Keep Out

Day one of the holiday began in blazing sunshine and ended in the garden, under the stars and over a rather nice bottle of wine.

We managed to get into our painted church and spent a good long while with the medieval wall paintings, the ancient books chained to the lecterns and the glorious jewel-coloured stained glass.

Then, of course, there was a pub… a 17th-century coaching inn, in Woburn, after a landscape full of hundreds of deer.

And eventually back to pasta in the garden… with a rich, red wine sauce that I had left brewing all day, a wonderful Fleurie, a lemon meringue pie.. and a small dog, hugely excited to have a captive tennis ball thrower.

We talked till the wee small hours, watching the bats and the stars.. and the dog still played ball.

But one of the highlights had to be the sign on the ancient tomb…