Well - almost - it was sighted occasionally, but at least it did not rain on me.
I started the morning with one last circle through Oxford, past the Sheldonian Theatre, through the Bodleian Library Quadrangle, around the Radcliffe Camera, and past the church of St Mary the Virgin - so many spires indeed!!!! There really are students in gowns swooping by on bicycles, dons in full academic regalia seen only in Auckland ad graduations, and aged "scouts" in bowler hats guarding the doors of the colleges. Perhaps it is all just turned on for that film crew still ensonced in the Radcliffe Camera, and they all disappear after the fiming.
I then set off through assorted M and A roads, and gazillions of roundabouts to Stowe in Buckinghamshire, which is regarded as the greatest of the English landscape gardens. Capability Brown was gardener here for 10 years, and it truly an amazing place. It is rather a cross between the gardens at Stourhead and Blenheim Palace, with some of the extensive scope of Blenheim, and some of the intricately constructed woodland lanscapes of Stourhead. It takes hours to walk around, and even then I don't think I covered it all.
In the middle of the gardens is the massive Palladian mansion which was once the seat of the Duke of Buckinham, but has now become the prestigious boy's public school of Stowe. It looks an incredible environment for a school, and to cap it of there were assorted games of cricket goingon, with boys watching from the great steps in front of the house, over the velvet green of the cricket pitch - terribly English.....
Coming back I put petrol in the car - no pre-programmable pumps here!!! - then stopped off at a country pub for a beer, and to watch Tim Henman get put out of Wimbledon 3-2, after pulling back up from 2 sets down - terribly English also.....
Tomorrow is off to Germany, via the horrors of Heathrow.
I started the morning with one last circle through Oxford, past the Sheldonian Theatre, through the Bodleian Library Quadrangle, around the Radcliffe Camera, and past the church of St Mary the Virgin - so many spires indeed!!!! There really are students in gowns swooping by on bicycles, dons in full academic regalia seen only in Auckland ad graduations, and aged "scouts" in bowler hats guarding the doors of the colleges. Perhaps it is all just turned on for that film crew still ensonced in the Radcliffe Camera, and they all disappear after the fiming.
I then set off through assorted M and A roads, and gazillions of roundabouts to Stowe in Buckinghamshire, which is regarded as the greatest of the English landscape gardens. Capability Brown was gardener here for 10 years, and it truly an amazing place. It is rather a cross between the gardens at Stourhead and Blenheim Palace, with some of the extensive scope of Blenheim, and some of the intricately constructed woodland lanscapes of Stourhead. It takes hours to walk around, and even then I don't think I covered it all.
In the middle of the gardens is the massive Palladian mansion which was once the seat of the Duke of Buckinham, but has now become the prestigious boy's public school of Stowe. It looks an incredible environment for a school, and to cap it of there were assorted games of cricket goingon, with boys watching from the great steps in front of the house, over the velvet green of the cricket pitch - terribly English.....
Coming back I put petrol in the car - no pre-programmable pumps here!!! - then stopped off at a country pub for a beer, and to watch Tim Henman get put out of Wimbledon 3-2, after pulling back up from 2 sets down - terribly English also.....
Tomorrow is off to Germany, via the horrors of Heathrow.
1 comment:
Good luck in Deutschland Mummy, I hope you maybe get to see some sunshine there!
Post a Comment