Living at Waddesdon Manor

Last year I finished my degree. I packed my bags and left Christ Church, Oxford. I thought it would be the most beautiful place I would ever live. Or at least, the most striking. Christ Church is a strange conflation of styles. It does "serious" well. It started off as a set of monastic buildings, and even when there are rogue undergraduates setting off homemade flamethrowers it still manages to somehow look frigid. 

Me 'nd my mate Martha just chilling by the fountain

Anyway- I left Christ Church . And I fully expected to return immediately home. Back to the family pad. Back to part-time catering, part-time writing. But I didn't. I was lucky enough to score a year long placement at what must be one of the most extraordinary buildings in England. Waddesdon Manor. Built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild at the end of the C19th, it looks a little bit like a C16th French Chateau. Inside, though, its stuffed to the brim with the best of Europe, from the C17th to the modern day.

It's a party house, designed for the summer, with paintings of pretty women adorning the walls. On an off day you can fear the unfavourable comparisons. 

The other slightly less dignified header option

I have now been at the manor for almost five months. I work in the collections department- helping to organise exhibitions, decorating christmas trees, showing the Russian embassy around- you get the general idea. Anyway, as much to diarise this experience for myself as anything else (although it is unusual to write to an 'imaginary reader' if that is it's sole purpose), I am going to occasionally blog the experience. 

The odd 'intern update', perhaps.  Insensitively bombard you with Manor based propaganda. 

It's the countryside. What else am I supposed to do? 

I'm a terrible photographer, and this was done on an Iphone. It's just really pretty here.