Sunrise in the Forest

This is from the UK half of the split team. Not sure whats happening to the blogs on the German side of the team - Glen said in his txt yesterday that Lyn was about to start blogging, but I suspect Timothy was being far too cute to switch attention to the computer. The last couple of days I was there he was awake pretty much all afternoon, just gurgling and wanting to play!

I arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning. We had to circle round over London a bit before landing, and eventually came in low right over the city, with a glorious view of St Pauls, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Eye, Hyde Park, and lots more.

I drove down to Gloucestershire, stopping for some food and a coffee at Oxford. I had alittle walk around the old Colleges of the University, and went to an exhibition on Milton at the Bodleian library, which was really good (and quite small!)

I stopped and had a look at Blenheim Palace too. I had never been there, and have always wanted to. The building is just magnificent, the stateliest of stately homes! And the gardens are also lovely, although I only saw a little bit of them - there is a huge park stretching over acres.

The history of the place is interesting. The land and money to build the house was given in the 1700s to the first Duke, a Churchill, after his troops won the battle of Blenheim in Bavaria, saving Europe from Napoleon. It seems as though a bit of wartime nous must have run in the family! The male Churchills died, and the family became Spencers (same family as Lady Di) because the Churchill daughter married a spencer. They then added the Churchill name back in, so by the time Winston was born they were Spencer-Churchills.

Winston was the son of a younger brother, so he was never going to inherit Blenheim or be a Duke, but he was born there (by accident), as his parents were there for dinner when he made an untimely arrival. They had quite a good display of Winston history in the room where he was born.

I had a tour of the part that was open to the public (the current family still live there) and it was great. They still use the rooms we went through - have family Christmas dinner in the vast banqueting hall with the painted ceiling, and an enormous Rubens on the wall, and they have functions in the gorgeous long, light library with its huge organ at one end.

Roger and Pam have been very welcoming, and Pam had cooked a lovely meal last night just for the 3 of us. Joan came down and had a drink with us first - she's looking a bit frail but pretty good for 86.

Roger is working today, so I will go walking with the dogs with Pam this morning, and then I am having afternoon tea with Jonathon and Dana, as Pam has something on this afternoon.

I am sitting here just watching the sun rise over the Forest - magic! It's cool with a bit of a frost, but looks as though it will be a good day.