I’m on the V&A mailing list. Normally it’s only of passing interest but when I opened one and found that they were running an exhibition featuring the work of Aardman Animations I was there and booked tickets. Hold on a Minute...…

The underpass to Katesgrove, specifically the stretch beneath the IDR near County Lock, has had a series of murals installed in it, and I was keen to see it. What apparently used to be a somewhat grim, graffiti-prone passage has been turned into the Time …

I guess you could say that I am somewhat late to the party with this post, given that all those annoying Spotify Wrapped posts were flooding social media late last year. I don’t use Spotify, having a) a roll-your-own version in the form of Plex and b) m…

If you liked this post then you maybe interested in this. Reading has lots to offer and this guide takes you through my highlights - all of which are free. www.neilthompson.co.uk/the-reading-...

I’ve been driving under the A329M flyover on Loddon Bridge Road for years, admiring the street art there and meaning to take a closer look. Today I finally did. The graffiti art under the A329M flyover near the Showcase Cinema and The George pub in Earl…

It’s time for my annual round-up of the year just gone (you can read the previous year’s reports here). This was my first full year of retirement so it will be interesting to see what, if any , impact that has had on the figures. I have worked from ho…

This is an awful thing to say, but Reading is really easy to get away from! It is incredibly well served with transport links to the M4 to the south and rail links which lead pretty much anywhere. One such destination is Oxford, which is only a cheap 20-m…

Knaresbourgh is beautiful any time of year.

In the middle of last year I visited Lightroom in Kings Cross to see The Moonwalkers. I loved it so much that I went back for a second helping and bought the soundtrack that accompanied it. When I saw that The Natural History Museum were offering a simila…

Last day in Washington DC and we needed to avoid last-day syndrome, particularly as we had the whole day to kill as the flight wasn’t until 22:45. We had done all the major sites and places that we wanted to visit but there were a couple more outposts t…

I posed a question on our Alexandria day asking “How do the blind of America cross the road?” as there didn’t seem to be any audio feedback. Our eyes and ears on the ground (👋Angela) got in touch to say that if you hold the crosswalk button long …

We were sat in Starbucks this morning having breakfast and watching a little tableau unfold on the pavement (“sidewalk”) opposite where five police officers were arresting one guy. I’m not sure why five officers were necessary given that the man off…

I must admit that of all the places I expected to find myself on holiday, the zoo wasn’t one of them— at least not without children. Don’t Panda to Them Like many of the museums on the National Mall, the zoo is also part of the Smithsonian Institute…

When we came to Washington last time, we stayed in Georgetown, a beautiful and affluent suburb of Washington. It was a nice area but probably a bit too far from the action. Foggy Bottom This trip we are staying downtown so we had to get the Metro over to …

Today we took the metro south to Alexandria, a city seven miles out of Washington in Virginia. We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented As we walked from the station to old town Alexandria I was struck with how well presented it was …

Jet lag wasn’t too bad. I’m sure that it’s perfectly normal to be wide awake at 5 am! Still it did allow us to get out early and avoid the crowds. National Mall Today we’d earmarked to do the sights, which in Washington’s case are all centred ar…

Just as the weather begins to change at home, we are off to warmer climes. Back in 2019 we did a combined trip to New York and Washington but felt that we hadn’t spent long enough in the capital so vowed to come back. Now we are here for a week. Wheneve…

Something new for Heritage Open Days this year and arguably, something without any heritage— a trip up the newly opened ONE Station Hill building in Reading. Having done all the other things on offer and seeing that this offered the opportunity to look …

We’ve not been able to do a leg of the path since late April. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, it was very hot over the summer— too hot for us to want to walk; and secondly, I got plantar fasciitis in my right foot, making walking painful, s…

Today is the last day of my 6th decade. Tomorrow I will be eligible for free prescriptions and a senior railcard. I don’t feel old enough to warrant those and other concessions but the grey hair tells me otherwise! While browsing the bookshops in Hay I …

The final two stops on our Welsh tour today waking in the lovely Portmeirion and then travelling on to the bookish Hay–on–Wye. Portmeirion After all the hoi polloi paying day guests had left the village it became very, very quiet there and it was a pl…

We moved on from Conwy today winding our way on towards our next top of the Italianate village of Portmeirion. Anglesey Our first stop was to be the island of Anglesey, where we had planned three stops, the first of which was the town of Llanfairpwllgwyng…

For our first full day in Wales we had decided to start at the nearby Bodnant Gardens, a National Trust property with extensive grounds. Bodnant Gardens We arrived just after opening, and there was hardly anyone there. Three hours later when we left, the …

We’ve talked about doing a Wales road trip for quite a while now and just never quite got round to it. Then when we were planning a few days away for my birthday, which may or may not be a big one, we decided now would be a great time to go, so here we …

