Rural meandering; bird survey; horsies

Most of this last week has been filled with a six-day Easter break courtesy of the University … Closure Days are truly a blessing.

I travelled to Hereford on Thursday morning to spend a couple of days with my parents. I took the slower-but-cheaper Evesham (as opposed to Newport) route, which is a pleasant 3-hour meander along the Cotswold Line passing through some pretty pastoral scenery and some absurdly small stations, at least one of them only big enough for two carriages of the eight-carriage or so train I was on. Must involve much frenzied scuttling along the train if you’ve forgotten when your station is coming up. There’s a Wikipedia entry giving a handy guide to the line. There’s also a Cotswold Line Promotion Group - not quite sure what they do. General promotion, I guess.

Went for a lovely 5-mile or so walk in the Olchon Valley on Good Friday. My father is participating in some sort of bird survey for the British Trust for Ornithology, so was armed with binoculars and a pen and notebook. Seems to involve noting all the birds you observe within a one-hour timeframe - I assume to contribute to some sort of overview of numbers, different species etc. Not sure if more points are assigned to certain species, whereby the spotting of one Magnificent Bird of Paradise – albeit improbable in Herefordshire – might be equivalent to spotting 20 song thrushes. Probably not.

Ray in his shed

I kicked off Easter Sunday by strolling up to Ray’s allotment for coffee and bacon rolls courtesy of the cunning little stove he has acquired. I was tickled to note that on the plot next to Ray’s there were the pieces of a flat-pack shed piled up. Evidently the shed anarchy is beginning! Ruth cooked a divine roast chicken in the evening - I can never be arsed to cook roasts, but they do have their place.

On Easter Monday I went to my first Point to Point meeting at Hackwood Park, near Basingstoke, organised by the Vine & Craven Hunt. It was beautiful weather – by far the nicest day of the long weekend. We cheekily managed to bag a prime picnic position near the finishing post, thanks to somebody not turning up to claim their paid-for parking spot. Inevitably, there was much braying and blustering over the tannoy about hunting and how the hunting ban risks the destruction of the entire British countryside (a consequence that needs explaining to me, frankly – but then as a townie, what do I know).

Ruth, me and Claire

The event itself was a little disappointing in the sense that most of the races were rather devoid of runners – there was speculation that they might have b*ggered off to a rival event at Lockinge on the same day. Each race had around 15 runners according to the race card, but several only had 4 runners in practice and the final race, only one – the solitary runner was awarded a walk-over, but this seemed to involve going through a bit of a bizarre ritual involving walking part of the length of the course in the company of a chaperone. The solitary horse did, unsurprisingly, win the award for best turned out horse in that race, and hopefully the jockey will have been cheered up by his winnings of a crate of London Pride. The event also included ferret racing, which we missed, but did manage to see the ferrets in their cages.

In principle, our current status as a TV-free household should be a golden opportunity for me to catch up on some reading. I did, amazingly, read a couple of (short) articles out of The Economist last night – an impressive pile of these has built up on the coffee table since Ruth started subscribing to it. Felt a virtuous sense of being on top of world affairs afterwards. I have to say, though, that I am missing trash TV.

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Wedding; sanitised pubs; Slumdog Millionaire

It was lovely weather on Saturday for Kate’s wedding at the Newbury Manor Hotel. The experience with the Newbury Manor was completely the opposite of my recent experience with the Princess on Portland in Manchester (see 4 March entry), in that this time the hotel was much nicer than (for some reason) I had been expecting. The hotel used to be called Millwaters (I always wanted to call it Milliways, but that was the Restaurant at the End of the Universe) – I’m not sure when it was renamed. It’s a lovely venue for a wedding, certainly. Our room looked out onto a little courtyard garden with stone nymphs and bamboo - all quite charming.

Ruth and I enjoyed breakfast on Sunday at the River Bar Restaurant in the former watermill on the site - lovely setting although as it’s literally on the river I’d be a bit worried if the river was high after a downpour. I compensated for unexpectedly missing out on my smoked salmon starter at the wedding breakfast by having smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Very nice too.

