Things I might do in College Station...

As the hanger-on for our stay in College Station, I'm going to have to find myself things to do to keep busy, pass the time and have something to talk about when Peter gets home!  That's a joke based on a 1960s guide for married women, something about making yourself interesting for your work weary husband on his return home!  Ha!  That's after you've given him his pipe and slippers I assume!

But I digress!

Seriously...there's no chance of employment, no garden to do and a lady comes in to clean, so three months of leisure are in store starting next March.    So I'm beginning to make a list of possible diversions.  So far I've come up with:

• Visit all the museums and art galleries in Bryan/College Station
• Locate a craft shop, buy some yarn and do some knitting
• Hire a bike and get some exercise
• Go for walks (if I can find pavements!)
• Do slow shopping (i.e. shop little and frequently, European style)
• Investigate the public library
• Read
• Join a book club
• Write this travel blog
• Research and plan weekends away
• Make friends and visit
• Take a class (art? language?)
• Volunteer

The last idea has lots of possibilities.  I've spotted a request for volunteers to help collect people's stories about life in College Station for an anniversary of the city, and also to database their archive of stories and photographs.   Wonder if you need to be a local to do that?   Well, I shall make contact soon and find out more.   I've found a volunteering web site for Bryan but the activities look daunting and I can't quite get a handle on the expectations.  Could investigate though.

It's a start, but I hope the list will grow.  More online research needed! 

Ruth and Peter go west again...only this time not so far!

Last weekend, Peter had a birthday with a big zero, so to celebrate we took the family to a cottage near Malvern, Worcestershire for the weekend.   Malvern is west of Norwich, which is why it sneaks into this blog!   And strictly speaking we weren't in Malvern, but at a place called Acton Beauchamp even further west, although we never discovered Acton Beauchamp itself. We rented The Cider House which had plenty of room for all of us.   We arrived first with Rupert and bagged the room with the four poster bed and he took a quiet room, tucked away from the rest.   Then Eliot and Nancy arrived with the two boys and finally Tania and Simon were collected from the station in Great Malvern. 

The Cider House, Hidelow House Cottages

Peter and I met in Malvern an amazing 49 years ago, so the area has always had sentimental associations for us. The countryside is very attractive and there are wonderful views from the top of the Malvern Hills.   Peter is often tempted to quote A.E. Housman who frequented these parts and quote bits of poems we learnt at school...but never the whole poem!

The Cider House was interesting...lots of space, comfortable bedrooms, a huge kitchen and a log burner in the sitting room.  The hot tub which had started out as an attraction wasn't used at all.  It was pretty cold outside in the evenings and the long list of rules associated with using it were probably very wise, but a complete dampener.  The kitchen equipment was OK (if you ignored the mouse droppings in the frying pan - well we were deep in the countryside) but there were no basics of the kind you normally find in cottages describing themselves as 'luxury'.  No salt or pepper, no oil or vinegar and no shampoo in the bathrooms.  Tiny things, but you have to go out and shop for absolute basics if they aren't provided.  The sofas in the sitting room were brown leather (?) with brown slippery leather cushions - very easy to wipe down after guests, but hardly cosy.  There was a sponge cake waiting our arrival however, which was delicious and didn't last long and a bottle of milk.  So, a good place to stay, but some more thought could be put into little things that guests need.   The absolute masters at this are The Vivat Trust.  We've stayed in several of their properties and have never been disappointed. 

Waiting for Abe to catch up

The weather was just about OK, a  bit damp on some days, but we pottered about, talked, cooked and ate, bought cider, shopped for nappies and did a few short walks, played with Abe and passed Saul round from person to person!

Anticipating the lighting of the candles!

Breakfast en famille

On Saturday night Peter had Abe's assistance in blowing out the candles on his rather odd looking, but delicious cake and opened his presents!   On Sunday we all went into Worcester for lunch at The Old Rectifying House (renamed by Eliot, The Rectum Terrifying House) where our roasts were served as carve-it-yourself joints.  After lunch we dropped Simon, Tania and Rupert off at the train station (with the remains of the cake) as they had to get back to work.  The rest of us returned to the Cider House for another day.   The extra day was a boon as Abe had brought a stomach bug with him which passed round the family and had us keeling over in relays! Having en suite bathrooms for every bedroom was particularly welcome!   

Pumpkin adjustments in progress

Boy in search of a stick

We managed two short walks on our last day.  Abe tends to walk in circles or back the way he came and stops regularly to examine sticks, so eventually Nancy and Eliot sent us off to complete the walk on our own and we made a circuit along footpaths back to the house by way of a very wet and muddy sugar beet field.  In the evening the pumpkin lanterns were lit and Abe went out in the morning, in borrowed shoes to examine them carefully...

On Tuesday morning we loaded up the cars and drove off in different directions.  A good weekend!