Black pudding & chips

This is the first #wander tweeted by Wombat, following Thom’s fine example. I wandered down into the nearest town… That’s the market sign. The second item is a black pudding, which should give you a clue as to where I was wandering. Or you could just look at the tag for this post.

The motto here translates roughly to “Respect the past and look to the future”, which is the motto of the Royal Grammar School in Worcester. Oddly, this is on a bank. Nearby, was this -

“1874” proclaims this rather nice window on what used to be the Co-op bank building, and now houses Swinton Insurance. Not sure of the meaning of “Union Club”, and a quick Google search has discovered nothing.

The church, from whose churchyard I took the previous shot, looking impressively solid. I waited ages for the wind to take the flag out enough to see the cross of St. George, and took about a dozen photographs in the process, but this was the best one of the lot. Sometimes you just have to bow your head to fate and give in.

 

 

This proud young lady wearing what looks like a designer scarf apparently represents Commerce, and can be found on the plinth of a statue of Robert Peel near the church. Not that I often consider the gender of abstract nouns, but I never thought of Commerce as being female.

 

 

 

  Some interesting tiles on an otherwise completely ordinary red-brick building. Odd decision to place them there.

I call this piece “Escape”, although I haven’t the faintest idea what’s meant to be going on. Twitter opinion was that this was a creepy demon child and I should leg it forthwith out of what wa obviously Satan’s Garden. There then followed some amusing by-play about Satan gardening in his spare time, but I’ll not bore you with it here.

 

 

The memorial by the Royal Fusiliers Museum, which I didn’t bother to go in because they charge a fair whack for entry. Museums, like Art Galleries, should be free and ask for contributions to provide funds. Speaking of Art Galleries, the next photograph is of a window in the gallery across the road from the Fusiliers Museum. I can identify the anvil and the weaving shuttles, but why are they torturing the poor ram?

  Not sure what’s growing in the bottom right hand corner, either.

  I adore this painting – The Cruel Sister by John Faed. Which of the ladies do you think is the Cruel Sister of the title? As I write this, there’s a better image here.

Lunchtime – I seem to have quite the choice here -

Tony and Tony use different fonts for their signs, and given how particular food outlets are about their font-usage, Twitter opinion was that they were not related. However, they probably unite to make Mr. Second Base’s life a misery. There was also some gossip about whether Second Base, given the suggestive name, might be an establishment of quite a different nature altogether. The chippy, though, was closed :-(

But luckily here’s Mrs. Ogden to the rescue, with her butifull meat & tater pies.

  This is St. Wilfride, and he can be found outside the Catholic Church. Thanks to the delightful @rosamundi (follow her on Twitter for laughs and thrills and spills), I can point you to this page of information, where St. Wilfrid appears to have a weirdly-shaped head.

  Extreme flower-pressing, again found on a bank. What is it with banks and unusual decorations on their buildings? And finally, here’s the memorial in the triangle on Market Street, atop which an angel is waving I-have-no-idea-what.

This #wander malarkey is great fun, and the feedback has been dead encouraging, so I’ll definitely be doing it again. Meanwhile, the next time you go into town try looking up instead of straight ahead, and you might see something interesting. Maybe you’ll even have a #wander, eh?