After breakfast we said adieu but not goodbye to the Cotford Hotel. We will be back.

We headed off to Croft Castle stopping briefly at the Hop Pocket for me to purchase the other colour cardi that I loved from the day before. Mr C and mum stayrd in the car. As I was purchasing the cardi I had a lovely chat with the sales assistant about the type of cardigan and a special broach to wear with it that he said they used to sell them but for some reason they weren’t available anymore.

Croft Castle was a little sparse inside compared to our previous visit, however I enjoyed the explanation of the two dragon statues outside the house. I learned that one is a Wyvern, a Welsh Dragon (black dragon), that has only two legs.

Whilst there we looked inside the medieval church of St Michael and All Angels and the walled garden which was especially spectacular due to it being allowed to grow more naturally without over pruning.

The café looked very busy so we continued on our journey eventually stopping in Ludlow for a takeaway lunch. Mum and I were told to find a suitable bench for an outdoor picnic, which we did. Twenty minutes later neither Mr C or the sandwiches had emerged from the café. Mum and I were left wondering where he had got to. When he emerged with drinks but no food he informed us that the café was rather busy and they would get around to our order when they could which would take some time. After waiting a further twenty minutes Mr C arrived with some food, although his sandwich had not arrived. He told them to forget it, luckily the sandwiches, when they arrived were large and mum and I were quite happy to donate a triangle of sandwich each to him.

After our slightly stressful lunch we unwound in the local bookshop. Mum picked up a couple of non-book items and I purchased Places of Pilgrimage by Ian Scott Massie which has given me ideas for future adventures (and blog posts).

We took a leisurely drive home and later Mr C and I enjoyed ‘Fine Dining’ at Chez Nous, Jamie’s Breaded Chicken with Rocket which takes moments to prepare. A fitting conclusion to a lovely few days away.

After breakfast we set off to Worcester to visit the Cathedral. The Three Choirs Festival was taking place so parts of the Cathedral were obscured by the temporary seating and stage area. We were however, treated to a wonderful practice session of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The BBC were setting up for recording the performance for later in the day.

We walked back through the town to purchase some items we had seen on our walk to the Cathedral; Mr C purchased some items for the kitchen, mum picked bought a lovely Tilley hat that is just her style but sadly the Lilac Rohan jacket that I have had my eye on for a while (waiting for the sale) was completely sold out.

We decided to head towards Ledbury  to explore it further and have lunch on the way. As we travelled I spotted a cafe and farm shop sign where we decided to stop. The Fold turned out to be a vegetarian café with an interesting and varied menu. Our timing was off, we arrived just after a large party of 10 people which meant we had to wait a while for our lunch to arrive. The waitress came with apologies from the chef for our wait. When it arrived the food was delicious, I had opted for apple and cinnamon cake, one of my favourites which is not often on the menu.

On arrival at Ledbury, we found a more suitable place to park the car than on the previous day’s visit. The town was much quieter and I was able to enjoy unobstructed views of the Market House. Mr C spotted a lovely cobbled street with great photo opportunities. Walking along the cobbled passageway was like stepping back in time and it led us to the delightful Church of St Michael and All Angels. As we left the church the sky had become heavy and dark, threatening thunder. We beat a hasty retreat to the car and as we made our way in the general direction of the hotel the roads were awash with floodwater after a torrential downpour.

Ironically the sun came out as we arrived back at the hotel so Mr C and I headed into Malvern to visit a second hand bookshop before freshening up for dinner and more ‘Fine Dining’ in the Cotford Hotel.

We were a little bit late setting off and picking mum up for her holiday adventure. This led us to have lunch at Stokesay Castle tearoom before continuing our journey to Hampton Court Castle. We enjoyed lunch sitting outside with views over the fields and the occasional train passing by.

In addition to the gardens, the Hampton Court castle is now open on a self guided tour basis. To our delight the maze was also open. It had been closed on our between lockdowns visit last year. Mum was a little bit nonplussed by the maze and especially the delightful surprise exit into the sunken garden.

After our garden visit, we continued on our journey to the Cotford Hotel, booked in and chilled out in the room until it was time for a pre-dinner drink in the residents lounge. We enjoyed our evening meal, in my case Brie and Walnut Tart and then retired to the residents lounge for a nightcap.

The Cotford Hotel, situated at the foot of the Malvern Hills was built in 1851 as a summer residence for the Bishop of Worcester.

We set off on our travels, late morning, taking my car out for a spin for a change. Our destination was Malvern where we were stopping overnight ahead of meetup with photography friends.

We had intended to have lunch in The Firs, Elgar’s birthplace however we spotted a sign to a village cafe and took the slight detour. We found the cafe to be a quaint delight, it was a burger bar with a chalet attached to its side. The weather was glorious so we opted to sit outside on one of the conveniently placed picnic benches to eat our freshly made sandwich along with a cup of tea.

The Firs has only recently been taken over by the National Trust and is a work in progress. The house was interesting and we listened to a talk about the mystery of ‘the …..’, but it is not a place I would rush back to. We had afternoon tea and shared a piece of lemon courgette cake which was tasty.

When we arrived at The Cotford Hotel in Malvern, we were informed that we had been given a complimentary upgrade to the ‘Bishops Room’. This was a lovely surprise because it was the room we had wanted to stay in but which wasn’t available when we booked.

We took our cases to the room before having a relaxing drink in the Piano Lounge (in my case I chose Rose wine). We then returned to the room to freshen up before dining in the hotel’s restaurant, L’amuse Bouche. The food was as good as I remembered it from the previous occasion we dined there.

