Waddesdon

You might have noticed the lack of a blog post yesterday. In fact I was rather under the weather: here’s what happened.

We had a family trip to Waddesdon Manor booked. This has become something of a family tradition: they put on a good show around Christmas, with lovely house decorations and exterior lighting for the building, as well as a lit-up walk through the woods. More recently they have also added a Christmas market, with local producers of various sorts vending their wares.

In the end, five of us headed over there. Each year the logistics seem to change. These days, there is a private park-and-ride system to get from a huge car park up to the main house and gardens. We queued for the bus and then headed up, and thankfully got there just in time to make it round the house. Then we went round the market (buying hot drinks) and the lit-up garden.

One thing we have always noticed about Waddeson is how cold it always is there. Yesterday was no exception - the car indicated as low as -6.5C on the way home, and it wasn’t much above that the whole time we were there. For various reasons around timing, I didn’t get a chance to put on as much warm clothing as I would have liked, and so the whole trip did feel extremely cold to me.

In fact, as it turned out, it felt unnaturally cold because I had been struck down with some kind of lurgy. At work I had been feeling a bit low-key nauseous all day, and by the time we got home from Waddesdon I was feeling distinctly awful. So I just jumped in the bath to warm up and then dug in head-first into bed, by around 8:30pm. I stayed there until some time after lunch today, at which point I finally started feeling normal enough to start moving without my head aching or swimming.

The header photo was taken yesterday, of the house. If you’re local, I would recommend a visit. But dress up warmly.