A Welsh Christmas: London, Wales, and Everywhere In Between (2012)

Every so often a trip comes along that manages to be both a proper family holiday and a homecoming at the same time. Our Christmas in the UK over 2012 into 2013 was exactly that — twelve days of London sightseeing, castles, cousins, and Mum and Dad's back garden in Penarth, with Debra, Nathan, Sam and Lilly all in tow. We flew out on the 18th of December and didn't come home until New Year's Day, and looking back through the photos now, it's one of those trips where practically every day earned its place.

London first

We eased in gently with a day in London on the 20th — the Natural History Museum, a look at Big Ben, the usual business of standing in the cold trying to get everyone in the same photo at the same time. Nothing dramatic, just the sort of first day that reminds you why London never gets old, even when you've done the tourist trail a dozen times before.

[PHOTO: family outside the Natural History Museum] [PHOTO: Big Ben, classic tourist shot]

Dover Castle, and the reluctant king's subject

If I had to pick one story from this whole trip to tell at a dinner party, it's this one. Dover Castle was putting on a living history performance — actors in full costume playing the king and queen, working the crowd, pulling people up to take part. And of course, they zeroed in on Nathan.

He was hauled up in front of everyone with all the enthusiasm of someone being called to the headmaster's office, while the rest of us stood there thoroughly enjoying his discomfort. I don't think I've laughed that hard on a family holiday in years. Everyone else thought it was brilliant theatre; Nathan, less so. It's become one of those stories that gets retold every time the family's together, and it never fails to get a laugh — least of all from him, eventually.

[PHOTO: Nathan roped into the Dover Castle performance]

Christmas Day in Penarth

We based ourselves at Mum and Dad's — Derek and Fay — in Penarth for the heart of the trip, and Christmas Day itself was as classic as it gets: presents in the morning, the whole family under one roof, the kind of Christmas I grew up with myself. There's something quite special about bringing your own kids back to open presents in the same house you did as a child.

[PHOTO: Christmas morning, presents at Mum & Dad's]

The days around Christmas

The days either side of Christmas Day were full in their own quieter way. We wandered down to Penarth Pier, only to find it closed for repairs — the famous pier gate shut tight. Still worth the walk down and the photo, closed or not; it's such a recognisable bit of the town.

[PHOTO: Penarth Pier, gate closed for repairs]

We also did a proper photoshoot in Mum and Dad's back garden, and it turned out to be one of the best things we did all trip — lovely portraits of everyone, and some genuinely great headshots of the kids that I still love. And then there's the shot I'd call the keeper of the whole album: Lilly up on cousin Laura's horse, with Laura leading her round. It's the sort of picture that doesn't need any explanation — it just is the trip, somehow.

[PHOTO: family portraits in the back garden] [PHOTO: Lilly on Laura's horse, Laura leading]

One evening we had a meal out with Julie, Alan, Sarah and Laura — good food, good company, the sort of catching-up-with-family evening that's hard to arrange when everyone's scattered across different countries most of the year.

Windsor, and the leaning house

At some point around this stretch of the trip — the 23rd, or possibly the 26th or 27th, my notes are a little hazy on the exact day — we made the trip over to see Helen and Alan, Debra's sister and her husband, over near Banstead. While we were in Windsor we stopped for the obligatory photo outside the Crooked House — this wonderfully lopsided seventeenth-century timber-framed building that looks like it's about to slide sideways into the street. Every trip needs at least one "so you know where we are" photo, and this was ours.

[PHOTO: the Crooked House of Windsor]

Cardiff, and a proper fanboy moment

The 28th was, for me, one of the best days of the whole trip. We took the family to the Doctor Who Exhibition in Cardiff, and I will happily admit I was as excited as the kids. I grew up with Doctor Who, I've never stopped loving it, and there's something that genuinely makes me proud about the fact that it's been filmed in Wales — my Wales — ever since the show came back in 2005. Getting to walk through an exhibition about it in Cardiff, with my own family in tow, was one of those quietly perfect days where a personal passion and a family holiday line up exactly.

[PHOTO: the family at the Doctor Who Exhibition, Cardiff]

Hampton Court, and heading for home

We closed the trip out on the 30th with a visit to Hampton Court Palace — Henry VIII's old place on the Thames. It felt like exactly the right note to end on: grand, historic, a bit theatrical, not unlike the whole trip itself. A few days later, on New Year's Day, we flew home.

[PHOTO: Hampton Court Palace]

Looking back at it now, this was one of those trips that had a bit of everything — history, family, a proper bit of comic relief courtesy of Nathan and a Dover Castle actor, and a fanboy pilgrimage I still think about. Twelve days, two countries' worth of history, and one thoroughly good excuse to be back home in Wales for Christmas.