On our way back on Sunday we stopped off at the Rowbarge in Woolhampton for a lunchtime drink, only to make the somewhat depressing discovery that it’s been taken over by the Blubecker’s chain and is now consequently remodelled, sanitised and family-friendly. They took over the previously-lovely Pack Horse at Chazey Heath a year or so ago, too. Bl**dy hell. I suppose it’s marginally better than the pubs having to close.

Went last night for a nice pre-film dinner at Prezzo with Claire, Helen and Ali, and then to see Slumdog Millionaire at the Town Hall. I made the mistake of trying on two pairs of jeans in Oasis beforehand and promptly felt depressed and fat, which I compensated for by ordering a rather too rich dinner of crab cakes in saffron cream accompanied by house fries. The Victoria Hall is an atmospheric venue for watching a film although the school assembly-type seating is a bit too crammed together for comfort. Hard to criticise the film itself I suppose given that it’s won so many awards, but I found it a bit unsatisfying, possibly because I’d managed to get the impression that it’s a feel-good movie, which it isn’t. Certainly it’s a happy ending in that he wins and gets the girl, but I didn’t feel that compensated for the preceding hour and a half of relentless misery – and also, the fact that Jamal gets Latika at the end is obviously meant to be the main point, but I wanted more conclusive evidence that Jamal had actually been able to bank his winnings and buy himself a nice house ….

My resolve to become more green-fingered has got off to a cautious start by sprinkling some slug pellets on the hostas, which have started to come through. I was gratified yesterday to find two dead slugs and a dead snail in the pots. Long may the slaughter continue. Cheeky gits.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Ideal Homes; cemeteries; bit of culture

Ruth and I hit the Ideal Home Show on Friday, which made for a good day out. I had been once before, around 10 years ago, and it had been so crowded that just moving around the exhibits had been difficult – this time we were sufficiently cunning to choose a weekday and the crowds were very manageable so we were able to browse the exhibits and room layouts at leisure. Saw a cute bath which could definitely have potential. Ruth was briefly enchanted by a toilet with a slow-closing lid, although we decided this couldn’t be classed as an essential. We left with a scarf each, a free copy of Ideal Home Magazine and an enormous number of leaflets.

After leaving the Earls Court Exhibition Building we wandered towards Chelsea and discovered Brompton Cemetery, where I’d never been before. Brompton was established in 1840 and was one of the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’, a group of private cemeteries established to take over from inner London churchyards as burial places for London’s dead. There are catacombs below the colonnades at the southern end, which sound terribly exciting and mysterious – no idea whether the public can access them. We were flagging a bit by that point so didn’t investigate. People buried at Brompton include Emmeline Pankhurst, Brian Glover and the founder of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.

We had been intending to end the day with a bit of a browse around the Kings Road but in the event our feet were aching too much for this, so we collapsed onto a train back to Reading and went for a nice dinner at Bella Italia, where I think the waiting staff now know us by name.

Off to London again on Saturday to get together with my friend Helen for a catch-up and a browse around the V&A. We always give a token nod to culture by meeting in a museum/art gallery or similar, although in practice usually spend most of the time having lunch/tea. We braved the drizzle to have a quick wander around the new John Madejski Garden. Even after numerous visits to the V&A, there always seems to be something new to see - this time we looked around the William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery, sought out the Great Bed of Ware (an impressive three metres wide) and saw the very odd Dacre Beasts, four sixteenth- century heraldic figures all apparently carved from a single trunk of an oak.

In the evening met Ray for a curry in Twyford, where we used to be in the habit of meeting for dinner some years ago when it was halfway between our respective homes. Although tempted by the smart-looking Haweli, we were loyal to our old haunt the Gaylord, where we had a pleasant meal under the slightly overly-watchful eyes of around half a dozen restaurant staff with seemingly little else to do. Still, they were very polite and shook our hands on the way out.

Signing off; breakfast; boat-building

The main triumph of the last week has been obtaining approval and subsequently a completion certificate from Reading Borough Council Building Control for Ray’s re-roofing of the house and fitting of a Velux window. We were pretty sure that we had done the necessary in terms of stuff BC had asked us to do, but you can never be sure until sign-off. Now, if I ever do in future get to the stage of compiling a HIP, the certificate can slot right in. Grateful to little R for doing a good enough job during a difficult time.

