Duck fight!

Hubby dear doesn't like me to toss out old bread -- that's for feeding the ducks. Which he never gets around to, or if he does it's after stacks of bread have grown into a hefty pile on the table. Today I told him either the ducks get the bread, or the trash does. I added in some tortillas to the bread and naan. So he wings the tortillas out across the water, whole, like a Frisbee. See the floating discs below? That's the tortillas floating along unmolested by duck, goose or swan.
Next he tossed out the bread, properly broken into pieces. Which promptly started a duck fight (I missed the best of it, but you can see below the victor chasing away his foe). That's probably the most excitement we'll see all day.

I am the champion, my friends...

I failed to mention it sooner, but early this month I actually won something! The latest book by Julie Cohen, "Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom." Yay, me! (Turns out Julie's an American living in Reading, like me. We should form a support group for Yanks Out of Water, though she probably doesn't need it at this point.)

How did I win, you might ask? I entered a competition on The Writing Playground where I described the most magical place I've ever visited (because Nina Jones is based around gorgeous Highgate Cemetery in London, the author's pick of a magical site). My pick? The Alabama Shakespeare Festival Park in Montgomery, Alabama, (the actual name is the Wynton Blount Cultural Park, but it's always the ASF park to me). Lovely theater, ponds filled with ducks and black swans, and a feeling of stepping out of the blandness of highways and shopping centers into a beautiful, peaceful world of quiet reflection once you enter the gates.

As for Nina Jones, I haven't read it yet due to the pressing weight from a stack of books yay high already battling for my attention. However, I did read another of Julie's books this month, "One Night Stand," which I bought when she gave a talk during local author day at the library. That book is set in Reading, and it was fun to see local landmarks pop up here and there and get a dose of romance.

And now on to some pictures of my favorite spot to linger, ASF park:


I adore this bridge. It's romantic and lovely and if you walk through that entrance to the right, there's a sheltered seating area overlooking a pond.


And this is the view from that little seating area. Divine.


And these are the HUGE fish you'll see frolicking away in the pond below. OK, maybe fish don't frolic, but whatever they do in there they've got a beautiful spot for it.

The park's a perfect location for a little sunset-watching.

Fire up the blur tool, that dude's smoking!

I noticed last night that cigarettes were blurred in sketches on The Soup on E!. So were guns (we assume they were toys gun and have no idea if they were realistic toys or even Barbie pink plastic). So in a country where you could almost surely show a closeup of someone getting a Brazilian wax after 9pm, you can't show someone holding a cigarette or a gun at 7pm? I've also noticed that Comedy Central bleeps "dumbass" on "That 70s Show" (and if you watch the show, you know that's practically Red's pet name for his son, so the bleeps are flying).

One of the things I like about Brit TV is that they don't seem to chop up and censor everything. You can actually watch a movie or an old episode of Sex and The City on non-premium channels and see it uncut and unedited, which beats the hell out of what most U.S. stations do. All of which makes it seem all the odder when they won't show a guy holding a cigarette! The blurs even make things seem nastier, because when you see a man with something blurred in front of his mouth, you wonder what could be so filthy they had to blur it -- until you realize he's smoking. We're in Bizarro World.

Southern Gas Social Club

There's an abandoned building by the canal with the windows boarded up and the gate chained. Over one doorway behind the gate is the sign: "Southern Gas Social Club." It's on Gas Works Road, so we presume it was a pub for employees of the gas company once upon a time? I can't find anything about it online, but it looks so interesting (with that mystery that all old, boarded up buildings seem to exude). It also looks like it could be converted into some great waterside flats. Or even a cool pub -- I'd hang out at a place called the Southern Gas Social Club.

If anyone knows the history of this building, please share!


And a view of the back from across the canal:

Fancy a cup of tea, mate?

Throughout my life, people have offered me tea, at times forcibly. We moved to the Deep South when I was 13, and an old family friend insisted on pouring me a cold glass of the ubiquitous Southern sweet tea. Protests that I didn't like tea brought a laugh and a glass pushed into my hand, as though I'd made a little joke, because who doesn't like sweet tea? To me it looked like rusty water and didn't taste much better. I grimaced and left it on the table.

