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Blenheim Palace revisited
We have an audacious identity theft to report. At Paddington Station, London, Spy Valley Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc being sold across the bar as an Australian wine. Such larceny, right up there with the claimed ownership of pavlova, Phar Lap and Crowded House, was uncovered as we waited a train on Friday evening to Oxford for an intended weekend of wholesome living. To put things right, the only responsible thing to do was to clear the bar of all traces of the offending product – the major side benefit being that the resulting unruly behavior was assumed to be Australian. Appropriate retribution in the circumstances.
The real damage was done later in the evening by several fine bottles of Sileni Estate Hawkes Bay Merlot, resulting in my cousin, next morning, insisting on a lengthy walk through the grounds of Blenheim Palace in the Cotswolds to clear heads. Winston Churchill was born there, apparently in a closet, and the owning family now that of the 11th Duke of Marlborough. The 2100 acre parklands are open to the public for a charge of about 10 pounds, although there is a free right of passage if you are a local entering from one of the small villages originally part of the estate. We must be local, we have been here before and, on the previous occasion, photographic evidence reveals both Kaelene and my cousin Jani in sunglasses to subdue the effect of sunlight on ailing bodies. This seems to be a habit here, on my last trip we bicycled down the Thames tow path, from Kennington to Oxford, for the same spiritual and physical cleansing.
Blenheim Palace, now a world heritage site, was created to celebrate victory over the French during the Wars of the Spanish Succession. It was a gift to the First Duke of Marlborough, the military commander who led the allied forces into battle in August 1704 at Blindheim.
The parklands, created by Capability Brown, contain more than half a million trees and gardens, including one mysteriously called the pleasure garden. As the accompanying photo shows, we found a pleasure tree of our own.