Been Away - Back Now

The very final part of Millbrook's Long Celebration took place over the weekend just gone. Hence the dearth of postings for the last four days; Mrs The Millbrooker, Dong, Shazzerooneypoos and yours truly have been gallivanting around the country in search of fine foods, good ales, steam trains and walking trails.

Where better to find all of these than Great Malvern? Not only does Great M offer all of the above (steam trains a short distance from town) but it also houses a Millbrooker-Sis along with her man Sleepy-Old-Go-To-Bed.

I'll have to witter on about what we got up to in a few little postings, I think. The busy schedule of a railway clerk won't permit me to sit and write up the whole thing in one go.

Let's begin at the very beginning (it's a very good place to start). Way back on Dong's birthday the aforementioned quartet ate a yummy meal at Il Pescatore in Plymouth and Dong opened some pressies, one of which (from Shazzeronneypoos) was tickets on the Severn Valley Railway from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth. This would need a weekend away. Huzzah!

The fearsome foursome gathered on Friday morning just gone and Mrs The Millbrooker took the wheel of the Millbrooker Towers Ferrari substitute as we sped towards Plymouth and a trip northwards.

There was a short hiatus at Bristol Temple Meads for a change of train...

...and before we knew it, we were at Great Malvern's lovely station with its multi-coloured iron work.The first two nights' accommodation were to be in the highly salubrious surroundings of the Park View apartments in the centre of Great Malvern. Very posh indeed.

'Ere long we found our way to a favourite hostelry, The Red Lion, in the centre of town and enjoyed a pint of two of Crag Rat ; very nice it was too.The Millbrooker-Sis and Sleepy-Old-Go-To-Bed joined us for an evening munch at the self-same venue. I haven't clapped eyes on my big sis for far too long and there was plenty of catching up to do. Here she is (left of shot) as the faint feeling of recognising her bro' dawned.After a decent slobber over mussels and fishcakes (me) and loads of other stuff (everybody else) we headed back to Park View for a last glass of wine and so that Sis and Sleepy could look the des-res over. Apparently Sleepy-Old-Go-To-Bed had coveted a place in Park View before they plonked themselves elsewhere (more of which anon).And so ended day one of the final weekend of the Long Celebration; the only thing left to do was retire gracefully to bed and enjoy a page or two of the current reading matter before dozing off; my kind wife recorded the moment for posterity.Stay tuned; there's lots more exciting stuff to report. There might even be some interesting photos. More interesting than me reading a novel in bed, anyway.