Eldon Square

When I left the hospital after my appointment this morning I took a stroll through the King George V memorial gardens to look at the houses in Eldon Square. When I first moved to Reading 32 years ago I lived in a bedsit in one of these old houses. (It was the right hand one of the centre pair). I had the room on the first floor with a huge draughty window. The kitchen was off the side and had no hot water. The bathroom was down the hall and shared with 4 other bedsits. If you wanted a bath you put your 50p in the meter to get hot water and a sign up tell others it was yours and you waited 30 minutes for it to get hot.

And that place was still better than the slum I spent 6 weeks in while I looked for somewhere better.

The houses and location are beautiful and I expected, by now, to find them converted to fantastic apartments. In fact the one I lived in had hardly changed at all. I could imagine it still has no hot water and a shared bathroom.

These houses look out on the memorial gardens and in their prime they must have been a lovely place to live. I would like to have seen them in those days. Now they look sad, run down and poorly maintained. And yet despite every square inch of spare space in Reading being built on, it obviously isn't economic to bring these properties back to even a shade of their former glory.

Pure nostalgia for me if course but this is my blip, right?

Rest of the day whizzed by in a whirlwind of household chores too boring to mention.

Still, it's Friday tomorrow so the weekend is almost here.