Days out: Reading

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of our first date (I know, aren't we soppy?!) the OH took a day off work and we headed off on the train to explore Reading. It's somewhere I've been to many times before, but mainly to change trains or meet up with someone, so I'd never really explored the centre before. 

First stop was John Lewis, to fill up on my free cup of tea and a cake (sign up for a free My John Lewis card and you get vouchers for a free hot drink and a cake each month).

Then we were off to explore. We spent the rest of the morning in the museum, which was quite full of school parties, but fairly well done and interesting. We didn't actually see most of it before we felt hungry and went in search of lunch!

We found Forbury Gardens not far from the museum. The lion commemorates the loss of soldiers from the Royal Berkshire Regiment in Afghanistan in, er, 1880 (some things never change).

The gardens lead to the ruins of the 12th century Abbey. The Abbey Gateway in the picture later became a school attended by Jane Austen.

Later we had a wander round the town centre. This impressive looking church wasn't open, so we didn't find out much more about it. It turned out that it was Reading Minster.

The newish shopping centre (amusing named "The Oracle", which was earlier the name of Reading's Workhouse...) is on both sides of the river, which was looking rather high when we visited.

At some point we'll go back. We've got the rest of the museum to see, and obviously more cake vouchers to use in John Lewis...

Ravellenic Games - the medals

I was called to the podium, so here are my medals!

Couldn't resist putting them in the sidebar as well. I really enjoyed being part of the Ravellenic Games - I met some great people online via Team GB and on the main game forum, even if I did have trouble keeping up with all the projects people were making. I now have even more projects added to my queue as well.

After the floods

It's only four weeks since the second lot of flooding, but today was a really bright sunny day so I thought I'd go out and take some "after" photographs.

River Thames looking towards Staines Bridge today

 And in January.

The jetty is still a bit under water today

but in February even the steps were under water.

And the bottom of the bandstand is very muddy and the water still above its usual level,

but a lot lower than it was in February!

Garden at the beginning of March 2014

Finally, a day of sunshine, and on the 1st of the month too! Although temperatures have been dropping at night (it was 1°C when the OH first went outside yesterday morning), it has been relatively warm and sunny in the last few days, with temperatures averaging about 10°C during the day.

The garden is beginning to look a lot more interesting as flowers come into bloom.

Lots of crocuses are now around:

There are loads of flowers on the hellebore.

Plenty of daffodils now flowering.

Including some rather sweet little Tête-à-tête ones, which I planted in the Autumn.

And the Camellia is flowering, with plenty more buds still to open. I'm rather amused by the advice for Camellia growing on the RHS website. Apparently it should be in a shady spot in ericaceous compost, neither of which is true in our garden!

Spring is definitely here!