September 23rd, 2010 | General, Travel
It rained during the night. Boughs bow in the colorless light, the flagstones and rock walls are damp and the lawn glows that brilliant, peculiarly English, green. It is our last day at New Cottage and this is a lovely morning. There is, as usual, too much left in the...
September 22nd, 2010 | General, Travel
Nüvi: “In 0.6 miles turn right on road.” Nüvi: “In 1.3 miles turn left on road.” Left to our own devices, we would never have headed down an unnamed macadam track even if we thought that Kelmscott Manor was somewhere in that general direction. Left to a GPS device, we...
September 21st, 2010 | General, Travel
Blenheim Castle is a much slicker operation than the last time I was there, and much more costly. It would be. I haven’t been there since 1975. From New Cottage, Blenheim is a hop, skip and jump down Woodstock Road. My Dear One had never been; this was my...
September 20th, 2010 | General, Travel
It takes a day or two to settle in. Saturday afternoon, jet-lagged and disoriented, we set out in search of food. A map kindly provided by our host located essential resources in the area and Sainsbury’s seemed like the best choice for basic shopping. We fed the...
September 20th, 2010 | General, Travel
Outside the little flagstoned-floor solarium in this thatched cottage, one of three surviving buildings of the catastrophic fire of 1793, the last of the freesias and dahlias and hollyhocks sway under soft clouds and glimpses of pale blue sky. It is quiet. I hear to...
July 17th, 2010 | General, Travel, United States
I love horses. I always have. I was a typically horse-crazy girl, collecting china figurines, assembling the stable of my dreams on note cards (drawing on one side, statistics on the other), reading everything published by Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry as well as...