A couple of years ago Reading Town Hall played host to an art work called Gaia by the artist Luke Jerram. Essentially this was a giant inflatable ball with an image of the Earth printed on it and suspended from the ceiling, slowly rotating to a soundtrack…

When I was on the university campus the other day, visiting the new World Reimagined globes that had been installed, I made a slight detour to visit one of the ugliest buildings around— the Region 6 War Room. I didn’t know that this even existed until…

On New Year’s Day this year, we went over to the university to check out the globes that had been installed to create an art trail on the campus. This was part of a wider national campaign called The World Reimagined which had globes all over the countr…

How can Peter Bank's solo work have eluded me for so long? Currently listening to Reduction - what an amazing album.

On this cruise, there have been two days at sea to fill. The first one was easiest as it was the first day, and so there was a whole ship to explore. Also, the weather was great, and so many were frying themselves on the decks, leaving the lounge spaces i…

On almost all cruises you end up in a destination which is smaller than the rest, or further out from the action (Piraeus for Athens or Civitavecchia for Rome for example). Haugesund was that stop on this cruise. The town was 20 minutes from the cruise po…

Nestled at the end of the Aurlandsfjord is Flåm, a tiny place that is known predominantly for one thing and one thing only— the train to Myrdal. Does anyone come to Flåm for anything other than the railway journey? I very much doubt it. I certainly di…

We don’t normally go on organised excursions laid on by the cruise company because, quite frankly, they don’t represent very good value for money. Often you can do the same trip for half the price by doing your own thing. However, that’s not always …

When we awoke this morning, we were already docked in Stavanger, Norway’s third-largest city, a place of 150,000 people, making it less than half the size of my hometown of Reading. Stavanger has grown on the back of fishing, oil, and tourism, the latte…

There’s a lot to be said for the comfort of familiar things – a favourite place, a much loved song or a film that lifts you – and it can be very discombobulating to do someting that on the outside appears to be the same but is actually very differen…

Reading Museum has one small exhibtion space, the John Madjeski art gallery, that they put to good use displaying a number of interesting exhibitions each there for about six months. Previous ones had all been more traditional art type exhibitions and the…

At the beginning of the year I wrote about The Murals of Central Reading highlighting the three that were there, two of which were very recent. I compared them with Bristol and noted how Reading’s “are a much more sober and corporate affair.” Royals…

Years ago my Dad told me about a place in Swindon where the Science Museum held items that there wasn’t room for in their museums. Tickets seemed to be like hens teeth and then came Covid and the place shutting down while a new facility was built. Final…

I have for some time now been attempting to visit every museum in the Reading area of which there are eight by my reckoning. The last of these that I had to do was a tiny place just on the outskirts of town, just 15 minute from the centre. I have to admit…

We had this morning loosely planned out, where we’d do some of the highlights of Amsterdam. Helen then said the next time we come, we should go further afield, so I suggested we go to Delft today. This is not something we Thompsons do. We aren’t reall…

Oh I so want to live in The Netherlands.

Today was the reason we were in Amsterdam – a visit to Keukenhof (I’m told it is pronounced Kook-en-hof) – the self proclaimed “most beautiful spring garden in the world”. In all the years that we have been coming to The Netherlands we have neve…

Since retiring I’ve had the flexibility to do things that previously I couldn’t due to work commitments, particularly those taking place during the week. A number of these events have been part of the local u3a group, an international organisation for…

Heading out for our fifth leg of the Thames Path this morning, neither Helen nor I were really feeling it, suffering from an unexplainable malaise. However, we pushed on and were really glad that we did. The weather was supposed to be sunny but feel like …

The beautiful weather has allowed us to complete, so far this year, 100% more legs of the path than last year. All that really highlights is just how few legs we did last year. I am glad that we are back in to the swing of it though and today’s was a re…

It has been quite a while since I last did a Record Store Day; in fact, it has been eight years. The reasons for this are many but mainly it’s been because the date has clashed with other things in many of those years and then there was COVID too. Howev…

I had seen on the Reading Walks Festival site that one of the walks this year was around Reading’s Inner Distribution Road. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make this but that didn’t stop me from doing the walk myself, so I did! Queens Road I got the bus i…

Having not done any legs of the path for over nine months, suddenly we have done three in the space of six weeks, and we have, finally, reached our home port! We headed out from Reading on what promised to be a beautiful day once again. This time we got t…

So 90 cent will be provided at unaffordable rent levels. Gotcha.

The local soft play has a cartoon of the orange toddler. How apt!

So, as promised, we were back on the Thames Path this morning for the Marlow to Henley-on-Thames (henceforth known as Henley) leg. However, it very nearly didn’t happen as when I checked my emails first thing I discovered that there was broken rail betw…