Mushroom Mushroom

And a couple of firsts for the weekend:

1. Is a bona fide first; a something that I've wanted to do for a whole load of years first. I saw a badger. After spending last summer and autumn failing to get onto a badger watching session, a big old brock just ran across the road in front of us, like a massive, monochrome rat.

2. Brown bread ice cream. I didn't know it was a thing until it was given to me, and what a thing it is. So super tasty. Add brown bread ice cream to your bucket lists now.

IKB

I've never really been one for stately homes. At least not in England. I've been to a fair few abroad but - after a childhood where I was regularly dragged around National Trust properties - I've been to maybe two as a grown up, and they were both for weddings. 

I broke that duck in a big way this weekend. Blenheim Palace. The so-called greatest palace in the UK (which seems a bold statement) and jeepers creepers was it expensive? Do all stately homes cost that much? Holy moly. 

They lured me in with art, there were a lot of Yves Klein's blue bobbins scattered amongst the history. I enjoyed the juxtaposition plus wondering what you would have thought if you had just been there to see eighteenth century old stuff. 

Talking of juxtapositions, after exposure to the aristocracy we camped on a pig farm. The Pig Place had pigs, beer and bacon and generally was somewhere that suited me much more than the Woodstock estate. 

Also went to Oxford proper for a look at them there dreaming spires. I never knew Oxford had a castle - it's like I learned nothing from His Dark Materials.

Black Pudding

We did one of those dining in the dark things. You've heard of that, right? It's a pitch black room and you don't know what you're eating, so it means that you spend more time appreciating the flavours. Or not realising that you are spilling food down yourself. Or stealing Steve's wife's wine from the table next door, because she's just going to assume that it was Steve. That's a joke, Steve, you sounded like you were bigger than me...

It was pretty disconcerting, I'll tell you that for free. You get led to your table in an unsteady conga line and snake round the table shedding people as they get to the chairs, occasionally leaving people stranded in a solo abyss, hoping that their partner will be brought back.

Your table is carefully laid out so that things can be found again. Turns out, in the Country of the Blind, making a conscious effort to remember where you put things is essential.

The food was ace. Not certain that it was better for not being able to see it, but it was definitely weirder.