The steady stream of UK trips slowed down after the bustle of the early aughts, and more than four years passed before Aimee and I returned, during the banner travel year of 2008. Friends were celebrating a 40th birthday in the Cotswolds at a big country house, and even though we’d already been to Hawaii and Italy, that sort of opportunity doesn’t come around very often, does it? So, we spent a long weekend, Thursday to Tuesday, in London and the Cotswolds. It was a delightful break, well documented on Flickr and here on the blog.

Looking back, it turns out the trip was nearly four years ago exactly, starting on August 7th and taking us away from the Olympics in Beijing, which we caught up on when we returned to L.A. Who knew I’d be back for years later for London’s turn?

Aimee and Grace won’t be with me this time around, but I look forward to the day when we can all go together, and spend a little more time seeing the sights.

I leave tomorrow afternoon, and am getting pretty excited. I’ve got my iPhone unlocked and ready to accept a cheap UK SIM card. If it works, I’ll be tweeting and Flickr’ing pretty often. If it doesn’t work, I’ll be on radio silence for the next two weeks, like we did in the old days.