Various walks

River Ouzel near Woolstone

My app-aided walk motivation continues. Have been continuing the early morning walks to work, taking the bus part way and then various permutations of a quite pleasant walk along the canal and via Woolstone and Ouzel Valley Park. Have been occasionally meeting Matt en route, as he has abandoned his usual bike two days a week due to back problems. Spotted this sheep-like installation close to the Neath Hill Roundabout South bus stop.

Brief rundown of selected walks lately, with accompanying fascinating snippets:

Walk Saturday 28 March, to Whiteknights and back, about 6 miles in total 

Took a walk up to Whiteknights a few Saturdays ago intending to purchase kimchi at Seoul Plaza, though in the event it was closed – should have twigged that the university term might have ended. On the way, noticed that the former Wells Hall on Upper Redlands Road is being demolished. It has I think stood empty for a number of years. According to this blurb about the site development, the hall was built in 1974, so not sure why its age renders it no longer suitable as student accommodation given that there appear to be no plans to demolish the much older Wantage Hall on the neighbouring site. As ever, one suspects a bit of a campaign against 1960s and 1970s architecture. I always thought Wells was quite a pleasant-looking building and from memory of going into it a couple of times while I was a student at Reading, well-designed enough.  The hall as was can be viewed on this aerial pic taken from Haslams website, with Wantage Hall to the left of it in the picture:

Walk Good Friday, around Caversham and Emmer Green, about 3½ miles

Trotted out early on Good Friday to get some air before driving to Wales to see family. Wondered, as I often have, how the really quite old-looking Tudor Cottage on Surley Row must have looked before any of the much newer housing around it was built. This Geograph photo has a bit of interesting blurb. This Caversham Heritage Map mentions Tudor Cottage and notes that Surley Row “gives a glimpse of Caversham before the Industrial Revolution”.

Walk 4 April on the Clytha Estate, about 3 ½ miles 

Went for a pleasant walk on the Saturday of the Easter weekend with Ruth and my parents, starting from the Clytha riverside car park and going along the Usk for a bit and then through some attractively flower-bespattered woodland, over fields etc to the Clytha Arms, where we had lunch. After lunch we walked up the road to Clytha Castle, an ornate folly “considered one of the outstanding 18th-century follies of Wales” (surely that’s a pretty small demographic – how many are there?). It was built by William Jones of the nearby Clytha House, apparently with the purpose of 'relieving a mind afflicted with the loss of a most excellent wife'. Fair enough - who among us, after losing a loved one, hasn't wanted to rush out and build a pointy building on a hill?

The picture above right features my parents both having a bit of a snoop beyond the board that said ‘Go No Further’. Being exceptionally law-abiding, I was lurking behind it to take the picture. I think Ruth had sloped off into the woods.

Clytha Castle is available for holiday lets via the Landmark Trust and is advertised on their website thusly. Though the LT, from the random selection of properties I browsed, are not quite as expensive as I’d imagined, they are a bit up themselves for my taste, not providing televisions, radio, telephones or any similar new-fangled nonsense. Well, if one can't amuse oneself for a week's worth of evenings playing Halma and embroidering things, one presumably should buzz off to Pontins.

Walk Easter Sunday in Abergavenny, about 3 miles 

Took a bit of early morning exercise on Easter Sunday before driving to Lambourn for lunch with Ruth’s aunt. Pootled up the Monmouth Road turning into various side streets for a snoop, before completing a circular walk along the water meadows. Was struck by this imposing (and somewhat scary) house on Belmont Road, which was so odd-looking and so much bigger than the houses around it that I did a bit of Googling later to see if I could find out more about it. According to this article from Wales Online, the house is called Fairlea, and was once the childhood home of the crime writer Ethel Lina White – whom I had to confess to not having heard of, but turns out Dad’s mum was a big fan. White’s novels seem to have inspired a couple of films, one the 1946 thriller The Spiral Staircase, which Mum, Hannah and I subsequently watched last Sunday. The SS is apparently based on White’s novel Some Must Watch, and the Wales Online piece has it that the layout of the staircase at Fairlea inspired some of the scenes in the novel. (Bit sad about Dr Huw – hope he found somewhere else nice to live.) This ad via Prime Location has pics of the interior, including the staircase.