Weekend got off to a good start with breakfast with Ray at the lovely Palmieri’s in Maidenhead. Fabulous coffee (had two cups) and probably the nicest ‘full English’ I’ve had – I don’t normally order full Englishes in cafes/hotels as I’m wary of being presented with a sea of grease, if I’m really unlucky, swimming in an additional sea of baked beans (which I like, but not for breakfast). However, Palmieri’s slight Italian twist on the full English was perfect, and included some perfect little charred cherry tomatoes. Ray’s baked beans were served in a separate little bowl, rather than on the plate, which was a nice touch. Palmieri’s is out of the town centre (probably no bad thing – for a presumably wealthy town, Maidenhead has a particularly drab and uninspiring town centre, although there does appear to be a regeneration planned) but it seemed to have plenty of custom when we were there at 9am, so I hope it thrives.

Then we trolled off up the M40 and out past Banbury to see the progress of the construction of Ray’s narrowboat. I was reassured to see that it does appear to be being constructed of solid-looking steel, rather than the pieces of coloured wood glued together that I had imagined.

Finished the day with a lovely walk around Bisham Woods to take full advantage of the weather. The going would have been tough if it had been wet as the ground had been well churned up by horses – much muttering from Ray about horses ruining footpaths. Luckily it was dry but still a risk of spraining ankles in ruts created by hooves. We didn’t actually see any of the huge beasts – perhaps they’ve moved on to churn up pastures new. In fact we didn’t see anybody at all, which was strange given the lovely weather.
At Book Group this weekI was slightly startled at the amount of hatred directed at our book for the month, Danny Wallace's Yes Man. I had regarded it as an appealing piece of light entertainment but I seemed to be alone in this.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Last Thursday was distinguished by my partaking of the J D Wetherspoon’s Curry Club for the first time, during drinks at the Back of Beyond with my friend Claire. Usually the main thing that can be said about J D Wetherspoon’s food is that it’s cheap, but the chicken tikka masala was not half bad (and yes, I know it’s a British dish), although I had had a pint or so of lager by the time I ate it. BoB is one of three JDW’s in Reading town centre and probably the nicest – the others are the Monks Retreat (rough) and the Hope Tap (never yet ventured into, but suspect also rough). There’s also the supremely atmosphere-free Baron Cadogan in Caversham, where Ruth recently went for a quiet dinner and ended up being chatted up (by a man! how exciting!).

Hen dinner

Had a lovely day on Saturday at my friend Kate’s hen ‘do’. A handful of us spent the day at the revive Health Club & Spa at the Crowne Plaza making use of the facilities. I had a wonderfully relaxing De-Stress Scalp massage, followed by an Elemis Body Glow Treatment (bit of quite hard brushing, followed by exfoliation and moisturising, leaving you shiny and ready to slide right off any surfaces you might brush up against).

Was a member at revive until quite recently, but cancelled my membership before Christmas in a ‘streamlining of outgoings’ session. Kind of regretted it on Saturday as it reminded me how much I love swimming. Trouble is you often (at least, I often) get the scenario where you only end up going twice a month and then realise that a half-hour swim has cost you the equivalent of about £30 a time. Would be better to grit teeth and use the public pools, although it’s amazing how snobbish one becomes about them after one starts paying private health club fees. Also Reading’s main complex, the Central Swimming Pool, is now extremely dilapidated (or at least, was when I last went a couple of years ago) and appears to be having no money spent on its upkeep – one suspects it’s due to be a casualty of the Chatham Place development.

To return to the hen do … then met up with the larger group for dinner at Zizzi’s in Henley. Evening was enlivened by a ‘drink or dare’ game featuring horrible forfeits devised by Kate’s friend Sarah. Mine was to bite a stranger on the leg, which I eventually did actually do after a couple of the others had managed to nobble a willing (drunk?) volunteer to offer his leg. With hindsight I should have bought the poor guy a drink afterwards.

Away Day; outlying campuses; women in farming

At the risk of sounding nauseatingly spring-like and positive, it was a beautiful morning this morning ... took this picture of the park at the end of my road at around 7.30am.

Week has been enlivened so far by a team Away Day at Reading Town Hall. My equilibrium was slightly unsettled by one of the activities in the morning, but a lunchtime walk through St Laurence's churchyard restored my spirits. Took a photograph of this bush, although I'm not entirely sure why - was possibly led towards it by mystical forces of which I am unaware.

