A Trip To Reading

It’s been a busy ‘ol day for me! I was awake at 4am and gave up trying to go back to sleep an hour later. I went to Reading tip with a boot full of stuff, arriving 10 min before they opened at 8 and was first in the queue. Then I did a quick food shop and was home in time for today’s cross country skiing races starting at 10. I was happy to see my favourite, Jessie Diggins (USA) get the silver today.

Between the women’s and the men’s races I put my Christmas tree up (but not decorated) and once both races were done I took a much-needed nap. All that skiing (15k for the ladies and 30k for the men) wears me out!

I then rushed to get out the door to go into Reading on the train. The big picture shows two parts of the station - the 1867 building on the right (which was THE station building when we moved to Reading from the US in 1972), and the new 2015 building on the left. To the right of the older building, and out of this shot, is the 1989 wing of the station. So the station comprises of old, new and newer, although the 1867 building is now used as a pub. Wikipedia says that Reading is the 9th busiest station in the UK outside of London and is the 2nd busiest interchange station outside of London, with 3.8 million passengers changing trains at the station annually.

The main purpose of going to Reading was to meet a friend for dinner. We ate at the newly refurbished Bill’s Restaurant and then went next door to Reading Minster where we saw a performance by the Reading Community Gospel Choir. They were very good - so good that they won the Gospel Choir of the Year competition on Songs of Praise a couple of weeks ago. The two programmes covering the competition are still available on BBC iPlayer.

After the concert we walked around the outside of the Oracle shopping centre and enjoyed the Christmas lights. This year there are ‘igloos’ that are part of a pop-up Christmas bar along the canal. It looks like it would be a lot of fun to have a little party there!