It was 10.57am when the car moved (amidst 19°C temperatures and 39km/h gusts) – and not far down the road a white Scottie dog being walked spotted something when briefly pausing with his or her owner – and then laid down on the pavement, looked at it, and refused to move. By the time the motorway was reached the heat in the car had me close to losing consciousness; a freight container on the back of a lorry said it’s maximum load was 16,000 kgs, and the famous Silverstone race track wasn’t far from where it was left; and then Google Maps started getting confused. There was an ‘energy recovery facility’ to one side of the road; and Middleton Stoney’s houses were almost all stone ones; the village of Lower Heyford had Freehold Street in it, a circus had banners advertising its dates , and Google Maps decided to speak again just before a place called Rousham Gardens was reached (and told us ‘you have arrived’).

There, ‘no children under 15’ was on a sign, several chickens were pecking on a very stripy lawn, a lady was sat on a chair and waved one arm around a bit, we parked, I was told this was our last day of sunshine; and then we got out, and a very tattooed thin man came over and asked if we had a pair of pliers (and Mum looked in our boot). I saw a man doing something I forgot, a sign said the chickens were Mille Fleur Barbu D’uccles (Google later thought they were booted bantams); then an elderly lady let us have a £1 map for free, a small herd of cows were grazing, and a very creaky metal gate led to the back of the house – where there were statues of women trying to cover themselves up. A stripy lawn had a stone statue at the end, a couple of live women sounded like they were speaking Spanish; a hedged tunnel led down past the ha-ha (a ha-ha is a sunken boundary wall or ditch – historically they were used by large estates to contain grazing animals (like sheep or cows) while maintaining the illusion of a really long continuous lawn from the house), and there were very rose-y smelling roses, more striped lawns, and a small avenue of apple trees before a flowery bit, more stripy lawn before ancient stone walls; and by the time a hole/archway in one was reached, a flag had become visible on top of the house.

A creaky wooden door in a wall led down to a bit of the River Cherwell – which had lilly pads in bits of it, I saw a few dragonflies; and Mum sat down on a bench and ate the cucumber she had on her bag when we reached a pond sort of thing with a dribbly algae covered waterfall above it, and 3 elderly people sat down with a picnic basket. 3 statues (2 of Cupid and 1 of Venus) were on the path up to number 7 on the map, I nibbled a biscuit; and then we went up a very dark path the other side, and I was told we’d done a full circle and were coming back to where we started. There – a lady was sniffing stuff; a garden with a pigeon house in it had lots of wiggly hedges; and after a creaky gate and a bit more wiggly path, there was a very old church – with stone plaques about dead people and when they departed this life, an extremely detailed list of Church of England rules from the mid 19th Century about who people could and couldn’t marry; and a small noticeboard for this day and age mentioned planned protests against nine thousand new houses.

After some more gravelly paths we returned to the stripy going brown lawn, continued round the way we’d came, passed the chickens again; and at 2.30pm the car felt hot and said it was 19°C, and Mum started peering at the road map again.

I forgot when it moved because I was trying to eat an apple and remember where we were at the same time; the sky was clouding over a bit, I saw signs for a yurt cafe; the village of Kineton was entered just before 3.30pm, the streets were horrendously bumpy and pothole-y all the way through the village; and out the other side, the big art gallery sort of place called Compton Verney was just down the road. I saw a jigsaw puzzle of 2 massive pigs, and a really big rooster soft toy in the couple of minutes I had in the shop (and decided to eat the biscuit I had in my bag), and sheep noises were audible all the way along the path to the house, where Mum wanted tea.

In the cafe – a small child was doing some colouring on a clipboard, the sky was going grey, a staff uniformed lady walked off with a massive roll of blue paper towel, and I noticed all the alcohol behind the counter (and another one of the staff with very very pointy fake nails and a lot of piercings around her mouth). We moved at 4.10pm; and in the Bruegel to Rembrandt exhibition bit, I saw a small note on a wall (at child height) saying ‘there are 2 pairs of ducks hiding in the paintings in this room. Can you find them?’. There was a sketch of a Spaniel on a cushion; the back of a man in pantaloon sort of trousers was how I would describe ‘Study of a man seen from behind’ (by Hendrik Avercamp), a couple of very colourful ones from the 1700s had lots of big insects in…

…and ‘sporadically gouache’ was one of the materials used in another painting. The next room included one meant to depict someone being boiled; and then we continued, rolls of paper were dangling on walls – which people had been invited to sketch on…

…and someone had sketched a fish with a sword called Gilbert.

Out the other side official collectors edition prints of Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake paintings/pictures were for sale (costing £325 and £195). We were back out in fresh air at 4.54pm and sheep were being noisy; I was told a little brick building was the ice house, and I forgot when the car was reached because I got distracted by bumblebees…

…but we were home just after 5.30pm; and I found a forgotten half full mug of (by then very cold) hot chocolate by my chair, and so I sat there, clutched it, and allowed myself to put down my pen.