A Christmas escape to Oxfordshire - 2019

Last December, Mr Poachie and I packed our weekend bags for a cheeky escape to a small village called Hethe to catch some festive feels. This was our first trip away as a couple and I was oh so excited! I love the English countryside and we had booked an airbnb in a place that looked like something from the film 'The Holiday'.

Our agenda was 100% nerd. We had 3 National Trust venues to visit and some serious country pub action; roaring fires and red wine. In my mind, the perfect weekend. 

The airbnb was cosy and cute. The lady brought us warm croissants in the morning whilst we drank tea  in bed. Love that.

The first place we visited was Clivedon which is now an impressive luxury hotel but the grounds are managed by the National Trust and they also have a lovely woodland walk that you can do.

We only did a short walk as we were pushed for time and it was getting very cold!

Our airbnb was opposite an award winning pub called 'The Dozing Duck' which was superb. It was packed both nights and luckily they could fit us in as we hadn't made a reservation and there wasn't anywhere else nearby to go!

Bread and olive oil, sooooo delicious and so simple! We also had marmite butter which was awesome. The waitress said they used a whole tub of marmite to make it! 

I ordered scallops followed by a venison ragu. Both were delicious.

As much as I wanted to stay and guzzle champagne all night we went to bed as we had an early start the next day to visit Stowe.

Mr Poachie still says to this day that Stowe is his favourite NT we have visited. 

I don't know what it is about this part of the country but it was like the NT were on steroids, the houses are so much bigger here than they are in Kent!

The building here is a school which you can book a tour of which we did, and a few days later after we came home we were watching an early episode of 'The Crown' and recognised one of the rooms which they had used for filming! It was very grand, the pupils here are lucky.

Not your average secondary school.

We did a long walk throughout the gardens and we had the giggles because the man who gave us the tour of the school clearly had a crush on one of the girls. A bit inappropriate but funny none the less!

It was absolutely freezing and we couldn't warm up at all, no amount of hot chocolates were going to help us!

It was worth it though, we have visited some seriously pretty places.

Now, for the main event and the whole reason we booked the weekend away was to visit the Christmas markets at Waddeson Manor. I have written a separate post about it as it would have been too many photo's in one post! You can read it here.

So it really was the most magical weekend away, I think it is fun to go away in December to kick start the festivities and this was the best first mini break I could think of.