London Living

It was brief. It was exciting. But we knew it wasn’t real. Living in London for almost two weeks was a wonderful treat for our entire family last summer. We were ensconced in a nice but plain four story townhouse in Paddington not very far from the tube. Hopefully it will be the first of many such ventures abroad.

Surrounding us were row houses, public housing, apartment buildings and the English version of condo complexes. The atmosphere was all very urban, urbane and ripe for big city living. If you’re going to pretend big city living, one can’t do much better than London.

I gleaned some interesting market stats from the Super-Prime Residential Report from Knight Frank Real Estate. Super-prime is defined as the higher end properties in London; starting at two plus million pounds. Anything less than 1.5 million pounds and most of those properties are listed as ‘flats.’ Honestly, it’s a different real estate world over there.

Although London had been seeing some tough times recently with its housing market, it continues to be a safe haven for long term investments with increasing focus on income generation and longer-term returns. Prime Central London (PCL) has not experienced a double-digit price movement up or down for more than five years. By standards of the last four decades, pricing movements have become less extreme.

The London super-prime buyer base is extremely diverse with British, European, Middle Eastern, North American and more recently Chinese buyers seeking property as both homes and investments. Moreover, there has been a shift in the source of wealth away from the financial sector and towards more tech and entrepreneurial sources.

Two units down from our townhome, a similar unit had sold for over four million dollars (translated from pounds by my smart kids) four years earlier. Our unit was purchased for over two million pounds just a couple of years before. Now it had been transformed into a very busy VBRO in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in London.

Based on accents heard on the street, the Russians have found a haven for their money too. I was told that London never lost its reputation as a target market for Russian buyers, but economic conditions in Russia over the last three to four years have reduced demand to some extent.

Now I could understand the appeal of an area like Paddington. The Knight Frank Report went on to say: “It is a cliché but education and culture still play a massively important role for super prime buyers in London. With everything else going on, it’s easy to forget that people still want to study here, go to Wimbledon and Ascot and love the social scene. There is also a strong creative aspect to living in London, demonstrated by some of the deals by tech companies.”

This trip to London was vastly different from my first visit back in 1967.

Back then, I was just another lost soul wandering the cobblestone streets of Dicken’s city looking for folk clubs. I accidentally stumbled across the headquarters of the Beatles Corporation, got lost a couple of times in Hyde Park, and fantasized about shipping out on a freighter.

Back in the 90s, we took our kids to London during Christmas break along with a group of friends. Then repeated that excursion some four years later. Back then, the kids were in high school and old enough to appreciate the excitement of traveling in a foreign country.

This time around, so much had changed. The adults were in charge now. Sharon and I gladly followed them; grandchildren in tow. There were coffee houses near the tube station for morning briefings, gallery tours at the National gallery, the British Museum and The Tate. We soared high in the London Eye, discovered Harry Potter hideaways, strolled along the Thames, took in a show in the Theater District, and wandered the lush green parks.

The kids had their phone apps which told us when the next tube car would arrive, the closest restaurants, shops and entertainment. If we got tired of waiting, we can just dial up an Uber or Lyft. For daily use of the tube, we had our Oster Pass, which got us on all buses and the tube throughout the city.

 For a couple of grandparents it was a delightful way to rediscover one of our favorite cities with the entire family along. Who would have known that I’d be back after that first timid venture in ’67 with my best friend and most prized possessions right beside me?

Through Younger Eyes

The question was always key to our travels abroad. How much would the youngest in our group really pick up and understand from foreign travel? If she was too young it would be wasted on her. Too old and a hundred thousand other distractions might take away from the excitement and educational value of being aboard if only for a brief moment in time.

We pondered that question when Sharon decided that as a gift from her children she wanted to return to London with both families. How would the youngest in our entourage handle traveling abroad?

A precocious and very intuitive seven-year-old Charlotte passed the test and our respective families were off to London and Paris. Her brother at nine years old and their cousins at nine and twelve years old respectively were all well equipped to ‘get it’ as we foraged our way through the customs, culture and excitement of both London and Paris.

At first glance, it might seem like privileged travel for my five grandchildren. I was twenty-one before I took my first plane ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a turbo-prop airliner. I didn’t travel abroad until I was twenty-four. My own kids took that up a notch by traveling to England twice when they were both in their teens.

Privileged yes, but without apology. We hope to impart on my grandchildren ‘real world’ experiences instead of material things. Experiences they can use as life lessons for a lifetime. It’s hands-on grand-parenting instead of the Daddy Warbucks approach. It’s about giving them our shared wisdom learned over a lifetime and a respect for other people and places around the world.

So how did the grandchildren do during their time abroad? Just fine, thank you, just fine. Travel is always an educational experience in more ways than one. It brings out the best and sometimes the worst in people. Unexpected delays, different customs, strange foods, other beliefs and a change of routine can test even the youngest and certainly the oldest in any group. Our gang passed that test with flying colors. And in the process we all learned just a little bit more about one another.

Nana held classes most evenings. There were lessons in charcoal sketching, rehearsing for a short play, playing poker and journaling their daily experiences, impressions and thoughts of that days excursion around the city.

I watched the boys play ‘Exploding Kittens’ on the back patio which brought forth gales of laughter and glee.

We ended up taking the tube everyday everywhere.

We watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

The kids loved exploring the Tate Museum, especially the photography exhibit for Maya.

Exploring the National Gallery of Art was interesting but playing paddy cake in the grand plaza was more fun.

The London Eye gave us an unprecedented view of the great city.

Borrowing from their parent’s generation all the kids had to retrace those famous Beatles crossing Abby Road.

One of the most satisfying experiences for Sharon and I was taking our kids to ‘School of Rock’ in the West End Theater District. The play was loud, ambitious, fun and exhilarating even for the seven-year-old. It has set a new standard for us when we have the grandchildren all together again. A love of the theater is something they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

The Eurostar through the Chunnel was uneventful except for the card games.

A River cruise on the Seine was only topped by climbing the heights of the Eiffel Tower.

The card games and sketching continued through our last meal in town.

In the end, the long time spent waiting at the airport, over 8 hours on the plane then a rush to transfer to a last minute flight from Detroit to Minneapolis proved too much even for an ardent traveler among us.

The same could be said for the Colorado cousins. But Sharon and I are confident that a good time had by all…especially doting grandparents who see even more adventures in our collective future.