The Great IFFI whitewash

Will they remember to clear up this garbage?

And stop people from chucking waste into the river? (The daily over-the-promenade-garbage-throw is on every night at this promenade between 8:30 - 9:30 pm)

At Blenheim Palace, Woodstock

We spent part of Saturday at Blenheim Palace, near Oxford. Billed as one of the top three most beautiful private residences (don't know which are the other two) and the only non-royal residence to be granted the title of 'Palace', the building is set in over 2000 acres of parkland and countryside.

Entry is a very steep £16.50 and includes the palace, gardens and parks. Just for the parks and gardens is £9.50. The charges might be worth it (not!) on a sunny day, but Saturday was wet and very miserable. So bad that we took very few pictures.

Here are some that we did take:

A partial view of the imposing entrance

In the Marlborough gardens : A Model Village

In the Marlborough gardens : giant games

The butterfly garden. Quite a few butterflies, but strangely, not one was moving. Were they props?

Photo Post-2 : Cherry Blossoms, the beginning

Click on the picture for a detailed look at these lovely buds

After a (rather brief) winter, the beautiful cherry blossom tree in our front drive is starting to show signs of life. The first buds have begun to appear. With a few weeks, the stunning pink blossoms will show up, dazzle us for a few weeks and then fall. Green leaves will take their place over summer after which they will change color to gold and fall too.

The whole process will begin like clock-work again next spring. Simply fascinating.

You can see more pictures of the tree from bloom to bare over the last few seasons here.

A visitor at the office

Click on the photo for a bigger version

I have all sorts of regular visitors when I'm at work : squirrels, a pheasant, magpies. Then, there's this little deer who's begun to come recently. It comes warily, nibbles at the plants and goes away. I often wonder where it is coming from. Is there a herd nearby?