My daughter flew in to Birmingham this morning at 7:30. She asked if I would meet her, so I arranged to take the 6:04 train from Worcester to Birmingham. In order to get there on time, I set my alarm to 5:00. Naturally, being a person who has a tendency to become a bit anxious about travel arrangements, I woke up at 3:30. After drifting back to sleep, I had a dream that my alarm clock had gone off which woke me once more. So much for sleep.
As I walked through the lobby of my building, I encountered two of Worcester's finest. It was a bit disconcerting. I've always felt rather bulletproof here. My friend down the hall has pledged to do some investigating to figure out what is happening. We hear cars zooming around by our bedrooms all night. We speculate there's something unsavory going on in the 'hood.
I was a bit nervous walking in the pitch black through the neighborhood, the alleys by the former Porcelain Factory and the deserted city centre. I was the first person at the train station, but not for too long. The train ride was easy peasy and I got to the arrival gate with an hour to spare.
My daughter arrived looking a little weary, but very cute.
The Study in England group had planned a trip to Malvern for today, and my daughter was actually keen to make the trip. An avid reader since early childhood, she was excited about checking out the lampposts which are said to have inspired C.S. Lewis when he wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Before we could join the group, Nina was clear that she wanted a shower. We saw our group getting on the train from which we had just disembarked, but made a beeline down Foregate Street, High Street, and the Diglis neighborhood to my flat.
We headed back to the train station only to discover we had just missed a train to Malvern and that the next one wouldn't arrive for another 40 minutes. We decided to explore a bit and ended up at the Worcester Art Museum, next to the Train Station. We didn't really have time to do it justice, be we did take some great photos of Queen Victoria's statue.
The SIE group had 90 minutes on us, so by the time we got to Malvern they had already seen the C.S. Lewis lamppost.
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| Helen Mongan Rallis leaning on the "CS Lewis" lamppost. | | Photo courtesy of Helen Mongan Rallis. |
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They also visited the Theater of Small Convenience which claims to be the smallest theater in the world, seating no more than a dozen at a time.
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| Photo courtesy of Helen Mongan Rallis. |
We got to the charming Malvern rail station just as the SIE group was visiting the theater, so we missed out on this adventure.
The Malvern Theater is just a short distance from the train station, and the park behind has a lovely gazebo
and bridge.
There's also a lovely lamppost which we mistakenly took to be "the" lamppost.
Nina was doing her best Mr. Tumnus impression.
We walked up to the city centre to meet up with our group. Helen asked us to meet by the Elgar statue
which was right next to the Enigma Fountain
The fountain celebrates Sir Edward Elgar and his composition "The Enigma Variations" as well as the world famous Malvern Spring Waters. The sculpture was completed in 2000.
After sampling the waters, a small group of us started up the Malvern Hills.
We encountered several huge trees with extensive roots visible to hikers.
Our initial goal was a cafe at St. Ann's Wells.
We had hoped to get a bite of lunch here, but to our surprise, it was closed. It's a charming spot
but we had no reason to linger and hence chose to continue our climb.
Helen had promised that it was a gentle climb with easy switchbacks. The views along the way were spectacular, but we exerted ourselves on this "walk". Initially, I felt fine--as demonstrated by my patented "yoga" pose.
But before too long, we were panting.
We actually moved pretty fast, but we also had to take breaks.
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| Helen wrote the caption "Deborah broke Nina." Photo courtesy of Helen Rallis. |
We kept going
and slowly but surely found ourselves at the top.
The wind was unbelievably strong and cold.
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| Kira Lapinsky, me and Nina "on top of the world." |
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The summit stone commemorates the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's reign.
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| This map indicates what it is we see from the top of the hills. |
We looked around and enjoyed the views for as long as we could stand the very bitter and cold wind, and then it was time to head down to the city centre. Along the way we saw some gorgeous cottages, including this one with the fantastic gargoyles on the top of a gate.
We finally made it to the cafe where we were promised a fabulous cream tea.
It did not disappoint. In fact, these may have been the best scones I've had.
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| Malvern in a nutshell. Photo courtesy of Nina Graham. |
After our cream tea, we headed back to Worcester by train.
We took some time to relax before dinner, but Nina found my flat to be too cold, even with a blanket and shawl. Apparently, the temp in my living room was 6 degrees Celsius. Frankly, I like it a little cool, but it is cold outside. We don't need to be cold inside too.
We walked so much today, I'm sure we'll be sore tomorrow.
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