Back to the Summer - Diamond Caravan Park, Bletchingdon, Art in Action, Blenheim House and Oxford

Just squeezed in!

The Jolly Boatman
We had a lovely meal here and
a very short walk along the canal

Well it seemed like a ridiculous start to our camping holiday when after a smooth, uneventful journey we arrived at Diamond Caravan Park to be shown to our pitch.
Regular readers of the blog will know our tent is substantial. I like camping. I don't enjoy shuffling around in a small dark space on my hands and knees for a week, cooking from the boot of the car. We did that in our 20's, now in our late 40's we are demanding a bit of comfort from our holidays! I know when I'd booked, that I'd been very clear about the size of the tent. I know the dimensions by heart 5.35 metres wide by 6.2 metres long, so when we saw the pitch we were incredibly sceptical. Not the warden though, he seemed very optimist and even quite pleased with himself about an hour later when he walked past and shouted "I told you you'd fit"....little did he know we were only half was through. Give him his due, we did fit, but stepping outside our front door took us straight on to the adjoining pitch. We got that sinking feeling you get when you suddenly feel everything is going to go wrong.
How wrong we were. The pitch was not ideal but it was close enough to the toilets, the bar, reception, the washing up and the swimming pool for everything to be convenient. Not in view of the play park but you can't have everything. It was difficult to know what to do with our car, but we always managed to find somewhere! The holiday turned out to be one of the best breaks of the year. I can say for sure that I'd definitely go back to the site. The toilets were about the best we've had while we were camping. They were in a block with a main entrance so no muddy, grassy floors when the rain comes or from the pool. There was a small problem with the was the showers drained, which meant a lot of wet, but they had mops and a giant squeegee to help and they assured us that sorting it out was their priority for the coming season. They were warm and had piped music, not always to everyone's taste but wide ranging, a nice touch if you have to go in the scary depths of the night and relaxing in the day for those other moments when sharing toilets can be a bit off putting if you get my meaning!

The Pool - heated but still cool

The bar/restaurant was open intermittently but when we heard that the owners had only taken over 2 weeks earlier we realised why. They advertised when they would be open for meals and took pre-orders so they could be organised. We didn't eat in there, we did have a pint one night but it hadn't been kept well, but again I'm sure with feedback they will get there.
The play area was not central to the site but there was a good bunch of kids there and with some boundaries and expectations set, play times worked well.
The site was surrounded by farmland, so we looked out over sheep and horses. Red kites quite often soared overhead.
The best part of the site was the outdoor "heated" swimming pool, which the owners had worked hard to get ready for the beginning of the school holidays thankfully. Lauren was in it everyday that we were on site. To me the water was freezing, although as the good weather went on it did get warmer, but Lauren didn't seem to mind and it was nice to sit and read my kindle while she played happily in the water.
The pool was the main reason we managed to relax and didn't spend all week going out in the car. We did manage to go out twice though.


Art in Action
This was the third visit for Lauren and myself, but a first time for Tony. Usually we got to see Uncle Paul, but the Boat Building Academy didn't have a stall this year. The weather was great as it usually is for AIA, however, it had clearly not been that way leading up to the event. Their normal car park was flooded and a park and ride had been set up to get us there. The exhibition was great again this year, located at Waterperry House and Gardens, we managed to actually have a walk around the gardens which were lovely. The tents were packed full of interesting exhibitors as usual with something for everyone's taste. We have our favourites - we saw the glass blowing and the ironmonger, visited the wood work tent which this year was dominated by the One Oak Project, the illustrators including the amazing Jackie Morris, watched John Stroomer throwing a pot, went to see the bee keepers and the portrait painters, the sculptors.

Watching Ema Kelly, Duck in a Bucket

A walk round the market tent to see if I could spend my birthday money and Lauren made friends with a man sculpting wooden ducks and then was totally transfixed by a young artist Ema Kelly of Duck in a Bucket who was making lamp worked caterpillars, ladybirds and bees and explaining everything as she worked. Lauren watched her make everything twice and we had quite a job to get her away in the end, last year it had been an artist drawing a honey buzzard in pencil in a very stylised way, i wish I could remember her name. There were plenty of other attractions other than art, artisan bakers, a plethora of fresh food stalls - Italian, Spanish, Turkish, typically English - a Pimms tent, Waterperry has an orchard and makes apple juice, we watched some North Indian classical Kathak dance. Another long day but so interesting and we will be there again next year.

Lauren watching John Stroomer

Nearing completion

Blenheim Palace

Was within a close distance to Diamond and was well sign posted. The entry fee as always seemed incredibly steep (£50 for the 3 of us), however, once you were in there was so much to do. The whole place was impeccable, the food and drink reasonable, clean toilets, the shop was one of the best attraction shops we've been in, even Tony liked shopping there. We managed to buy some lovely cards and gifts and I bought myself a great set of measuring spoons.
There were well kept, beautiful gardens, a park, a small train, a sheltered adventure playground, but the star of the show was the house, obviously. Once home to Winston Churchill, it was immense. Once you got in, there were 2 choices to make, the advice was to turn right first, come out, go back in and go left. The right takes you around the house, the children get an activity to do based around spotting things in each of the rooms which was brilliant and really got Lauren interested. It was stuffed full of interesting pottery, painting - including artwork and cards by Churchill himself, rooms and facts and photos about Churchill. I only knew the basics that everyone knows so found it really interesting. I really loved the enormous library.

Really?...
can you believe this is an actual butterfly?
I saw it and still couldn't believe it!

Back in and to the left you were on a more organised tour. A live guide started you off but the rest was an automated affair which took you through the history of the house. I really enjoyed the tour, the doors opened and closed on their own to guide you along and a video "maid" gave you all the facts about the family line. I especially enjoyed the section about the servants. Some people got bored on some of the longer sections and pushed their way ahead and it was incredibly warm in there, but we saw it through to the end before going off to explore the grounds. I would really recommend it for a day out but it's not for the faint hearted there's a lot of walking especially around the house.
As well as the house and gardens we visited the park and the Butterfly House. There was also a lot of activity going on and we thought they were getting ready to put on a concert or something similar. When we got home we heard it was for the wedding of Marvin Humes and Rochelle Wiseman..who..oh JLS and The Saturdays, well they chose a brilliant location.

The modest entrance to Blenheim

Oxford
Our other day out was to Oxford. This was our first visit to Oxford with Lauren. My main advice would definitely be to not even try to park in town, it would have cost us nearly £30 to park, so we did a quick turn around and headed for the well organised Park & Ride.
 The purpose of going was to go to the pictures we went to see Ice Age 4, which was a shame as the weather outside was gorgeous. In the area around the cinema was just about every restaurant chain you can think of, as well as a few independents. Lauren insisted we go to Yo! Sushi, her favourite. Luckily it was a "Blue Thursday" so all the plates were one price as generally it's a very expensive meal out.
Once we'd eaten we headed into town to check out the shopping and the attractions, Oxford is a mix of modern and ancient, a buzzing university town, lots of bicycles, however on one of the hottest days of the year the town was not the best place to be, so we headed down to the river. We walked for a while but it really was sweltering, so we decided the best course of action was to get on the river. We booked ourselves onto a river cruise and had a leisurely hour in a cool breeze enjoying the sights of the river bank.
I don't think we really did the city justice on this visit but our purpose was more entertainment that sight seeing, so I guess we will need to go back one day.