Today was my first day back to work after the bank holiday weekend. Weather-wise it can only be described as a wash out. Rain, rain and more rain. However the weekend itself was not a wash out.

The new cooker has been repaired, all that was required was a new bolt on the fan. It turned out that the one it came with was not to spec and also threadless!!

On Saturday we undertook a two hour journey to spend the day with my 90 year old aunt. This left us with Sunday and Monday free to do as we pleased.

The weather looked promising on Sunday morning so we ventured out to Ludlow for the afternoon. As soon as we set off the weather turned and it started to rain. When we arrived we visited Ludlow Castle book shop because Mr C thought there might be some books to interest him there. He came away empty handed. We walked through the bank holiday stalls and detoured into The Parish Church of St Laurence which we found to be a lovely church with interesting history and spectacular stained glass windows.

We didn’t stay very long because whilst we were there a baptism service started to be conducted near the main entrances to the church. Both Mr C and I thought it was inappropriate that visitors should still be allowed to wander round the church whilst a religious service was going on so we discreetly made our way back to the entrance and left. We will take time to visit the church when we are next in Ludlow. It was raining as we left the church so we returned home via the Ludlow food centre.

On Monday it was raining again so we spent the day at home working on the house and I had an extra day off on Tuesday when to be honest I didn’t really do anything at all… I was feeling rather tired and lethargic.

Over the weekend we were also informed that Yodel had ‘lost’ another of our wine deliveries!! On the plus side the new curtain material eventually arrived and have now been made up into curtains and are now looking rather splendid in our living room nicely framing the view to our garden

The weather forecast for the weekend wasn’t very inspiring so we picked what looked the best day (Monday) for a day out to Blenheim Palace. Despite it being the bank holiday we had no problems with traffic and arrived at Blenheim having made good time. The weather was kind to us, although it was cloudy at times. We enjoyed the formal gardens, the palace and the walk through the arboretum past the grand cascade before running out of time. In addition to the Palace tour we were able to visit the private apartments where by chance we were lucky enough to see the Butler at work, starting to set up the dining table.

Despite it being the bank holiday it wasn’t overly busy, perhaps due to the grounds being so big. It seems we were lucky to have chosen the Monday as I overheard one of the house guides say that they had seen 5000 people through the doors on Saturday!!

We had our day tickets converted to a yearly pass which means we can go back later in the year to see the other things that we missed.

The journey back was as pleasant as the outward journey. We did however encounter problems finding somewhere to eat. Everywhere had stopped serving and we ended up with our third option which was really a last resort.

After such a busy day yesterday I have spent today relaxing at home with some reading and a little bit of gardening. After such a lovely weekend I was saddened when a neighbour called round this evening to inform us that after the recent fallen branch ‘my oak tree’ has been sentenced with a severe trimming of branches. If I had known earlier today I would have taken some photographs when it was looking particularly beautiful in the early evening sunshine.