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And it's not only the smell that is a surprise... the first thing we clapped eyes on was a walking aid standing forlornly at the top of the stairs with a pile of New Testaments and a weighing chair close by. A few paces further into the building and nothing can quite prepare you for the sight... it looks for all the world as though the residents and staff have just gone out "on a charra trip" for the day! It's really a rather freaky feeling and you have to keep pinching yourself to retain your grasp on reality. There are discarded personal belongings everywhere, care assistant's uniforms, books, games, and even a linen cupboard full of freshly laundered sheets and duvet covers. Perhaps rather disturbingly though we found several packs of a rather heavy duty pain killer in the office, not perhaps the best thing to leave lying around where youths, or worse still kids, will inevitably appear sooner not later. There was also a sphygmomanometer in a cupboard - that's a blood pressure cuff to you and me - apparently still in working order. In the kitchens we found lots of past it's sell by date food in a variety of jars, and a rather mouldy box full of cheese biscuits. There was even a Tuppaware box of cat biscuits on the windowsill but "kitty" was no where to be seen. We didn't touch anything other than when I lifted the phone off the hook in the office out of idle curiosity - what a shock I got when I found it still had dial tone! Towards the end of our explore we went down into the cellars to the laundry where we were surprised to find a light left on! Then things became even weirder still when the phone started ringing!!! Needless to say we didn't answer it. Pretty soon we made our way back outside again because we were growing increasingly uneasy with the Marie Celeste effect, and as we wandered off up the heavily overgrown drive we heard the phone ring again behind the solidly boarded up front door! All the time we were inside the building we couldn't help feeling slightly morose despite the continual wonderment of such a pristine exploration - I think it was due to the overwhelming impression we got of the owners having packed as many old people into the room available with little attempt to provide privacy or a decent amount of personal space. That said this care home appears to have been bright, beautifully decorated, and very well equipped, unlike for example the brooding dungeon on the opposite side of the road to our own home. But despite the relatively pleasant surroundings et all it still seemed to us that Malvernbury Care Home manages to show up the care of the aged system in the UK for what it really is... these homes are, lets face it, places to stack up old people, out of sight and out of mind, until they die. Homes such as this are more often than not owned by wealthy doctors and the like, who staff them with young women who are so poorly educated that they cannot get a better job - in short minimum wage earners. The residents are often left on their own to vegetate with little or nothing to occupy their minds. Sadly too many will end up sitting or lying in their own mess for hours on end until someone can be bothered to clean them up - why else do these places always smell so appalling? Often they are drugged up to their eyeballs to keep them quiet, and invariably a total lack of exercise leads to progressive loss of mobility. Look if you will at the bill we found and photographed - the sad and rather ridiculous fact is that for the money it would be cheaper for an old person to go on a cruise liner where they would be given three GOOD meals a day, free entertainment and constantly changing, thoroughly stimulating, surroundings! Consider too that a prisoner in jail costs the state more to keep and almost always lives in far better conditions with his or her human rights absolutely sacrosanct. In view of these facts I defy anyone to explore an old people's home and not feel morose... So, it was a bit of a weird explore but quite amazing in so much as how untouched it remains after several years of abandonment. It is a veritable time capsule at the moment but how long it is going to stay that way I dare not think for within a couple of days of our visit - and we left it rather more secure than we had found it it upon arrival - we saw some more photos posted up by another explorer, and one showed a large graffiti effort "penned" upon a wall which we will swear was completely clean when we were there. How sad that this place is going the way that all abandoned properties go, not later but seemingly now, much sooner.
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