People went on offering sweet tea and shaking their heads in bemused amazement while muttering about "Yankees" when I turned it down time and again. By my early 30s, I was still a staunch tea-loather when an English boyfriend convinced me it was quite good hot if brewed properly. I wasn't totally convinced, but he was cute and I'm easily swayed. I started drinking hot tea now and then, mainly if I was freezing in an arctic workplace and wanted something with less calories than hot cocoa. (Why are offices kept cold enough to cryogenically freeze the staff, anyway?) I'm pretty sure I wasn't preparing it properly, but at least I was willing to give it a go.

Fast-forward several years and I'm living in England, the land where tea is so popular that many even call the evening meal "tea." It took me quite awhile to figure out that when someone said they were having company for tea, they actually meant dinner and not cups of tea served with scones and jam. And wonder of wonder, no one forces tea on me here.

But as of last week, they don't have to, I actually want it. Thanks to a little glass teapot I bought at Poundland (care to guess the price?), I love making tea, watching it change color, and pouring it out into a big mug. It even seems to taste better than ever before.

The hangup for me was always how to actually make the tea. I knew how to hang a teabag out of a cup of boiled water, but I couldn't figure out those ceramic teapots. Did people put those on the stove to heat the water? That didn't seem right. Did you pour boiling water into it (bingo!), and if so, where did the tea go (would you just leave loose leaves inside, or what?) Turns out there are various methods to deal with that (here's a nice tutorial for other tea numbskulls like me).

However, my magical little cheapie teapot comes with a built-in infuser (a little strainer that fits inside). I can put a teabag or leaves in there. It's especially lovely because the one time I always loved tea was if I went to a restaurant that brought my own small teapot to the table -- I'm totally charmed by that concept, like having my own little tea party. And now I have my own cute teapot and even know how to use it. I've even found a few teas I like, such as white tea and a specialty blend of blueberry and yogurt.

Now if I can only figure out the appeal of dry, dusty scones...

A little funny business

Just a heads up for comedy fans in Reading: the outrageously funny Tanyalee
Davis will be in town during the Reading Comedy Festival! I don't know if her show is part of the official festival, but hey, they coincide, so enjoy one with the other.

The Canadian-born comic will be at Jongleurs on Friar Street (located above Bar Risa) on 9 and 10 October. If you plan ahead, you can save mucho £££s by buying tickets in advance with the help of a discount code. Using the code found here, you can get 3 tickets for the price of 1 -- if you order by 28 September. You can place orders for later on, presumably as far ahead as the Jongleurs' calendar listings go.

Tanyalee is a little person who brings big laughs. I've seen her perform several times, and she's always funny and full of energy. Here's a brief intro to the world of TLee:




John Pinette

Another must-see act during the Comedy Festival is American comic John Pinette. He's hilarious; I still sometimes use his catchphrase "You go now!" Want to see what the fuss is about? Check it out here.

Church chat

The sights in Reading include some very beautiful, very old churches. I visited a few during last weekend's Heritage Open Days.

The oldest on my tour (in fact the oldest church in Reading) was Reading Minster of St Mary the Virgin (it's in an area called St. Mary's Butts, and I can't help thinking of that as the name of the church, lol). It dates from AD 979, and of the churches I saw, it seemed to be one of two that remained ancient inside and out. Some others incorporated contemporary features inside (like the flooring and seating and very modern touches), but this one was all beautiful old church through and through. The large, tranquil churchyard includes walking paths (often used as shortcuts by many) and crypts. Many people go there to eat lunch on benches or on a monument with steps. While we were there early Saturday afternoon, the grounds also featured a man drinking from a 40-ounce beer can and yelling to passing women. Classy.









The final, exterior picture was actually taken in 2008. The rest were from last weekend. I'll post more from other churches later. :)