During the October half term, I was selected to exhibit 2 of my smaller scaffolding paintings in an art festival in the market town of Woodstock, 8 miles north of Oxford. Woodstock is home to Blenheim Palace, the birth place of Sir Winston Churchill in 1874 who is now buried in the nearby Bladon churchyard. It is also said that whilst Mary I was in power, Elizabeth I was kept prisoner here when a princess in the gatehouse of Woodstock Manor for over a year as a 'precaution'.
Art in Woodstock itself is an annual visual arts festival, with over 70 artists exhibiting this year at various sites around the town. I really enjoyed this experience and it was made all the more memorable when helping one of my fellow Brookes artists set up her work I met a family from Chester who had recognised my accent. Anyone who knows me will know that this fact alone is enough to get me excited as you don't meet many people who have even heard of Chester, let alone FROM Chester around Oxford. After the whole "I KNOW HOOLE ROAD!!!"and "NOT THE RAKE AND PIKEL!!!" etc etc we started talking about schools and to cut a long story very short, they knew MY DAD!!!!!!!!!! It was so bizzare, I thought they were pulling my leg, but NO. They were not!!! It is such a small world and an experience I will never forget!!
