Day 20

Upon reflection that was quite a rant yesterday about our accommodation - rest assured I am nowhere near as critical when it comes to staying with people we know. In fact, I am even prepared to accept cleanly laundered towels and sheets only every two days rather than daily. That's how devil-may-care I am.

We left Derby with the intention of just heading straight to Oxford; however, given that we had had dinner yesterday in such a nice little pub on a whim and it had turned out so well, and a lady who had struck up a brief, casual conversation with us (and as an aside seemed to be rather surprised that we did not know her niece who lived in the Blue Mountains) had suggested we visit Chatsworth House, which we had never heard of, we decided to go with the whimsical trend established yesterday and go there first instead. It meant a bit of a detour north, but by golly it was worth it. Just nudging into the Peak district, it is the ancestral home of the 11th Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, and, owing to good luck, good planning and questionable breeding, it is arguably one of the grandest stately homes in England, of one of the wealthiest personages in England. If we thought Muncaster Castle was impressive, we were overwhelmed by this home - staggeringly ornate, and set on beautifully luscious grounds, it almost looked like the setting of a Turner or Constable painting (complete with sheep and cows roaming the grounds). Definitely worth the detour. Again though, it brings into question, should society be holding on to seemingly archaic notions of aristocracy simply by birthright, or should responsibility for maintaining the history of such magnificent monuments be vested in people or organisations who/which ultimately (it could argued) have no real emotional nor personal attachment to the history they may be vouchsafed with keeping?

Had lunch at a nearby pub, and, in trying to get as much exposure to what might be considered more traditional English fare, I ordered the baked eggs, which I am not entirely convinced had any egg in it at all - perhaps one of those ironic English idiosyncrasies designed to fool the unwary and unsuspecting (sort of like sweetbread - a brilliantly deceptive way for butchers to offload tons of pancreas each year no doubt). Either way, whatever it was, it was rather delicious.

Drove to Oxford (or rather near Oxford, as our B&B is a few miles out), taking mainly A roads rather than motorways, as they seem to afford a bit better view of the countryside. Not that Isabel took much in as she nodded off for about an hour as we travelled. Constantly being on the move is possibly starting to take its toll - they are both doing extremely well, and we are still mindful of not pushing them too hard.

We had the address of the B&B, but just as we started to get to the fiddly narrowing down the field of where we going - quite literally as it turns out - we are in an old farm house in the middle of a field - the  mobile phone we were using as a GPS sort of system suddenly stopped getting coverage. We had to resort to the tried and true method of looking it up in the old AA map, and asking directions from locals - got us pretty much in the right direction, and then we (or rather Julianne - possibly out of desperation at wanting to find anything by this stage) used a bit of pot luck to make an astute guess which turned out to be correct. A lovely family whose house we are invading - this is the first what I would call real B&B that the kids have stayed in, and I'm not quite sure they know what to make of it, sleeping in the home of complete strangers. It will be interesting to see how they go.

Very nice dinner at the Wykham Arms pub a few minutes drive from 'home'. Kids starting to get a bit too used to eating out every night I fear. Must start taking them to some horrible places to get them used to the meals they will get on our return home.