Today's main achievement was to make my way successfully to Oxford Brookes University's Wheatley campus minus a car, something I wasn't initially sure was possible. The Brookesbus service proved me wrong though - although the journey from Oxford railway station takes about half an hour so best if you don't have too many other commitments on the day in question. According to this link, the CPRE have voted the tower on the Wheatley campus one of the ten ugliest buildings in the country. Much of the campus does admittedly have a somewhat grey tinge, but the O'Regan Centre, where my meeting was, is a pleasant, airy modern building. The campus is a typical former college campus that now finds itself part of a university - in the 1960s it was the Lady Spencer Churchill College before merging with Oxford Polytechnic in 1974, which in turn then became a university in the 1992 upgrading.

Attended an interesting lecture at the Museum of English Rural Life this evening on Women in British Farming, held to mark International Women's Day 2009. Some fascinating old photographs. Still not quite clear what was involved in being a bondager, although they seem to have worn bizarre bonnets. Audience, as expected, largely full of Game Old Birds, with a smattering of Game Old Chaps accompanying in some cases. We were served tea and an extremely nice coffee cake with butter icing. All strangely congenial. Perhaps am reaching the time of life when I should join Townswomen's Guild or similar.

Real ale; Manchester; zoology

Last weekend began well with a real ale tasting hosted by the University’s Senior Common Room. I joined the SCR shortly after starting employment with the university, partly to have a potential bolthole to go and eat my sandwiches at lunchtime, but had never actually attended one of their events – this seemed a good one to start with. Staff from the Hammerpot Microbrewery in Sussex gave a brief presentation on the brewing process before letting us taste a range of their ales. I liked the Madgwick Gold, a light golden ale that’s probably at the wussy girly end of what Hammerpot produce, although Claire’s and my joint consensus was that the Woodcote Bitter was our favourite.

Amazingly, we did rather well in the evening’s quiz and won ourselves three bottles of beer in addition to the free bottle of Madgwick Gold that everyone was given – though I was less appreciative of the winnings by the time I’d carried them home.

The Bottle Wreck Porter was a bit much for me. What is porter anyway?

Then spent a lovely long weekend in Manchester with Mum - a follow-up 'British city break' to the weekend we spent in Glasgow a few years ago. Pictures here. Weather was rather grey and our hotel was only so-so (adequate but uninspiring) but we had a great time in spite of that. We spent most of the time walking around and looking at impressive buildings - took in the Royal Exchange Theatre, the Town Hall and extension, the Central Library, Urbis, a number of huge old hotels including the gloomily imposing (from the outside, at least) Palace Hotel and the brand-new Beetham Tower, home of a Hilton hotel and luxury apartments. Popped briefly into St Ann's Church (where the invitation to quiet prayer was being stymied by the shrieking laughter of a group of ladies serving tea at the back) and Manchester Cathedral. Had a couple of nice dinners, one at the down-to-earth El Macho on Portland Street and one at the fantastic Dimitris - great atmosphere, food and service. We also did an interesting urban canal walk following part of the line of the 'Rochdale Nine'. Didn't get time to do everything I'd have liked to do - including visiting Salford Quays - will have to go back.

Went for an interesting tour this evening of the Cole Museum of Zoology (again, courtesy of the Senior Common Room). The Cole Museum is one of the University of Reading’s three museums, the others being the Museum of English Rural Life (which I have been to) and the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology (which I haven’t – it’s somewhere in the depths of HumSS formerly FOLSS). We sat through a reasonably interesting talk from the curator – buoyed up by a free glass of wine – and then were allowed to have a bit of a poke about the displays. The skeleton hanging from the ceiling in the foreground of the picture on their homepage is a False Killer Whale (not sure what makes it false – haven’t bothered to look this up yet) and the one in the background is a male Indian elephant – an ex-circus performer acquired for the Museum in 1921. I was personally more charmed by a Trumpet fish (a dear little thing that apparently swims head-down) and a Microbat. Ruth briefly admired the delicacy of the 5-metre long Reticulated Python’s 400 vertebrae before becoming squeamish and having to be led quietly away.