Walk before work, 24 April, about 3 ½ miles

Had to climb over a fence. Near the Middleton allotments. Am becoming ever more intrepid.

Walk with Ray to Cosgrove, Saturday 25 April, about 6 miles

Wolverton Viaduct

Ray on the aqueduct

Ray hasn’t been too well lately so I was keen not to overdo it, but he arrived yesterday full of enthusiasm to get out, so we set off up the road to Haversham and then turned left into Ouse Valley Park, where we proceeded under the viaduct and then turned right to join the Ouse Valley Way past an extensive caravan park on the other side of the river, before meeting the canal at the aqueduct. Turned right and walked northwards up the canal past a wad of boats – mainly narrowboats but a few others in addition – until we reached the junction with the ‘Buckingham Arm’, a stretch of canal apparently abandoned in 1964 but evidently now under renovation. The restoration project sounds interesting though challenging given that the A5 now blocks the route. Install a lift bridge??

Horse tunnel

We walked up as far as Cosgrove and used the horse tunnel to cross the canal and have a pootle around the village, which is quite pleasant and seems to have gone in for a Cotswold stone-type look. Unless we missed it the village doesn't have a shop, but there is a pub, The Barley Mow, where we would have gone for a drink if we hadn’t been too early. After a quick circuit of Cosgrove we retraced our steps to the aqueduct and then carried straight on along the canal back to Wolverton Park. We had a quick lunch at Buskers before Ray left to set up Maurice at Laurence's place, where he was apparently doing the overnight security.

Have spent the rest of this weekend pleasantly mooching about the flat (bar a couple of hours' shopping this morning) and enjoying the view from my balcony now that it's (almost) warm enough to sit out there. Increased numbers of narrowboats chugging past, which I assume is a sign of impending summer.

Alys; quality theatre; assorted trivia

British Summer Time is here again, though I can never remember which end of the day that renders lighter – evening, I think. It also means our kitchen clock at the house is once again showing the correct time, as we never got around to adjusting it when the clocks went back last October. Have managed to adjust my car radio clock, but there’s some truth in this tweet from @innocent.

Big news since last post is the birth of Dave and Hazel’s second daughter Alys on 28 March, only a week away from Nia’s third birthday on 4 April. Visited on 3 April and had an introductory cuddle of the babe, followed by a follow up at Mum and Dad’s last Sunday. Prior to my trip on the 3rd, I had ventured into Mothercare for a gift for Alys and – never having spent much time in there – was a bit thrown to discover that clothes for newborns come in three different sizes. Which I suppose does make sense, but I’d never thought about it. As Alys was a ten-pounder I abandoned the first outfit I picked up, aimed at the ‘tiny’ category, and chose something more substantial.

Recently did my bit for keeping in touch with the youth by watching Frozen, which I’d added to my LoveFilm list in a bid to find out what all the fuss was about. We were staying over at Mum and Dad’s that night so Ruth and Mum watched it with me; Dad sidled off to his front room as strains of ‘Let it GOOOOOOO’ wafted through the house. It was enjoyable enough though I can’t say I quite get why it’s become quite such a big thing – but then I appreciate I’m not the target audience. Older sister Elsa is the more interesting character – how did she get that way? Did it run in the family? – but it’s the somewhat annoying younger sister Anna who has most of the screen time. On the plus side, it’s undoubtedly a Good Thing that a film with two female leads – albeit animated ones – has become such a phenomenon, and the ‘act of true love’ is between the sisters rather than kiss bestowed by prince, etc.

Cupcakes and Bertie

Spent last Saturday and Sunday in Abergavenny in part for a birthday lunch/tea for Hannah on Sunday. Had roast lamb - which I've not had in a long while - and then some strawberry cupcakes that Hannah had crafted and then transported on the train. Close up of cupcakes left, plus Nia's rabbit Bertie who seemed to have been left face down next to them. The one symbolic candle was duly re-lit for Nia to have a go at blowing out.

