Wagga Wagga to Worcestershire & back again
Monday of this week was a bank holiday in England. Adam and I both had the day off, so took advantage of our free time to visit the Great Malvern Food Festival. When I lived in Australia, Wagga Wagga’s annual food and wine festival was one of my favourite events of the year so I was keen to check out my new community’s version.
Lots of people come to Australia hoping to see a kangaroo or a koala. For me in England it was a badger or otter. I daresay my fascination stemmed from the childhood classic, Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, and more specifically the 1980s stop motion television series of the same name, which I can remember watching as a child. Animal people who drove cars, dressed in snappy outfits and had wonderful adventures – what wasn’t to love?!
Adam has always had a bit of a soft spot for badgers. He even gave me a badger mug at Christmas! The vineyard he lived at before moving to Australia was frequently visited by badgers and an allotment he maintained near the village of Cradley, west of the Malvern Hills, was near a woodland where badgers lived. His stories of watching badgers snuffling about seemed magical and he was keen to share the experience with me.
So one evening last week, we made the short journey to Cradley to look for badgers.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who, when thinking about canals, thinks about Venice. Oh the romance of narrow waterways passing by historic stone houses in rainbow colours, a gondolier in a straw hat and stripy shirt and lazy warm days on the water, gelato in hand!
Canals though aren’t just restricted to Italy – hundreds of places have them, England included. The U.K. canal system really rose to prominence during the Industrial Revolution and given the Midland’s strong association with this era, there are plenty of examples of canals near to Malvern.
Last week I got a Facebook message from Australian friend Kerri, who’s currently holidaying around the U.K., about a delicious asparagus and wild garlic soup she’d eaten. Intrigued and inspired, especially by some of the images of wild garlic that are appearing on my Instagram feed, I went out in search of some the plants myself.
I have a confession to make – up until very, very recently my knowledge of England’s Peak District was based primarily on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I knew Derbyshire was near the Peak District and that’s where Mr Darcy’s ‘Pemberley’ was based. I quickly discovered at the start of this week though, there’s a whole lot more to the Peak District than Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Adam and I chose the Peak District for a long weekend away on a bit of a whim. It was a region I’d never visited and Adam only briefly. What we discovered was towns and villages filled with exquisite stones buildings, amazing scenery and a thriving food and beer scene.
Adam and I played host to our first visitors from Australia late last week. Kerri and Adrian have been friends with my parents for years – the sort of people in your life you can never remember not knowing.
They’ve been in Italy, Malta and England on a lovely long holiday and made the time to spend the day in Malvern with us.
In my life as a journalist in regional Australia, one of my favourite parts of the job was exploring and getting to know the towns that made up my ‘patch’. In most places I knew where the cleanest public loos were (vital when you’re on the road!), which cafe/bakery to stop at and the best route to follow to catch glimpses of favourite houses/gardens/parks.
Now that I’m getting to know the west Midlands, I’m finding myself doing the same thing here in England. Earlier this week I had to drive up to near Kidderminster for a meeting. I took the opportunity to pop into nearby Ombersley – a gorgeous historic village Adam and I visited briefly during our first few weeks in the U.K.
I was chatting to a stranger the other day about moving to Malvern from Australia and it dawned on me that Adam and I have been in England for six months now. The time has truly flown ever so fast.
Malvern really feels like home now. Old buildings that I caught myself staring at in awe are now just part of scenery and picking a posey full of flowers from our rambling cottage garden seems second nature.
I know short cuts around town, can recommend pubs and cafes and am starting to sound a little bit English… well in a way!
After months of patiently waiting and a few false alarms, I can now accurately report the annual bluebell show has started here in Malvern.
I saw my first glimpse of bluebells en masse over the Easter long weekend when Adam and I went camping in the Cotswolds. It was a pretty magical sight – a sea of tiny purple-blue flowers under a canopy of the sweetest smelling pine trees.
The day after we arrived home, Adam and I took to the Malvern Hills to see if a similar sprouting of wildflowers had occurred. We were in luck.
“Whan the sunne shinth make hay. Whiche is to say.
Take time whan time cometh, lest time steale away.”
There’s one thing that I’ve noticed time and time again since moving to England – its residents well and truly embrace good weather. Australia on the whole can generally expect a good few months of clear, warm sunny days every year. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s not (like when it leads to a drought), but that period of delicious, it’s-good-to-be-alive sort of weather is pretty much expected. In fact sometimes the poor ol’ Aussie can get a bit grumpy and peeved off if the sun doesn’t come out for a few days.
Here in the U.K. though the weather’s a little more unstable and a lovely sunrise can quickly disappear into a drizzly morning, then a cool and cloudy afternoon, before clearing again in the evening. That’s why when the sun does shine over consecutive days, people get out and enjoy it.
Wattle and Ash 