on April 27, we walked Camberley High Street and slid into a booth at Wagamama for long, lazy bowls of ramen and the kind of conversation you only get when nobody’s watching the clock.
The next day, April 28, we wandered over to Camberley Park to find the bust of Colonel John Pennycuick — the engineer behind the irrigation projects that reshaped Tamil Nadu. Standing there, an hour from London, reading the name of a man who changed the land my parents grew up on, felt like a quiet thread being pulled tight between two homes. We rounded out that first week with dinner at Tandoori Treats on April 30 — comfort food, close to home, no itinerary required.
Historic Getaways: Bath and Bristol
By early May we were restless. May 4 and 5 went to Bath, and Bath does what Bath always does: it slows you down. The whole city glows honey-coloured in the afternoon. We stretched out on the lawns of the Royal Crescent with the sky wide and blue above us, then wandered down to the Roman Baths and sat beside the Great Bath — that strange, glowing green water ringed by columns that have stood there for two thousand years. It’s a humbling thing, to sit somewhere that old with the people who made you.
That evening we shared a table heavy with too many dishes — the best kind of holiday dinner — and the next morning, May 6, rolled on to Bristol for a different beat entirely: grittier, louder, a proper taste of the South West’s two faces.
London Calling
You can’t bring parents to England and skip London, so we gave it two weekends rather than one exhausting marathon.
- May 11-12: the classic loop. We walked the South Bank with the London Eye turning slowly behind us, sunlit and crowded, then spent the afternoon at Madame Tussauds pretending to take the Coronation seriously — posing with King Charles III, Queen Camilla, and the Prince and Princess of Wales, all of them frozen in red-and-gold grandeur while my parents played along.
- May 19: a different London. We went beneath the river at the Sea Life Aquarium and over it on the IFS Cloud Cable Car, the Thames laid out beneath us in the afternoon light.
Castles, Coasts, and Countryside
Mid-May was for day trips. May 18 was Windsor — the castle rising above the town like a postcard you’ve seen a thousand times and still don’t quite believe — and May 20 was a long, easy lunch at The Four Horseshoes, the kind of traditional pub where an afternoon can quietly disappear.
Then the coast called. May 26 we gave to Brighton — its pebbled beach, its pier, its seaside noise — and in early June we nipped over to Bracknell before setting off on the biggest trip of the visit: five days on the Isle of Wight, June 8 to 12. Slow days, island light, and room to just be together without a plan.
The Final Farewell
Near the end, on June 22, we spent a last day in Guildford — its cobbled High Street climbing gently uphill, a soft place to begin saying goodbye.
On June 25, 2024, they flew home to India. Eight weeks; two thousand years of history; more walking than my mother would like to remember; and a great deal of food. Hosting them was one of the great joys of my life, and what’s left — these photos, these memories — I’ll keep close for a long time.
