A visit to Madresfield Court garden

We're still enjoying ourselves very much in Malvern.

This morning our hosts Cheeseminer and Mrs Cheeseminer drove us to Madresfield Court, the inspiration (allegedly) for Brideshead, as in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead revisited. Here we spent three hours visiting the wonderful gardens, open today thanks to the National Garden scheme.

My main blip shows the poplar avenue, and I have included a shot of the iris and peony border in my extra. We also enjoyed a talk by the head gardener in the walled garden, checking the vast compost heap (and comparing it with ours), marvelling at the rock garden, eating our picnic amongst the wild flowers, and gazing at the moated house (blipped by Cheeseminer as one of his extras).

Afterwards our hosts dropped us off in Somers Road outside the houses of Mr hazelh's great-grandparents, and his great-great Uncle Percy's family. We have seen pictures of both properties before, but this was the first time that we were able to view them in the flesh, so it was all rather exciting. Then we walked back to the Dell House, stopping off along the way to look at Holy Trinity Church, where Uncle Percy was minister - and Haile Selassie was amongst his congregation alongside Mr hazelh's ancestors! Pop over to the LornaLPodcast blip for today to find out more.

For dinner this  evening we headed up into the hills to the Cottage in the wood for a marvellous romantic meal for two. We were lucky that the route home was all downhill.

Exercise today: walking (24,435 steps).