Country File

Our garden at the foot of the Malvern Hills

I wonder whether you saw Country File last night on TV? I was tickled to recognise several people I know singing Elgar on the top of the Malvern Hills. They are members of the Three Choirs Festival Contingent from Worcester, and if you’ve read any earlier posts, you may know that I sing with the Hereford Contingent and that this area is very much associated with Edward Elgar. We bought a square piano once from a lady in Malvern. It came with a business card with the name of Elgar’s father on it; he was a piano tuner. Sadly we haven’t managed to have the piano restored yet, but hope to one day.

Enjoy England Awards for Excellence 2009

Collecting the award

April 23rd 2009 – St. George’s Day. The National Enjoy England Awards for Tourism were held at the National Railway Museum in York – and yes, – we did it! We won Self-Catering Holiday of the Year2009!

The evening was hosted by the young T.V. stand-up comedian Michael McIntyre; the expression on his face in the photo shows what he felt like at having to kiss yet another middle-aged woman and we weren’t even half way through the awards! We were the only business from the West Midlands to win an award, so we were doubly delighted to feel that we were waving a lone flag for our area. In actual fact, two Golds were awarded, the other one to some lovely-looking cottages in Yorkshire called Noelle’s Cottages.

There were lots of different categories, from tourism journalist to the one for Outstanding Contribution to English Tourism – awarded to the great English pub, of which we have a very good example just down the road, The Oak. The award was collected on behalf of all publicans by Neil Morrissey (from Men Behaving Badly and Waterloo Road – neither of which we have seen – sorry Neil). He owns a number of pubs and had put some of his bottles of beer (Morrissey Fox Blond Beer I think) on the tables. We spoke to him briefly later on in the hotel bar.

Easter at The Woodhouse

Well we had much better weather than expected – sunny and warm, unlike what was experienced in the east of the country. We had the croquet out and our badminton net was rescued and erected inbetween The Woodhouse and The Wainhouse, with new racquets and shuttlecocks. Our Woodhouse guests were sitting out on the terrace until late, enjoying the late evening sunshine on the moat and watching the ducks. Barn Croft guests have been out cycling.

We had a couple of hours on Easter Sunday when we went to see our favourite local garden – Hampton Court. It has new owners who are trying very hard to welcome more people to the property. There are tours round the castle  which were never available before, but it’s the gardens that are so beautiful. There’s the wonderful organic vegetable garden with espaliered fruit trees and the walled garden with a sort of pavilion surrounded by water. There was a trio of very talented musicians there when we arrived, singing a cuckoo song which sounded Alpine as it had yodelling in it. The Dutch garden has a canal in it and lots of tulips, then there’s the sunken garden, waterfall (which you can run behind) and a “secret tunnel” leading to a tower overlooking the maze, herbaceous borders, a river walk and the most fantastic wisteria tunnel (not out yet).

The castle itself (not much remains of the early part which is actually older than the more well-known Hampton Court near the Thames) has a glorious location overlooking  lawns and a ha-ha down to  the River Lugg, a tributary of the Wye. The wild daffodils are a lovely sight and there are  two or three huge philadelphus, which are beautiful later on in the year.

I think we would get season tickets to the place if we could.

Festival News

The Festival season will soon be underway and with the full programme for the Hay Festival due out on April 10th, we have heard the news that Archbishop Desmond Tutu will be at the Hay Festival in May. After ex-President of the USA, Jimmy Carter, came to Hay last year, Desmond Tutu will be the second recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize to visit the town. Already well-known for its books, Hay’s Festival brings some very well-known people to the area; others appearing this year include Alan Bennett, Michael Morpurgo and the South African musician Hugh Masekela.

The Ledbury Poetry Festival (described by Andrew Motion as the best in the country) returns  between July 3rd and 12th with such writers as Joan Bakewell, Michael Horowitz, Roger McGough and Benjamin Zephaniah. Pam Ayres came once, and proved to be very popular! Last year there was a very successful Poetry Breakfast under the Market House which The Woodhouse sponsored.  Pastries and croissants were consumed whilst we were entertained by two excellent poets reading their own work.

In August, Hereford hosts the Three Choirs Festival; it rotates between Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester. I sing as a second Soprano with the Hereford contingent, having managed to pass the auditon for another three years which is a great relief! It is quite an ordeal to stand before Geraint Bowen, our conductor, and his assistant Peter, and then have to sing a piece at sight!

Intrinsically an English festival, featuring the works of such English and indeed local composers such as Elgar, there should be something to appeal to most tastes. The Festival Chorus  sings large-scale choral works like The Dream of Gerontius and Elijah, both in this year’s programme, but there are also the Three Cathedral Choirs of Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester and other small choirs including the Rodolfus Choir. Orchestral groups range from The Philharmonia Orchestra to small instrumental groups  including Fretwork (“the finest viol consort on the planet”), brass ensembles and string quartets. There are also talks and plays and other events both in Hereford and in nearby venues. The booking forms were made open to the general public yesterday by post and online booking goes live from 10th April.

Inbetween these larger festivals, we have the smaller ones too -just one example is The Big Apple Blossomtime celebration the first weekend in May. This is a combination of activities related to apples and cider-making, held around orchards in the Ledbury area, which should be in full blossom just then.

There is such alot that happens in this area – relatively unpopulated as it is and relatively unheard of, it is a wonderful place to live and we hope to be able to tempt you to come and stay or make a repeat visit if you have been before. Sue

The Woodhouse’s First Blog

Daffodils at The Woodhouse

 

Springtime at The Woodhouse

Welcome to the very first Woodhouse blog! This is where I hope to let you know the news as it happens and tell you of  interesting snippets from the area, special events or any item that may be interesting. A good place to start might be to wonder whether any of you saw the news item on Ledbury about a week ago which reported that the landlord of a black and white pub in our famous Church Lane, woke up to find that  a couple of men, dressed neatly in workmens’ overalls, had arrived early and painted the pub a rather feminine shade of pink. The news was broadcast by our town cryer and the landlord gave a T.V. interview where the Pink Panther was mentioned…

The countryside is looking very Spring-like and the garden has been a sea of daffodils; both sides of the drive are lined with them and there are huge clumps of them around the moat and elsewhere, from the delicate wild Tenby daffodil and dainty little narcissi to big yellow and orange trumpeted varieties. The birds are making their nests though we have yet to hear the cuckoo; it usually arrives about the third week of April. However, from our converted hop kiln, we are at the same level as the bird feeders hanging from the willow tree and we are greatly entertained by the flocks of long-tailed tits, a couple of jays and the woodpeckers which feast off the nuts. The grey squirrels make determined efforts to get at them as well.