floorboard envy!

At the beginning of July we were up near Oxford for a wedding and had a bit of spare time to do some exploring in-between all the eating, drinking and dancing (go Jonathan!).

Its stunning country side, with the Chilton hill as a back drop, and lots of idyllic villages.

I think our favourite was Long Crendon, beautiful thatched cottages, lots of wattle and daub, and hollyhocks every where!  Most importantly for me it had the feeling of a proper community,

a post office, butchers, florist, tea shop, pubs etc. 

Definitely not a dormitory village.

But the highlight for me was finding the Courthouse,

they think it dates from the fourteenth century,

and it was purchased in 1900 for £400 by the National Trust,

making it one of the first buildings in their care. 

The upstairs, the old court room is open on selective days, and we were lucky.

There is a lovely local history exhibition, but what got me were the floor boards, they were stunning!

The shapes of the boards were all uneven, you could almost, see the shape of the trees they had come from, and the soft silky sheen to them, from thousands of feet over hundreds of years, I wanted to take off my shoes to feel them properly, but politeness prevailed.  These boards had character, life, beauty, every thing that their laminated distant cousins in my kitchen lack, I want those boards!!!!