My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen...

This here Wheelchair Princess spent the morning at the palace.  Blenheim Palace.

It was fun.  Absolutely fucking freeze your tits off freezing.  And the point in time when I spent 30 minutes having my photo taken without a coat on was bloody stupid of myself.  But it was fun nonetheless.

The palace and it's surroundings are beautiful, absolutely breathtaking.  We didn't go inside but we did get to go right up outside it and we got taken past a load of signs indicating that this was a private area.  How much did that rock?!?!

When we got back in the car to drive to the particular part of the grounds they wanted to do our thing I wondered why we didn't just leave the cars and walk (at that point in time we were in the estate offices right by the gate to the grounds, not on the grounds.  Let's just say that it soon became more than blindingly obvious just why they chose to drive!

This was the official drawing of a raffle that has been running for about three months (since Oct I think but they said three months so who knows?!).  The Duke of Marlborough who lives at Blenheim Palace is a patron of the Pontoon Project which the raffle was for.  And he donated the top two prizes so we went there for the drawing.

The Duke wasn't at home this weekend (so unfortunately there is no tale of The Duke and the Wheelchair Princess but there is a chance that this project will lead to a similar but better type tale to be told late next year).  But the two people who have been most involved in the project and I went there and John (the Duke's top man) did the drawing for us and we had photos taken with him and the palace in the background.

At one point I was sat really close to the palace and nothing was happening and I just turned myself in a full, slow circle taking it all in.  I hope to return in the summer when the Palace is open to the public and it's possible to tour it.

It was majestic.  Truly it was.  There can be no other words to describe that place.

And how fitting that Winston Churchill was born there and is buried not far from there.

I feel blessed that last night I got a phone call "on the off chance" that I might like to go and represent the sailors.

It was sort of funny on the way home, I kept thanking Bill for taking me, thinking of me, inviting me and he kept thanking me for coming and helping...

What a blessing.

How amazing.