From Gloucestershire to Kent

On Saturday, we drove down to Kent. We stopped en route at Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill.

Blenheim Palace is a lovely place, set in magnificent grounds. It is not far from the village of Bladon. Churchill is buried there, in the graveyard of St Martin's Church.

From Bladon, we continued our drive to Kent, mainly on the motorways. This is the county that I was born in, and so I was interested to visit it.

Today we have visited another Churchill landmark. This time his family home at Chartwell; a lovely spot overlooking the Weald of Kent - a magnificent view. It was a lovely warm day, and the gardens were looking their best. We spent a very pleasant afternoon there. There are also some great examples of Churchill's painting there; I hadn't realised the extent of this hobby.

Earlier, we drove through to Tunbridge Wells and out into Hartfield in East Sussex, to see the area where AA Milne lived and wrote his wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh stories and poems. We went for a walk through Ashdown Forest to Pooh Corner and saw the famous bridge from which Pooh played Poohsticks - naturally, I played it too!