Time's nearly Up

3 days have flown by and it's almost time for us to fly. What have we done, well we spent some time in my town Reading, shopping at the Oracle a shopping centre straddling the Kennet Canal, before having a look around the town.

 mum and dad wouldn't recognise the town centre and I have a few pics to show them later. Our 2nd thing on the list to do today was to take in a game with Reading playing Norwich. Rich made it up from Portsmouth to spent a little more time with us. so the 5 of us entered the stadium ( 4 of us not feeling that confident ) and true to form Reading lost 2-1, sack the manager and deduct wages from the players and give them community service. No not really, the game had it's moments and it was still nice to go to a football match with a bit of atmosphere. 

a pre match shot. pitch in great condition, players have no right to complain about conditions they play under, try a sodden stadium ground in the middle of winter in Te Awamutu with well known bobble or two. 

Sunday was to be a more leisurely day and we headed down the motorway to find Kintbury, to the Kennet Horse Boat Company. A delightful way to spend a couple of hours cruising down the canal pulled by a shire horse. 

As you can see the horse wasn't bothered by any of us. 

the boat is pulled into the lock by hand while the horse gets to watch. 

After a lovely lunch at the Pub next door we headed for a less likely place to look at. Greenham Common, once made famous for Nuclear Arms and the Women's protests. Andy took us on the way home, for a walk around part of the remains, some of which is still closed to the public. 

Bizarrely this place is listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, not sure it could be on the same page as Stonehenge. It's good to see that nature has slowly been reclaiming the base. It was an interesting look at something that historically didn't happen that long ago.