London Board Meeting + Family Long Weekend: How We Make It Work

Tom co-founded his company with two friends from his Manchester uni days, all three of them late twenties and convinced they were onto something. They were, as it turns out — the company is now headquartered in DC, in the exercise and nutrition space, and Tom flies to London two or three times a year for board meetings because the UK side of the business has its own footprint. His co-founders, who also relocated to the DC area years ago, fly with him most times. The three of them in a permanent group chat, still, twenty years on.

What this means for our family, very practically, is that two or three weekends a year there is a built-in excuse for me and the kids to tack on. Tom flies Monday, does the board on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the four of us fly Wednesday night to meet him for a long weekend. We have done this enough times that we have a rhythm. It is not a holiday, exactly. It is a long weekend, with school on the back end, and it works because we have stopped trying to make it more than it is.

The Wednesday-Thursday school question

I am not the mum who pulls her kids out of school casually, and Fairfax County is fairly relaxed about this kind of thing if you give them notice and a plan. The maths usually shapes up like this: a Wednesday night red-eye out of Dulles lands us in London Thursday morning. The kids miss Thursday and Friday — two school days — and we are home Sunday night. Two days out, in exchange for four full days in London with their dad, who they otherwise barely see in March because of the build cycle.

I email each teacher the week before. Jack's sixth-grade team wants a one-page reflection per day abroad, which he does in his Moleskine on the plane and the kitchen table at the Airbnb. The twins' second-grade teacher just asks them to read every day and bring back a postcard for the class wall. We are not sneaking around. We are not asking permission. We are giving notice and the kids are doing the work.

The Wednesday night flight, but lighter

Because this is a long weekend rather than a proper trip, we pack ruthlessly. One small carry-on each. No checked bags. The kids are pros at this now — Jack told Henry last time that "if it does not fit in one cube, we are not bringing it," which is a direct quote from me but it works. We Uber to Dulles instead of driving (no parking fee for four days), and Tom meets us at Heathrow Friday morning after his Thursday night dinner with the board.

Friday: hand-off and Hyde Park

Tom has the dad-handover-look very specifically dialled in by now. He arrives at the flat (we rent the same one near Marylebone every time) showered, in his weekend clothes, having absolutely thrown his suit in the back of the wardrobe. We do not ask about the meetings. He does not want to talk about them. He wants to walk to Hyde Park with us and watch Olivia spin in circles by the Serpentine.

Hyde Park is the cure. We do the playground at Diana Memorial, the boats if it is warm enough, lunch at one of the pubs near Lancaster Gate. Henry has a Lego thing he wants to find at Hamleys — we let him have it as the one big spend. Jack sketches a tree. Olivia has views about which boat is best and they are loud. Tom is uncomplicatedly happy, which I do not see often during board season.

Saturday: the Liberty London bonus

This is my one selfish hour and the kids know it. Saturday morning we have an unspoken trade — Tom takes the kids to the V&A or the Natural History Museum (the dinosaurs, always the dinosaurs) and I walk to Liberty London on Great Marlborough Street and spend an hour wandering the haberdashery floor. I never buy anything substantial. I usually leave with one Liberty-print scrunchie for Olivia and a bar of soap. The point is the hour, not the bag.

We meet for lunch in Soho. The kids are tired by 3pm, which is exactly the right amount of tired for a Saturday in London, and we go back to the flat and they watch a film while Tom and I have a cup of tea and pretend we are normal people who go on dates.

Sunday: the Didsbury detour

This is the bit Tom's mum waits for. Sunday morning we get on the train at Euston up to Manchester Piccadilly — two hours and change, the kids on their iPads, Tom on a real phone call with his sister to confirm the lunch — and we are at his mum's in Didsbury by lunchtime. She does Sunday roast, vegan now (she has been vegan three years, the kids are unfazed), and Harry Styles is on quietly in the background because that is her current allegiance.

She calls me "love." She tells me I look tired. She tells Tom he looks tired. She tells the kids they have grown, which is the only line every grandmother on earth knows. We are there for four hours. The train back to London is at 5pm, and the flight home is Monday at noon out of Heathrow.

What I have learned about these trips

Do not over-plan. Four days, three real activities. That is the limit.
Use the flat as a base, not a stop. Same neighbourhood every time. The kids know which Pret is the good one.
The board meeting does not exist on the weekend. When Tom is with us, Tom is with us. The phone goes in the kitchen drawer.
Tom's mum gets a Sunday. Always. Even if it is exhausting. Even if the train is delayed. She is 68 and we love her, and she only flies as far as Mallorca with Jet2, so we go to her.
The kids' schoolwork comes home with us done. No exceptions. That is the deal we made with their teachers and with ourselves.

I am aware that the only reason this kind of weekend works is because of Tom's job and the trips it generates, and I do not pretend otherwise. The honest read is that we have built our travel pattern around the rhythms of his work because we can, and because his mum is in Didsbury and the kids are eight and eleven and not eight and eleven for very long. So when the calendar invite shows up for a London board meeting, I open the school portal and start the email to the teachers. Two days out, four days together, one Sunday with Granny. That is the trade and we keep making it.