Category: Local sights

Everyday life, Local sights, Thoughts, Travel

The engagement

by wattleandash13 Comments on The engagement
The engagement

Yes.  One tiny word, but it holds so much meaning. On Friday, Adam asked me to marry him. There was a ‘squeak’ and quite a few tears before I was able to vocalise my answer, but we got there in the end!

We’ve talked about marriage for a long time. It was never a scary subject to broach. Even in the very early days of our relationship, we both knew it worked and that together, we’d go the distance. Getting married was always going to be a natural progression in our relationship. I didn’t really know when it was going to happen, but I knew it would.

In saying that, I still can’t quite believe I’ve now got a fiancé! I don’t really feel any different, but when I look down at my left hand at my engagement ring I can’t help but grin rather stupidly and think about how it got there…

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Local sights, Travel

The mushroom walk

by wattleandash4 Comments on The mushroom walk
The mushroom walk

It feels like October has been filled with drizzly days which has seen my ‘nesting’ instinct kick into full gear. Pottering around home in cosy jumpers and fluffy socks is so much more appealing than being outside when the weather’s grey!

One morning the other week though I awoke to a brilliant blue sky and decided to get out and onto the Malvern Hills for a lovely, long ramble…

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Everyday life, Local sights, Travel

The flea fair

by wattleandash2 Comments on The flea fair
The flea fair

In my experience there are people who love rifling through second shops or markets and those who are completely nonplussed by the whole venture.  I’ve always been interested in stories from the past, so for me looking at old bits and pieces also invokes questions about the object’s history – who owned it, was it special to them, how did it come into their ownership?

Over the weekend Malvern’s Three Counties Showground hosted a huge flea fair, so I decided to go for a look…

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Local sights, Travel

The town of books

by wattleandash2 Comments on The town of books
The town of books

My mum, dad and brother and are now safely back in Australia and I can hardly believe their six week stay in the U.K. is over. The time truly flew by and at the end of their holiday it felt quite ‘normal’ to have them here with us in Malvern. It was lovely for our families to spend time together and it’s a little sad everyone is back spread out across two hemispheres once again.

In our final few days together we took a little trip to a town called Hay-on Wye, right on the England/Wales border.

It’s known as the ‘town of books’ due to its abundance of second book shops and for hosting the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts.

It’s an amazing little place…

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Local sights, Travel

Looking for lights

by wattleandash4 Comments on Looking for lights
Looking for lights

The other day I got text message from Adam: ‘We’re going out tonight’. It was all a bit mysterious, but after some questioning (I am a journalist after all!) Adam revealed that while waiting for a flight he’d read about a massive solar storm that was due to create optimal conditions for spotting the aurora borealis as far south as the English midlands.

He kept his eyes on the forecast and various scientific readings throughout the course of the day and that night we decided to go looking for the northern lights.

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Food, Local sights, Travel

The fruit farm

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The fruit farm

Just like clockwork on the first of September the air had the slightest chill in it to welcome the arrival of autumn. It was hard to believe a few days prior England had recorded its warmest bank holiday weekend in decades.  A joyful hurrah to summer.

I love autumn. It’s my favourite season and already a few trees around Malvern have started to turn yellow and red, readying themselves for the cooler months ahead. In those last hazy days of warmth though, Adam and I took my family and his sister Alex to a local fruit farm for a spot of picking…

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Food, Local sights, Travel

Broadway

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Broadway

For many visitors to the U.K., a trip to the Cotswolds is a must. It’s quintessential England – rolling green hills, small villages made up of stone buildings, and bucolic pubs full of ales, sleeping dogs and pork scratchings.

The very far eastern reaches of Worcestershire lie within the Cotswolds, so a few months ago Adam and I decided to hold off day-tripping to the area until my family arrived so we could all go together…

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Everyday life, Local sights, Travel

Worlds colliding

by wattleandash2 Comments on Worlds colliding
Worlds colliding

For the entire time Adam and I have been together we’ve existed in these two separate worlds.  Our life in Australia and our life in England – distinct from one another, but each containing family and friends whom we love. The arrival of my family in Malvern has been a little surreal for Adam and I.  Our two existences are suddenly colliding and it feels a little strange to be walking around Malvern with so many Aussies in tow!

We spent our first full day together taking it easy around town…

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Everyday life, Local sights, Travel

The common

by wattleandash2 Comments on The common
The common

The old saying goes ‘Never judge a book by its cover’, but I’ll admit I’m occasionally guilty of that. The Malvern Common sits between the township of Great Malvern and the suburb of Malvern Wells, in an area called the Lower Wych. It’s a big tract of open land, that’s hugely popular with dog owners and I drive/walk past it on an almost daily basis. I’ve avoided heading to the common for months because it always looks so busy and generally I prefer solitude on my walks, but the other day I decided to go and explore it for myself.

I was pleasantly surprised…

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Local sights, Travel

The Tudor house

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The Tudor house

Love him or hate him, King Henry the VIII, certainly played a huge part in English history.  I knew of him, but it wasn’t until my first trip to the United Kingdom in 2010 that I learnt more about him, his wives and his legacy. That holiday sparked an interest in the Tudor era that I still retain (and a bit of a crush on Jonathon Rhys Meyers and his depiction of Henry in The Tudors television show :)) and I’m always keen to learn a little more.

So the other day I made the short train journey north to Worcester to Greyfriars’ House, a Tudor era National Trust property, in the city centre…

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