Trip to Reading!

If you read the blog I wrote back in January about Harold coming to stay you’ll know there’s a train that goes direct from Newcastle to Reading. Well, that’s the train I caught in March when I went to stay with Harold for a few days. It should have got me into Reading five hours later. The only problem was that the timetable didn’t correspond with reality, and the journey took more like seven hours after a change of trains in Birmingham. Anyway, Harold was there to meet me at Reading station, and we took a bus back to his home by the Thames riverbank.

We had a huge Greek meal that night at a local restaurant (Kyrenia in Caversham – highly recommended), choosing the traditional four-course meze, an endless succession of tasty Greek dishes that lasted for hours. The food that came to our table could have fed four, and I ate almost to bursting point – except that Harold kept pinching food off my plate.

The next day, Thursday, was spent in London. We went first to the Apple store in Regent Street, which was great even though we already had most of the kit on display – I mean how many iPhones and iPad2s does a person need? Waiting outside the store for a bus to take us to the South Bank, where we had concert tickets, we saw the famous man with a metal wire pyramid on his head (look it up in Google!). The concert was great – the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing Dvorak’s Symphony no. 8 – but the Royal Festival Hall was disappointing, not as good as the Sage in Gateshead. Seeing a Japanese couple in the row in front, and since it was only a few days after the earthquake and tsunami, Harold tried to make friendly conversation, asking them if they’d paddled their way to London. Strangely, they burst into tears! People are odd.

On Friday we went to Oxford, where Harold took me round the college where he’d studied. Unfortunately my camera was playing up and I couldn’t get the autofocus to work, so the pic of New College bridge is the only one I came away with. Still, we tried to make up for that with a great meal at Oxford’s Café Rouge. I bought CDs at a music shop and we found a place selling lemon meringue fudge. We forgot about Belgian Dora in the covered market – perhaps next time.

Saturday was spent in Reading. The highlight was the local music shop, where I tried out a series of Yamaha pianos. The salesman thought I was a likely purchaser for a £10,000 model. Harold assured him that if I did buy a £10,000 Yamaha, I’d buy it there! At the end of an Indian meal in the evening, Harold ordered a pistachio ice cream but the waiter brought him a plain vanilla ice. Harold ate that but told the guy in charge about the mistake. The restaurant insisted on serving him the pistachio ice as well – which Harold hated since it was made with condensed milk! Haha, that will teach him to be so greedy.

Took the train home on Sunday, this time via Kings Cross in London. A bit of a strain, dragging my luggage round the Underground. But the journey back was faster, and the time I spent down south was very enjoyable. Now, Harold will be travelling up here again in a few days’ time, to get away from that wedding! So I’ll keep you posted about our next adventures.