Craig suggested that we visit the gardens of Rousham, a Jacobean-style country house near Steeple Aston, halfway between Oxford and Banbury. I phoned to ask about opening times and children - a snotty female voice said that we could bring the girls as long they didn't eat gravel or drown in the pond.

Visitors are greeted with bossy signs about children, animals, parking and payment. Jane and Matilda were immediately attacked by a funny looking chicken (a Pekin Bantam?) which leapt up on its little feathered legs, pecking at Jane's thigh. Apart from two gardeners chopping silently at the lawn edges, we saw no-one. The grounds at Rousham are famously unchanged since William Kent's eighteenth century designs; they are gloomy and beautiful.