Blenheim

(I'm actually in Cardiff now in a very civilized pub: The Halfway. They have wifi. I have beer. Time to catch up with posting photos.)

July 27th

Blenheim Palace. Note the clear blue skies. They're following us. Really. Each time we drive to another dreary drenched destination, the English weather decides to put on a good impersonation of summer.
This place has a thousand windows, and they had to black them all out during the war.
Long necks are elegant, but sometimes one can have too much of a good thing.

Her neck is a foot and a half,
Which at parties is great for a laugh.
She can twist it with ease
Through three-sixty degrees,
But she can't find a suitable scarf.
A manmade lake in what used to be a deep ravine.
And manmade cascades. Capability was a busy bloke.
This is the Italian garden. No access for us plebs, probably because it's adjacent to the wing where the old duke lives.
The roses were looking a little under the weather. No matter what the sun was doing to convince us of summer, the battered petals still bore witness to the days of pelting rain.
Hello Oxford!
No, Oxford isn't really like this. We had to go exploring in the suburbs to find a low lying riverside plane that still had floodwaters on it. Most of Oxford was high and dry.