Lido; gums; stiff rabbits

Earlier this year tried out the fabulously renovated Thames Lido (as it is now). Formerly the King’s Meadow Baths, it closed in the mid-1970s and had stood unused and increasingly derelict ever since. There had been various attempts over the years at fundraising and at trying to get the local council to do up the baths and re-open them, though it became increasingly clear in recent years that council money was never going to be spent on this. Reading is very poorly off for public swimming pools¹, though if council money were going to be spent, it would be more usefully spent (IMO) on refurbishing the dilapidated Central Baths rather than a small open-air pool.

Thames Lido. New extension on the left housing the restaurant

Anyway, the pool has been restored by the same people who did Bristol Lido, and it opened last October. I treated Ray to a trip as a late birthday present, booking us both in for a weekday morning ‘Swim & Breakfast’ package, at a cool £35 each. It’s pricey but the refurb is stunningly beautiful. We did a bit of swimming and then I did a bit more swimming while Ray basked in the hot tub and sauna. Our swim was followed up by a two-course breakfast in the restaurant that overlooks the pool. I had the toasted fruit bread and maple butter (what a wonderful concept) followed by the Turkish poached eggs; Ray had the sourdough toast followed by a vast kipper. Very nice indeed. Given the cost it’ll be an occasional indulgence, but I’d definitely like to go again.

The pool from the restaurant

Man and kipper

The baths apparently started out as the Ladies' Open Air Baths; there are some interesting bits and pieces here including a pic of the baths in use for a water polo match in 1904. There was evidently also a men's pool nearby - that's not there anymore but it looks as though it was on the opposite corner to the surviving baths. According to this it was closed in the mid-1950s. This interesting photo, nicked from https://www.lostlidos.co.uk/2002/04/07/kings-meadow-ladies-open-air-baths/, shows both pools (the men's pool is above the ladies' pool in the picture; there's now housing on the site):

Have paid two or three visits to my new dental surgery Dental Works since the beginning of the year, partly because of some trouble with a wisdom tooth – these have been partially erupted since my 20s but are clearly never going to move any further. Was prescribed the antibiotic Metronidazole for what the dentist theorized was a gum infection. Not something I’ve taken before – not that I take many antibiotics, but the usual go-to seems to be Amoxicillin. The Metronidazole prescription was handed over with a stern warning not to consume any alcohol while taking it, including avoiding mouthwashes containing it. As you would, I duly went straight to the internet to check this out, and inevitably found views veering from “I drank pints and I was fine” to “Don’t drink anything ‘cause you’ll be really really ill and possibly DIE”. I played it safe and avoided alcohol for the five days of the course, though did have a mini-bottle of wine with my dinner the day after I finished the course with no ill effects, giving the lie a bit to the advice I found in several places to additionally lay off it for 48 hours after finishing the tablets.

Dentists do seem to hand out antibiotics far more readily than GPs do – I haven’t had an antibiotic from a GP for decades, but have now had two lots from dentists within the past few years.

Oh, and as a footnote: the Metronidazole did clear it up. Fair enough then.

Our house bunny Harley went for a check up at the vets earlier this year and was prescribed a daily painkiller to take after the vet noticed that his hips seemed a little stiff and probably painful. Whatever the mixture is, he seems to like it and hops up to Ruth eagerly to take it. From our observations it seems to be doing him some good; he has seemed livelier, even to the extent of chasing the much younger Catherine Howard around the room friskily each morning.

Although we don’t know Harls’ exact age, he was believed to be around a year old when we adopted him in 2009, so should be about 10 this year, which is a respectable age for a rabbit though no doubt living in a centrally-heated house has helped him.

I do find it bizarre that rabbits have such a fast metabolism that they can take a medicine intended for dogs, twice a day. Fascinating creatures.


¹ Soon to be even worse off: I passed Bulmershe Leisure Centre on the bus the other weekend and it appears to have been fenced off for demolition. Article here.

