Oxfordshire

On Saturday 21st November we had another busy weekend. We spent Saturday in Oxfordshire at Blenheim Palace (in Woodstock) and in the city of Oxford with Girish, Pranjali and Priya. It was a long day because we went up and back in the one day - which meant 5 hours of driving! Blenheim Palace would be beautiful in the summer, it was quite a cold day when we were there and most of the trees have lost their leaves now, which makes everything look quite bare! The palace still looked grand and elegant - but I'm sure the gardens would look spectacular in full bloom.

We picked a good day to go though because there was a Christmas/Craft Fair happening all weekend. I could have spent ages there, but luckily my purse was kept shut because we had limited time. I really enjoyed having a quick look at all the stuff though. I was very interested in the Decopatch. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do some one day!

The palace had some wonderful Christmas decorations - especially inside. Under a lot of the Christmas trees were original olden day toys - large dolls houses, toy aeroplanes, handmade dolls and bears. Some of the trees had some gorgeous decorations. It was more fun for the kids going through this palace - at this time of year, because they had all the Christmas stuff to look at. No photos allowed inside, but here are some of the outside Christmas trees.

{Emily not wanting to look at the camera - she often does that!}

{Lots of maze gardens.}

Emily and Leilani entertained themselves by taking photos on their 'phones!' It was quite funny really, as we just looked back one time and saw this....

{Emily still working hard with the camera phone!}

{Checking to see if she got any good shots!}

Blenheim Palace is home to the 11th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and was the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill! He was born about 3 weeks early - his mother was visiting family here when she had a fall - and whilst resting (yeah - that's how the male guide described it!) in one of the guest rooms Winston decided to arrive! We went into the room where he was born and saw a few of his baby items on display. These places are just like big museums really and if you stayed all day - and read all the information - far out you would be smart!!! I often wonder how much I would stop and read if we didn't have the kids. It would be marvellous - but I'd probably get bored after a while - so I guess the kids are a good excuse!

I thought that I had seen some of the best libraries in the country - but this one topped the lot of them once again! We saw a very old copy of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" along with lots of his other books, all locked up on the library shelf! I just love looking at the libraries!

{Back outside for some more photos.}

We left Woodstock around 3pm and headed into Oxford where we were meeting up with Girish and Pranjali. They live in Cambridge and were down in Oxford visiting some friends - so we all caught up for a quick bite and chat. We ended up in McDonalds actually because it started raining quite hard and Oxford was just packed with people. These photos are pretty bad. I had to show a picture of the 3 little girls together!

{I love Emily's little hand around Priya's neck!}

We then all headed home - Oxford is about halfway between Cambridge and Taunton (well driving time anyway) so we all had about a 2 1/2 hour drive home!