I will start by saying this: I wish I’d bought MORE. But it was hard to know what I wanted, especially early on in the trip. And I kept seeing, for example, LONDON-themed souvenirs when we had not been to London, and never really DID go to London (we spent a few hours there the evening before our next-morning flight), and I didn’t want souvenirs from a place I hadn’t gone—but I also wasn’t sure I wanted, say, a lot of Windsor-themed souvenirs specifically, when we were spending a few days there and then going on to Bath and the Cotswolds.

Well. Again: in the future, I will err on the side of buying, because as I was unpacking my suitcase I was happy to see every single thing I’d bought, and wished only that I’d been less careful/restrained.

My old messenger bag BROKE on the trip (it was the zipper), and I VERY MUCH wanted to replace it in England (EXACTLY the kind of Unplanned Souvenir I was hoping for!), but I did not find anything I liked well enough. I wish I had bought something anyway—but I kept thinking maybe later on I would find something I wanted more, and I didn’t want to spend, say, fifty pounds on a bag I was so-so about, and then maybe see one I LOVED. Well. A missed opportunity.

I wish I had bought a RAINCOAT in England. So many people were wearing such cute ones! But I was not in the right frame of mind to be trying on clothes.

I wish we had gone when there was a Queen, because so much merchandise was related to the new Boy Queen, and I am not interested in him.

I wish I had bought birthday cards in England to send over the next year to all the people I went on the trip with! That would have been fun: “I bought you this card ON OUR TRIP TO ENGLAND!!”

That concludes the Didn’t Buy section; now for the Did Buy.

The souvenir umbrellas (one country flag, one London skyline) mentioned in a previous post, plus two decks of cards (the other deck is in the possession of the children) and a set of four egg spoons (for lil yogurts rather than eggs; two of the spoons are in the dishwasher and the other two are a little hard to see against the countertop pattern):

 

A tea towel I cannot show you because it is not hanging up and it is not in the washing machine so I am not sure where it is, but I suspect it went through the wash when one of the kids did their laundry (we toss used towels/washclothes into the empty washing machine), and is now in a clean laundry basket in a kid’s room. Well, it was the Strawberry Thief pattern, so I was able to get this picture of it off a William Morris shop website:

 

Fridge magnets!

The Windsor one is sparkly/metallic, and I bought it at the same place where I bought my first souvenir umbrella. The Trout Farm one I just thought was funny. A trout farm!

 

Multiple bags of biscuits/cookies, crackers, tea cakes, candy, etc.:

(Also several wee jars of jam lifted from hotel breakfasts.)

 

A Dutchess mug from Blenheim Castle:

It was an uncharacteristic purchase: I am not usually someone who likes, for example, aprons labeled Queen of My Kitchen or whatever. But I saw it, I liked it, I felt it wasn’t characteristic and I wondered if it would survive the airline flinging it around so I decided not to buy it—and then I kept wanting it, so I thought, “Well, if it’s like twenty pounds I won’t buy it,” and it was seven pounds so I bought it.

 

The prize of my collection, a Penhaligon’s scent sampler:

There could have been no souvenir more relevant to my interests. It has a 2ml sample of each of ten scents, including The Coveted Duchess Rose, Juniper Sling, and The Favorite. I can’t even open it yet, I am too excited.

 

As we were packing for this trip, I went to my stash of tiny notebooks to choose one for my purse, so I could write things down if I wanted/needed to. And my stash was not where I thought it was. And it was not any of the places I thought I could have moved it. I had to keep myself from going into Tear the House Apart mode. Anyway when I saw some little notebooks in England, I bought them:

 

Lavender linen spray:

This was a little iffy because it was so BLATANTLY marketed to tourists. Like, obviously ALL of this is marketed to tourists. But these Cotswold lavender displays were everywhere, and the labeling looked so generic. But…I do like lavender, and I do like the idea of linen spray, and we did visit The Cotswolds where they did talk about lavender, so I bought a bottle and I’m glad I did.

 

Paul bought this little printed oath from the Oxford Library for me to bring into work:

 

I bought a Christmas ornament that looks like one of the red post boxes I had fun finding so I could send postcards, but I have already put that away with the Christmas stuff so you will just have to imagine it.

 

Commenters Annabeth and Sophie suggested buying reusable shopping bags from English shops, and that was a very fun idea I hadn’t thought of. I bought this one at Marks & Spencer:

 

And finally: POSTCARDS. A small selection: