A Blustery Blenheim Lunch!

I have never before had to eat my lunch in order of weight…

On leaving Oxford last Sunday, husband and I decided to travel the short distance to Blenheim and have a couple of hours there. We had to leave the guesthouse by ten o’clock in the morning, and felt that this would be both too early to go home and yet not leave enough time to go back into Oxford for more sightseeing. And so we hit on visiting Blenheim Palace as a nice way to round off our trip and avoid cutting short our precious time alone together.

After the grey and slightly rainy day which we had experienced on the Saturday, we were overjoyed to wake up to brilliant sunshine and blue skies on the Sunday. However, we hadn’t realised, until we got outside, just how windy it was! It was very bizarre weather; winter strength winds with summer bright and warm sunshine.

We spent a very happy morning (that’ll be another post!) and then headed off to Blenheim for a couple of hours. It was easy to find from Oxford – it must have been the first new place that we’ve been to where the journey was entirely without incident! There was plenty of space for parking, and we headed straight for the grounds once we left the car. We had bought the restricted tickets which only entitled us access to the grounds and parts of the palace including the restaurants and shops as we didn’t feel that we would have enough time to appreciate the exibitions and state rooms. Even though the wind was horrific, we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the grounds, especially the huge lake. It is very hard to believe that the lake is not a natural feature of the area but was dug specially to enhance the grounds and the view. We walked right down to the cascades, past the rose garden and around the outside of the private Italian garden. We sat for a while in the water terraces (not actually in the water!) and enjoyed the peace and calm of our sheltered corner.

Lunch was…interesting! There was a good selection of food to choose from, but it was extremely busy and so rather than fight my way to the counter I decided to choose something from the chilled cabinet. There were sandwiches and wraps, and (what I eventually settled on) home made quiches with a range of salads. I also added a scone with jam and clotted cream in little tubs as my pudding! Husband had a gammon and leek pie (which was rather large) with cooked vegetables. Well, once we had paid there didn’t seem to be many tables left inside, so we decided to head out to the terrace. The wrought iron chairs which were lying on their backs should have been a clue as we walked out of the door. However, we thought that the terrace would be sufficiently sheltered and so we thought nothing of it. How wrong we were! Within seconds my butter tub was making a bid for freedom and our drinks were threatening to tip over, despite the heavy glasses into which they had been dispensed. I then had to resort, as the first sentence of this post suggests, to deciding which food item was the lightest and leaving the heavier things (like the quiche) for last! It was the most bizarre and giggliest meal experience I have had in a very long time!