One of our fellow diners (connected with the local boarding school) and his guests were rather loud and effusive, in their conversation which made it difficult to think and stifled the conversation of the other diners, but overall it was a pleasant experience. In the garden there is relaxing cascade of water tinkling down the waterfall adding to the ambience of the restaurant.

]]> http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2018/09/13/malvern-day-one/feed/ 14 http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2017/06/17/colwall-day-four/ http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2017/06/17/colwall-day-four/#comments Sat, 17 Jun 2017 22:30:32 +0000 CherryPie http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/?p=18708

At breakfast we were served with the first proper cup of tea of the weekend. Two individual pots of tea that were brewed to perfection.

Rain was forecast for the day so we headed of to Croome Court, a National Trust property. As we are National Trust members, entrance was free so it didn’t matter if we could only visit the house and not the wider estate.

As we arrived at Croome Court the heavens opened so we donned our waterproofs and hastily made our way to the ticket office entrance. After a brief visit to the shop, we made our way to the house via the church. The route we chose was mostly sheltered by trees so we kept dry. We passed the walled garden on the way, it was probably just as well it is only open at weekends because it wasn’t really the weather for visiting a walled garden.

We toured the house and then had lunch in the basement cafe before making our way to the RAF Defford Museum which is situated near to the entrance office. The weather had cleared up allowing us to see the wonderful vistas and landscaping created by Capability Brown as we walked to the museum. After exploring the military history of Croome we still had time to spare so we headed off to Broadway where I became reaquainted with and old friend, ‘The Hudson Guide’, but that is a story for another day.

Whilst in Broadway Mr C couldn’t resist the temptation of visiting a cook shop and we came away with two colanders. As we made our way back to the car I noticed an ice cream parlour which allowed us both to indulge in a ginger ice cream.

When we arrived back at the hotel we were greeted by the barman who had welcomed us on the first day of our stay. We started to engage in conversation with him but the hotel receptionist of the day interrupted. She was querying the basis of our stay and informing us that we had dinner bed and breakfast booked for two nights of our stay. We had booked on a bed and breakfast basis but had said we would be ‘dining in’ on the first evening. We were advised that we had another meal in the hotel, but we said that we already had made other arrangements, she said she would sort it out for us.

Once back in our room I washed my hair so that I looked more presentable after the day’s rain before we made our way to the final meal of the holiday which was in the L’amuse-Bouche Restaurant. As mentioned in a previous post, before the meal we were served  an Amuse-Bouche. On this occasion it was pork and pickled vegetables presented in a delightful way. I chose Nut and Vegetable stir fry  followed by passion fruit mousse with coconut ice cream. After our meal we returned to Colwall for a brief nightcap. Mr C wanted to return to our room to follow the exit polls for the UK general election on the TV. Luckily for me the TV was in a separate room allowing me to chill and wait for the result in the morning. I had already come to a conclusion on the result and what I had thought came to pass overnight.

Whilst chilling in the bedroom I noticed that the book of menus, emergency phone numbers and breakfast times, etc. had still not been returned to our room…

I didn’t have the best nights sleep due to the room being cold and Mr C turning the heating off because the room was airless and dry leaving me to be too warm if I wrapped myself up in the duvet and too cold if I didn’t.

The service at breakfast was just as chaotic as had been during our previous night’s evening meal. My breakfast was delicious I chose pancakes fruit and honey. Mr C was not quite so pleased with his, he asked for full cooked breakfast minus the beans, it arrived with beans and without black pudding. In addition to that the bacon was streaky rather than back bacon, not something  usually served up for breakfast. We were also served a one person teapot between the two of us which was not a problem we just asked for another pot when it was empty. On pouring the tea from the replacement pot we realised that it was the same pot topped up with water. As there was only one teabag in the pot the resulting liquid looked like dishwater and was undrinkable.

As rain was forecast, we headed off to Worcester and some indoor activities. Our first port of call was the City Museum and Art Gallery which houses the Worcestershire Yeomanry display which was of particular interest to Mr C. I was slightly ahead of Mr C when the curator came to talk to me and asked me what I was interested in at which point Mr C joined us. We were treated to an impromptu individual tour of the displays. The curator showed us things we might not have noticed and shared lots of interesting information with us.

After the tour we headed to Worcester Cathedral. As we arrived, the Cathedral was buzzing with noise. We realized that several local schools were meeting there and engaging in a pilgrimage. We made our way to the Cathedral’s cafe for lunch where I had a ham and apple pickle toastie which was delicious. After lunch we made our way around the Cathedral, dodging the ‘pilgrim’ children until they left for the day. Once they had left the Cathedral became quite tranquil.

On our way back to Colwall we stopped off at the shopping village we had tried to visit the previous day only to find it slightly disappointing for some reason.  The cake in its cafe was delicious though!

For our anniversary meal we had booked into L’amuse-Bouche which is the restaurant for the Cotford Hotel. We were welcomed as we arrived and directed to the lounge where we enjoyed an aperitif  and nibbles whilst deciding on our menu choices. I opted for haddock, crayfish and asparagus on a bed of crushed jersey new potato. To start the meal we were brought an Amuse-Bouche which was a dainty morsel of Evesham Asparagus soup. The service, food and attention to detail was exceptional. So much so that we booked a table for our last night of our holiday.

After the meal we returned to Colwall for a nightcap in the bar before retiring to bed for the evening.