La lettura è brutta

Today we went to Reading. As far as I’m aware, I’ve never been before today. Mirinda thinks she may have attended a conference there once a while ago, though it clearly didn’t really impact on her to any great degree. So, to all intents and purposes, we’ve not been to Reading before.

Getting there with Linda’s help, was a snap, though, like me, she tends to make each trip circular. We (Linda & I) share a dislike for travelling on the same road to and from a destination. So we had a lovely tour of most of Berkshire on the way out to Reading.

Our opinion of the countryside may be somewhat blinkered given that we only saw it from the main road and the weather was glum…not wet, just glum. Still, we were driving through a forest (or so the sign said) and it didn’t look particularly appealing.

The outskirts of Reading looked very much like the outskirts of Aldershot to us. Which is a bit odd because Reading has been around for a lot longer. There may have been a Roman settlement there in the years of the occupation. However, where once there may have been a lovely straight bit of Roman road, there’s now lane after lane of traffic choked bitumen and concrete. They circle Reading like a loosely hurled noose, which is slowly being tightened around the necks of its inhabitants.

We had decided to visit Reading because a particular store which Mirinda likes is getting harder and harder to find as the recession closes most branches down. She discovered there was one in Reading and she figured we had little to lose by motoring over there to check it out. So we did today.

I hate shopping so my job was to wait at Starbucks while Mirinda did battle with her greatest nemesis: the shop assistant. I’m sure I’ve mentioned her almost pathological horror of shop assistants. Unfortunately, shop assistants in Reading seemed far too friendly for Mirinda’s Surrey reserve.

I noticed this as well. The staff in the wrong Starbucks were all very friendly and overly concerned about my wrist. I say the wrong Starbucks because there are two in Reading and, naturally, I waited in the wrong one. Anyway, they were all very concerned.

The same can be said for the people going to and from the music shop as well. While I waited outside for Mirinda to buy some guitar strings a chap asked me if I’d had an accident playing football. Before I could answer he took up a typical stance and suggested it happened while boxing. Seriously? Do I even remotely look like a boxer?

I told him I’d fallen off a ladder, just as a woman in a wheelchair appeared between us announcing that she liked my hat (she actually said “I like your titfa!“). Before I could thank her for her clearly good sense of style, she spotted my arm and her face instantly looked saddened. When asked how it had happened, I was tempted to say I’d been boxing.

We then had the rather comical scene of me stepping to the double glass doors, trying to open the other side so she could drive through while the crazy man who thought I was Mike Tyson, arranged the staff to get the key to unlock it. When he told the woman they’d gone for the key she remarked that they didn’t always have one, which was very irritating.

Mirinda suddenly appeared and rescued me.

We just as suddenly decided to have Italian for lunch and went into the conveniently located across the alley from the right Starbucks, Bella Italia. We’d never been to one (it’s a chain of very Italian restaurants…like Cafe Rouge only not French) and rather enjoyed it. The pizza Lombardy was delish.

After lunch we couldn’t really get out of Reading fast enough. Mirinda didn’t like it at all. I wasn’t keen but then I didn’t get to visit the church or the museum so I can’t be sure.

Broad Street, Reading

Something that struck us on the way home was how much more appealing the woods in Hampshire are.

On a completely different subject…I thought I’d include a photo of my bruise. It’s looking pretty extreme! It’s all show though. Not in the least sore.

The bruise on my arm looks worse than it is