Only 24 hours from Worcester(shire)

The "quiet" coach comprises one group of lads, one squally baby, one whining 8 yr old, assorted screechy teens and one annoyed Rachel. There needs to be some sort of introvert/extrovert test before people are allowed into the quiet coach. Or a mobile signal jammer. Or King Herod in a bad mood.

Yeah, yeah, I always start travelogues complaining about airports or quiet coaches, but I work in a noisy, open plan office and at home, the neighbours' favourite thing to do is DIY at 11.30 p.m., and the estate playground (screech scream) is on one side of the flat, and, on the other, assorted beeping minicabs, car alarms, and people who park on the road outside and turn their tinny stereo up to 11. I never get any P&Q.

Anyway. We're going to Worcestershire because it's there. And because I, we, have never been there and can now say that I, we, have been to every English county, including some that no longer exist (Avon, Middlesex, Humberside). Indeed, the St. George’s cross and union flags are out in force, the man with the massive three lions tat is showing it off; either this is UKIP Central or it's fete week in Malvern. We're staying in Malvern Link, which is Malvern suburbs and, we find out later, where the working classes were obliged to leave the train so that the middle and uppers could alight at Malvern, and, if they were staying at the posh hotel, walk (or get a carriage) through a tunnel (the worm), without having to view any plebians. We know our place, I suppose. Nowadays, Malvern Link is where people have classic cars, and regular bathroom and kitchen refurbishments.

It's boiling. We foolishly decide to walk up a giant, winding hill in the midday heat to eat at St Anne's Well, worth it for the surrounds, if not the pedestrian food (which seems to be sourced from Lidl). I did hope someone would be waiting with cold towels at the top of the hill - there wasn't, but we did plunge our hands in the spring water fountain.



We do the museum (Elgar, Bernard Shaw, Malvern bicycles, iron-age forts, Jenny Lind, the water cure (I get a vision of Last of the Summer Wine style Victorians going down the Malvern Hills in a bath-tub)) and the Priory, where they've kindly put on a choral performance for us (or maybe just a rehearsal) to have a  look at the Mediaeval tiles, the stained glass, the misericordia (mercy seat) and the wardrobe-like exit that apparently influenced CS Lewis (there's a gas lamp right outside).



We go sit in the pretty Priory Park awhile, watching the sprinklers watering (no hosepipe ban, no, not yet) the bowling green, and feeling envious of the grass. Too knackered to walk back, we get the very hot train from the Betjeman-esque Victorian rail station, all iron latticework, Brief Encounter tearoom and prettily painted pillars. We have a half-decent (no, 7/8ths decent) curry in Vasai and then look at ice-cream in the Co-op. Two Ben and Jerry tubs for £3 or 3 Magnums for £2? The latter, obviously. It's hot enough to justify ice-cream greed.

*
Having done Malvern, culturally, we get the train to Worcester and walk down by the river, up the high street, over college green  and into the cathedral. I'm not sure if it's sacrilegious to take off your shoes in a church, but I long to put my feet against the cold marble floor. I am no good in heat. We're not made for each other.



We have a Ploughman's in the cathedral refectory (cheeses for Jesus), which promises "a selection of cheese from Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire" - cheddar from Worcester Tesco's value range, cheddar from Hereford's Sainsbury's and Double Gloucester from Asda.

We get the train at 2.30 and are therefore just outside London as Andy Murray does it for Scotland Britain. I'll be able to tell my grandchildren that. My exceptionally polite and well-mannered children, who never shriek in the quiet coach.

23 minutes in Brussels

Turns out that not many people want to aller à Bruxelles at 8.04 on a Tuesday morning: my carriage is quieter than the quiet coach to Malvern. In the absence of a summer vacation week away, Ik gaar naar Brussel to see Charlotte, Did and their not so tiny offspring, Henry. I spent the money my mother gave me to buy a posh birthday dress on a train ticket. I wonder if it's just me - and I suspect it can't be - who has a slight worry that on returning from the train toilet or buffet car that one's possessions will be gone, seat occupied, and a denial that you (or your travelling companion) were ever there. Either it's a general anxiety (perhaps caused by becoming separated from one's parents as a child) or we've watched too many films. Or we're in the wrong carriage.

Eurostar trains (fast, reliable, air-conned) make British trains look awful (the journey time to Brussels is less than to Malvern), but on the other hand, European trains, or rather Northern European trains (no-one likes Trenitalia) with their futurist feel and spacious seating make Eurostar look rubbish. The first time I took the €*, in 1999, I was astonished by the fact you could go into a tunnel and emerge into a different country. Now it seems a little dull, the flat plains of the Northern France countryside - the water-towers, red-roofed farms, polytunnels, monstrous pylons - seen too many times before, like Dover port as a child on numerous French camping trips. Sometimes, I think the purpose of life is merely to see new things - temporarily, then a return to the familiar. I don't want to backpack. People who take 3-6 months off to go travelling are kidding themselves. If travelling becomes the norm, then staying still, stationary, in the same place becomes the holiday.

Then: a spire, a solitary windmill, a hothouse flashing uniquely, the surprise of Lille, an avenue of coppiced trees, a motorway with foreign trucks, a crumbly farm roof done out in photovoltaics, lavender fields, les vaches qui s'assoient.

Arrive into a city gleaming with heat and walk around for a few hours, taking in fountains, giant plant pots, lunch in a Flemish cafe (I still can't help but feel that Dutch is just English in a silly accent - perhaps this is how Steve MacLaren got confused) in St Catherine, the view of the city from the Sablon area, and a air-conditioned tram out to Charlotte's flat, which is next door to the Bois de la cambre. I am roped into reading Henry's dinosaur book to him, which brings up many questions: What is the difference between a diplodocus and a brachiasaurus? Why is a frog's face like that? Also: Were you smaller last time you were here? A child's eye view of the world, there.

Whereas once we'd be out trying every single beer in a Brussels Central bar, nowadays it's one Leffe, half a Kriek and I'm ready for bed.

*
Charl's appartment block has both a swimming pool and a sauna, so it'd be rude not to try them out. Afterwards, we go for a stroll in the bois, around the lake, over on the cheerily-manned ferry to goose island (which cost €1 to get there, but is free to come back. Chris de Burgh's refusal to pay the ferryman would mean that he wouldn't get a free sweetie) to have lunch sur la terrasse of the Chalet Robinson, a bistro in a Swiss type building. Pasta and salad en plein soleil. It's highly pleasant.



The restaurant is full but the park is empty; I suppose the bois is the equivalent of Hyde Park or Hampstead Heath, but with a fraction of the visitors. I'm not the first to say that London would be twice as good with half the people.



I have no hayfever here, as if someone has waved an anti-itch wand. It can't be that Brussels is less polluted than London as there are cars everywhere, and it can't be just the lack of London plane trees; I was sneezing all over Great Malvern and Worcester last weekend. It's enough to make me want to move here.



On the train home, I am seated behind a woman with 5 (five) kids under 5 years old, all of whom grizzle, shriek, scream, cry, moan, whine, wail and screech all the way back to London. You can imagine my joy.