RIP Lola; final visit to Annedd Bach; assorted news items

Our bunny Lola, the lop with the adorably soft fluffy coat, is sadly no more. She was off her food for a couple of days last week before Ruth took her to the vets on Thursday and received various meds to dose her with. We took her back on Friday, where both the vet and Ruth noted that she seemed brighter. Ruth refused a blood sample or to have her admitted, on the grounds that both would cause her considerable stress for probably little gain, but we did agree to her being taken behind the scenes to have a small bag of fluids inserted just under her skin, apparently, so we were assured, a common enough procedure when an animal needs re-hydrating. After this, and after waiting some time for some additional antibiotic medication to be dispensed, we took her home, where she immediately seemed ill and floppy. Ruth phoned the vets, to be told that the fluid bag can have this effect, and indeed can also often slip out of position (thanks for warning us beforehand). Lola managed to hop into the living room and took up her favourite position under the coffee table; Ruth phoned Reading Rabbit Rescue to update them on boarding plans for the weekend, but Lola died during the phone call. Heart attack? Perhaps. I spoke myself to the lovely Sandra later that evening to finalise arrangements, and she observed that that was the first time she’d been present at a death ‘on air’. Ruth buried Lola in the garden, quite near the green cone. The sedum planted on top of Jake has done amazingly well, so perhaps a suitable plant will have to be chosen for the spot.

Drove down on Saturday for what will have been my final visit to Annedd Bach, my parents’ home since 1996, as contracts were exchanged this morning on the sale and on purchase of their new property in Abergavenny. We went for a poke around Abergavenny on the Sunday, including lunch at the Hen & Chickens on Flannel Street, which I rather like but the others seemed less than enthused by the admittedly somewhat discordant live music going on in the pub car park. True to tradition, we managed to have a final barbecue on Sunday night. Here’s Dad next to some smoke, and a shot of my parents in their porch. I did the interminably dull three-hour drive back to Milton Keynes on Monday morning, while Mum and Dad dropped Ruth at Newport station on their way to see Dave.

Have lived the dream this month with a couple of dinners at Wetherspoons, the first at The Back of Beyond in Reading with Claire, chosen partly because it sells real ale and partly because it’s the only town centre venue with a river terrace. It’s also marginally less frequented by seedy drunks than Reading’s other two branches of JDW, The Monks’ Retreat and The Hope Tap. We had in fact intended to have a drink or two and then repair across the road to the Warwick, which now does Thai, but after a couple of beers I get a shameful urge to slum it with chips, so we ended up staying at BoBs for the rest of the evening. Followed this up in MK last week with Curry Club at the large JDW on Midsummer Boulevard (doesn’t appear to have a name attached) with Matt, Rebecca, Guy and Susan from work. Wetherspoons was offset with a civilised posh dinner with Ruth at the London Street Brasserie on 17 August. I hadn’t been to LSB for quite a while but the food is still very nice and it’s evidently found its niche, quite possibly partly as a ‘somewhere to take your parents’ venue for students.

Recent local Reading news includes the news that the campaigners for restoration of the King’s Meadow Baths, a Victorian lido next to the Thames near Reading Bridge, have finally abandoned their fight. While I think it will be sad if the building is demolished, trying to get it restored as an outdoor swimming pool always seemed to be a hopeless endeavour – and I’ve seen comments in the paper from older residents of the town pointing out that dwindling use of the baths was part of what led to their closure in the first place (they’ve been closed since the mid-1970s). Evidently the council had given the King’s Meadow Campaign a set period of time to raise the (presumably considerable) funding necessary to preserve and restore the building, but it doesn’t look from the recent news article as though they managed to raise even a fraction of what this must have been. Having said that, RBC’s seemingly different treatment of the Central Club, raised by several commenters on the above article, does seem a bit unfair. Better use of the money IMHO would be to restore the (when I last used it, extremely dilapidated) 1970s Central Pool on Battle Street, an excellent indoor municipal swimming facility of a type unlikely to be built again. That’s pretty unlikely though, due to a) the fact that I think the land is earmarked for part of the Chatham Place project; b) current collective national hatred of anything built in the 1960s or 1970s – no way the poor Central is going to attract a campaign group. I quite like the Council’s plan for a footbridge over the river between the two bridges though, and the restoration of the poor little pavilion in Christchurch Meadows as a café, so hopefully those will go ahead.

Snipped this from the frequently telling ‘Most Popular’ section on the homepage of BBC News on 22 August – Bradley Manning’s decision to become Chelsea Manning occupies the top spot, but close behind it in second place was the news that Carlisle Castle has been recreated by a team of volunteers armed with custard creams. And it’s not as though this last week has been a slow news week. Misuse of terror laws and gross infringement of civil liberties, anyone?

A couple of amusing items recently from the OU noticeboard. Re the first: one hopes the poor chap did find his falsies, as I understand they aren’t cheap. Re the second: flippin’ nutcase.