READING BLIPMEET

I mean Reading, the city, not reading a book!  Mr. HCB was on his way to cricket before 9 am and I had been in touch with my Blip friend, Heidi, to ask if she wanted to meet up in Reading. She was free today so another Blipmeet sorted.

When I arrived, I had to wait a few minutes as she had missed one train but we were soon off for our first cup of coffee of the day, in a little independent café - and this included cake - well we needed to build ourselves up before we started walking.  In case Suejay50 and Terrifo are reading this, we had two cakes and had half of each one - no sharing of one cake for us!

We then started our trek through Reading and not that far from the station came to Forbury Gardens, a beautiful park, with some lovely floral displays and a huge lion.  In medieval times the Forbury Gardens was a rough patch of open ground, where horses grazed and pilgrims waited for services at the Abbey church.  The Forbury became a town park in 1856, when local people collected money to buy the land and the ruins for leisure use by the people of Victorian Reading.

On a plinth in the centre of Forbury Gardens is the famous Maiwand Lion statue that commemorates the deaths of 329 men from the Berkshire Regiment of Foot who lost their lives in Afghanistan between 1878 and 1880.  There is also a bandstand, a fountain, rose garden and tea kiosk and even though it wasn’t that sunny, it was obvious that many families used the park, as well as those who were obviously on their lunch break from the many offices around.

The good thing about all the places we visited was that there were signboards with all the information we needed, which was great and made it so much more interesting.

On our walk we saw many interesting buildings, including the Town Hall, the Crown Court and the Abbey gatehouse (middle left in the collage), near to which in 1785, the pupils included a girl named Jane Austen.  This will soon become a Victorian schoolroom in the Museum - one of the doorways is at the top right of the collage  - but this will have to be the subject of another Blipmeet as we didn’t have time to visit the Museum today.  Interestingly, I sent a copy of the plaque to my friend, Marylou, in Pakistan, because I know is very fond of Jane Austen, and received the following message from her this evening, “I looked up the school and it said she only went there for one year before the family was unable to afford it, so she and her sister, Cassandra, were sent back home - but I can understand why the school would like to claim her as a pupil!”  I must say that Heidi was very knowledgeable about many of the buildings - she would make a good tour guide! 

From the gatehouse, we headed towards the ruins of Reading Abbey, (top left of the collage), founded in 1121 by Henry I and which dominated the town for the next 400 years until its destruction during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538.  The buildings were plundered, with lead, glass and facing stones being removed for re-use in other places in Reading and some of the stones now line the walkways of the ruins. 

The gates to the ruins of this medieval church had been closed in 2009 because large stones began to fall and it was considered to be very dangerous but the ruins were reopened to the public in June 2018 and this area is now known as the Abbey Quarter.  It was awe-inspiring to be walking around ruins where monks had lived, walked, sung and prayed many hundreds of years before.  

In the background of the ruins, at the bottom right of the collage, is the high red brick wall of Reading Gaol, which is now closed and awaiting redevelopment.  This gaol famously housed Oscar Wilde and along the canal walk, we saw a plaque put up the year 2000 to commemorate his life and work on the centenary of his death. 

On the other side of the Abbey ruins is The Blade, an office block that is also known as Abbey Mill House, shown at the bottom left of the collage, a skyscraper, which is the tallest building in Reading, although I’m sure Heidi has seen much taller skyscrapers in America!

There weren’t too many people about, so we were able to take lots of photographs and Heidi remarked that it was so good to be going around the ruins with another Blipper, as we were both taking photographs and didn’t mind how much we stopped to do so.  I think we took about 500 between us - not bad for a day’s work.  

We then wandered down by the Kennet & Avon Canal along a tree-lined Avenue and were enjoying the sunshine dappling through the trees when we spotted a canal barge. We called out to the man who was steering and then Heidi asked if he was American and he shouted back that he was.  She responded that she was too so they had a conversation and he then pulled into the bank and they started chatting - you can see them in the middle at the bottom of the collage. 

Before long, his wife got off the barge and we all had a great chat. They told us that they used to live in England for 20 years but had gone back to the States but now spend 3 months every summer over here cruising the canals in their barge, which they called their “cottage in England”.  They invited us to have a look onboard - I didn’t say anything to anyone, but I felt quite sick from just the slight side-to-side movement of the barge - but it was very kind of them. We encouraged them to go and look at the abbey ruins, which were well worth seeing, and they seemed very keen to do that. Of course, we told them about Blip and I think even they were surprised at how many photographs we had taken! 

After we left our new-found friends, we came across a beautiful unnamed bronze sculpture that is an interpretation of the ruins of Reading Abbey, situated on a green mound at the junction of Abbey Square and Abbey Street, near to the actual ruins of the Abbey and shown in the middle right of the collage.  It is the work of Danish sculptor Jens-Flemming Sørensen and was put in place in 2000 - there were many interesting facets to this large sculpture including faces and various body parts in the orb and sphere sculptures.  However, I cannot find much information online about these, which is unfortunate, as I would like to have known more about them. 

We wandered along to The Oracle, a large shopping mall in Reading, because Heidi needed to buy a new tumble dryer - and on the way stopped off at a Lebanese restaurant to have a meal together, which we really enjoyed.  Then it was back to the station for a final coffee before we took our leave of each other.  What a lovely day we have had. 

There was so much to see and I can’t believe that I haven’t visited Reading before - this was my first visit - but I will certainly be visiting again before too long and I have no doubt that it will include a Blipmeet with Heidi, and I might even take Mr. HCB along too, because I think he would be interested in all the history.  His team didn't do too well at cricket, so I didn't ask too many questions when I got home.  It was a long day - I left the house at 9.30 this morning and got back just before 8 pm this evening - I think a quiet day will do me good tomorrow, once Mr. HCB has gone off to cricket again.  

“The ruins proclaim 
     the building was beautiful.”
Mohsin Hamid