Prior to the tea party, helped Dad plant some cuttings of the black bamboo - aka phyllostachys nigra (I speak Latin) - that Ruth had dug up from our garden with some difficulty, eventually resorting to an axe, despite Dad's assurances that it would be a quick matter of just slicing a bit off with a spade. The cuttings were quite tall and didn't have all that much root attached, so I'm just hoping they stay upright throughout the next strong breeze.

Have not yet given much thought to the impending general election, but should no doubt do some research. Mark Lancaster, the incumbent MP for Milton Keynes North, appears to have made little effort on his campaign leaflet to avoid looking like the stereotypical smug Tory git, but I should of course get past that and read about policies etc. Only Conservative and Labour literature received so far, at either of my addresses. Given that the election's on a weekday, am likely to be voting in MK so should read up on Lancaster and the Labour parliamentary candidate Emily Darlington.

Day in London on 11 April to catch the last day of the play My Night with Reg. In fact we saw the matinée rather than the evening performance, but that was quite nice as we were able to go for an early dinner afterwards and get home before it got too late, don slippers and light pipes, etc. Glad Ruth persuaded me to see the play as it was one of the best things I’ve seen in a while – great cast including the v. dishy Julian Ovenden; his brief appearance nude in one scene was the icing on the cake. The audience included a larger number than I expected of straight couples of around my parents’ age, which surprised me slightly though for no good reason; the grey-haired duo next to me were laughing particularly uproariously. There's a Telegraph review of the play here.

Before the play we had lunch at itsu, followed – to counteract the healthiness – by tea and cake at Caffe Concerto on Shaftesbury Avenue. Afterwards, we wandered and into Foyles, which evidently moved premises last year though it's still on Charing Cross Road. It's now v. glam inside, with lots of pale wood and glass. When I first went there, which must have been at least 25 years ago, I seem to remember stacks of books everywhere and a peculiar system for purchasing whereby you took your chosen book to a desk on one floor, collected some sort of ticket, then had to take it to another desk on a whole other floor to actually pay for it. Needless to say that system was abandoned some time ago. We bought a few books we hadn’t planned on buying and then went, via a brief drink in the Soho Theatre bar, to have an early dinner at Cabana Brasilian Barbecue near Tottenham Court Road station, where Dave and Hazel went on a recent visit to London and which I had been keen to try after seeing the photo of a splendidly rare steak that Dave posted on Facebook. Dinner was very nice, including the cubes of Parmesan dipped in honey that we were persuaded by the comely if beardy young waiter to have as a starter.

In Caversham, the saga of where to build permanent premises for The Heights Primary School continues, with a public consultation currently open until 1 May. The whole issue is arousing strong emotions locally, to the extent that members of the Facebook group Caversham Gossip Girls, of which I am one, have been banned from discussing it on the group’s page. Have responded to the consultation giving my opinion of each of the five proposed sites - Mapledurham Playing Fields is probably my preferred option, but I'll freely admit to being influenced by the fact that I neither live near it nor use it. Classic conundrum of most people thinking the school’s a good idea, but no one wanting it on their local piece of greenery. I’m also personally a bit baffled as to where children in Caversham Heights have been going to school up until now, though given that Caversham Heights is the poshest part of Reading, I’d guess not a few of them are at independent schools.

Delighted to discover after taking the Tone Deaf Test recently that I am not tone deaf. Next step might be actually attempting some sort of singing. Although I have belonged to a couple of choirs in my lifetime, both some time ago, I've never had any faith in my ability to actually carry a tune, so, as part of something akin to a bucket list, am determined to find out whether I can.

Car failed its MOT on Tuesday, partly through my own fault in not checking the windscreen washer fluid – who knew you could fail an MOT for that? – though in this case it would have failed anyway as the two front tyres were below the minimum tread and both of the side lights were out, which I’m sure I dimly knew but had filed the thought away in the back of my head. Spent lunch hour yesterday at B and T Tyres in Bletchley, getting the tyres replaced. I may ask Halfords to do the bulbs as I don’t fancy spending a large chunk of the weekend figuring out how to do it myself.