Trip to MALVERN ~ #2 Ella's farm

Welcome to my 444th post! Yipppeee, I reckon that is some sort of mile stone and even though I sit here in bed with the flu I am going to celebrate (just not sure how..) And our new house has a roof!!

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Anyway, I have to tell you about the absolutely fantastic B&B Andrew and I stayed at whilst over for the show. Really it has become a major highlight of the trip and I shall remember the Old Country House and Ella with much fondness. It is a magical place where I felt completely at ease and though ill at the time and wanting my own bed, I did find it hard to leave. The website shows it off beautifully but of course I had to take a few pictures of my own.

 The kitchen garden

Ella's parents bought this amazing 220 acre farm and farmhouse in the 30's. It was very run down and sounds utterly romantic (that feeling for romance still lingers round every corner). Ella grew up there and helped to make the sparkling perry her father became so well known for in the county, there were also pigs and her mother was a talented plantswoman - hybridising hellebores amongst other things!

The orchards aren't really viable anymore - as with all small farms it costs a bomb to produce anything now that would be worth the effort. It is so sad. However the trees are still there looking beautiful at this time of year in blossom, the land has sheep on it from another farm, Ella has a very rare bronze age herd of sheep herself and wildlife is everywhere! Andrew and I saw our first Woodpecker, just doing it's thing in the garden all day. There are bats, squirrels, owls and foxes (which of course have a taste for the lovely free range chickens, sadly) and all sorts of rare plants and trees from a life time of adventure overseas. There are many tumble down outhouses, a pond the size of a small lake and to top it all off -  oast houses!

Inside the house is no less electic and jam packed of interest. Books are everywhere, pottery, mis matching old pieces of beautiful wooden furniture, a huge fireplace, wooden planks and trusses (some 100s of years old)  lots of cosy cushions and throws, paintings and arty bits of this and that. You can be quite happy on a terrible grey and cold day just looking around the kitchen!

Anyway, I just loved it so much and Ella was such an interesting and friendly person that I had to share the secret of our happiness in England with you.