We did a flying visit to Reading – have you been there? It’s rather pretty (at least, the part we were in was pretty). It reminded me a little of Bristol, with a river and lots of shops and places to eat.
I personally dislike it, because I feel it should be pronounced “reeding” and not “redding”. I tend to misread all the signs, and find it a very confusing place to be.
Reading is not a city, which surprised me. I thought that every place with a cathedral was a city, but this is not true. Apparently the monarch has to grant city status to a town, and our current monarch clearly thinks Reading should remain a town. I expect she also dislikes the name.
We had lunch in Browns, next to the river.
We walked towards the ancient abbey ruins. There was a huge statue – the Maiwand Lion – which commemorates the soldiers lost during a war in Afghanistan (not the most recent one). Russia were beginning to infiltrate Afghanistan, so we sent troops to stop them, and loads of them were killed. It sounds so very like recent wars. History tends to repeat, doesn’t it? Afghanistan seems to be one of those places which is continually being overrun by other countries, they have a sadly unsettled past; it must be very hard for the generations who live there.
Walked past the old gateway. They executed the abbot near here during Henry III times, and there is an old hotel, which I’m pretty sure must be haunted.
We found the ruins of the ancient abbey, and wandered around. Husband was keen to walk by the river, but we made him wait while we explored. Luckily some of the signs were aimed at children, including one with a wheel to turn that played an old song – so that kept him busy for a few minutes. The song was “Summer is i-comin’ in” which I remember singing (and disliking) at school. Apparently it contains the word “fart” but I don’t think we sang that version at my junior school.
We saw the remains of the chapter house – which was where all the business meetings of the abbey were held. Each meeting began with a reading of a chapter from the Bible, which is why it’s named that.
If I’m honest, the ruins only needed a few minutes to explore – unless you’re a historian and appreciate these things, or a primary school teacher and determined to use the whole day on a school outing…I have been that person.
We then followed Husband back to the river, looked at the boats, before driving back to Kent.
Hope you have a good week.
Take care,
Love, Anne x
Anne E. Thompson has written several novels and non-fiction books. You can find her work in bookshops and Amazon.
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Thanks for reading.
If you enjoyed this, you will love my new book: The Sarcastic Mother’s Holiday Diary.
I have always written a diary on holiday, so last Christmas, I decided to find all my old diaries and blogs, and make a book for my children. However, several other people also asked for a copy, so I have written a public version – it’s available on Amazon and has been described as “The Durrells meet Bill Bryson”!
The paperback version is currently available for £9.99, but as I will need to buy copies for book fairs, I will need to cover my postage costs, so this price is for a very limited time (I think it will be around £12 in the future, but I wanted to let you, my blog readers, know that they can buy it for the cheaper price, until March). It is also available as a Kindle book.(You can read it for free if you have Kindle Unlimited.)
Why not buy a copy today? I think it will make you laugh.
The US link is here:
The India link is here:
The UK link is here:
Anne E Thompson 