So whatever is a Praeneste? Plus marijuana.

It was with great sadness that I announce today Steve & Denise left us, they've moved onto The Thames and it would seem enjoying themselves too, while David and I are humourless and lonely.

Steve juggling with ropes.

The Happy Couple with their fabulous new boat.

So what should we do today?  Luckily David had spotted a nice house on his early morning rounds and we went there.

The blurb said its a very non commercialised house, meaning no shop and no café!!  So on what became a sweltering hot day, we arrived at Rousham House.  Actually its a stones throw from Lower Heyford where we stopped over one night, but today we went in the car.

We parked the car with about eight other cars, following the sign for garden tickets there was a machine similar to a car park paying machine, as we were reading it a lady very similar to Audrey Forbes-Hamiliton came bustling over to help us.  This lady was in fact the owner.

Impressive eh?  Actually this is to the stables. 

The front of the house

Pretty gate.

Captivating entrance to the Gardens.

Oh My!  the perfume of the roses

Lots of my favourites grown here.

Figs.

Plums.

The back lawn!

Something called a Praeneste, a seven arched variety.

Quite a lot of this being grown in the kitchen garden, looking very similar to marijuana....

The House and grounds are really wonderful, going down to the river where we watched Muntjack deer scampering and countless royal blue dragonflies.  Come visit here, its rather nice as there are no Keep Off The Grass signs of the kind the NT employ to annoy me.

We returned to Thrupp and had afternoon tea at Annie's Tearooms and much later had chicken in a mango and coconut sauce sitting in the sun.