Charlie does the Malvern Hills....

Fantastic walk today, 9 miles (at least) round the Malvern Hills.  Its not quite Kilimanjaro, but it was great exercise, and good to be walking up hills.  Never been here before, but for sure I will be back, even if it's not quite on the doorstep.

Charlie's tail was going ten to the dozen for most of the day, something that seemed to be noticed by everyone who saw him!!  And apart from his usual decision to take a stone with him to the summit of Worcestershire's highest peak, he also showed great composure when staring at...erm...dinner!! 

He's not chased a sheep in a while....and I'm sure I saw him licking his lips.

The summit at Worcester Beacon is only 1395ft, so just a small matter of 18,400ft less than I'll be doing in March next year, but hey...there's no substitute for getting some hills in your legs, so I had a few more to walk over too.  Fabulous weather today too, funny how the British Summer has changed...it used to be that August was great, but the sun has waited 30 days before showing it's face in August this year, and very welcome it was too.  Sunburn on my nose, and head when I arrived back home :-)

Charlie found a good way to cool down.....although he did give me kittens every time we passed someone after his "cool down" just in case he decided to say hello??  

He's great company on these walks, everyone seems to like Charlie.  His single claim to fame in life is winning the waggiest tail competition in the Woodford Halse dog show, and I'm sure it's his secret propeller.  

Anyway, my walk took me from the car park at St Annes Well up quite a good climb to the top of End Hill, then over the top of the "Sugarloaf", (great name for a hill, don't you think?), and up to Worcester Beacon.  After that, there is about another 5 peaks to get over before the walk starts to decend back through the woods on the Eastern slopes overlooking Malvern itself.  Whole thing took about 5 hours, but it's well worth it.  Lots of falcons flying about overhead, although I didn't get any pictures of them, just too far away to make it worthwhile, but there were some great flowers, and an odd looking mushroom? 

Never been much of a botanist, so if you can tell me what these are it would be good :-)  I have a feeling that Mr Wii will have appreciated my efforts too...13st beckons, for the first time since the millennium.