The historic centre of Reading, which I'm pretty sure is where I was, has a lot of graceful gothic revival buildings and a shopping arcade that's a refuge for oddball stores -- toy railroads, comic books, antiques and old junk -- that wouldn't survive the retail-chain jungle outside. The cute but confusing practice of naming businesses after those that first occupied the buildings is popular here. The Corn Store, for example, is a steakhouse. "Can I get a quick haircut?" / "Sorry, this is an asbestos remediation business."
Reading is light on major attractions; its one big draw is the ruined Reading Abbey, a massive 12th century affair of which the cores of most walls and a few other bits and pieces survive. The monks here are famous for recording one of the earliest known English songs, Sumer Is Icumin In, containing one of the earliest, albeit disputed, English references to goat flatulence. Its last abbot was executed with maximum gruesomeness by Henry VIII -- for heroically refusing to surrender the abbey (according to the abbey placards) or for unrelated charges of high treason (according to everyone else).
My room was above a pub and was as close to ideally located as it's possible to be while still being in Reading. The pub was noisy but hospitable. To extend the traditional Reading welcome of lukewarm Mexican beer, there was a single bottle of Corona standing on a table, and each day they left a 'breakfast bag'. However, these weren't much use to me, and their accumulation got a bit stressful, like an assembly line that's going too fast. I could take a bath in the instant oatmeal, but there's only a shower. And the apples -- I ate two -- I'm not a monster -- but what of the other four? Do I hand them out on the street? Teach myself to juggle? Wait another day and carve apple portraits of the wives of Henry VIII?
Up the street is the Reading Museum, which holds a 19th-century reproduction of the Bayeux tapestry, exact in every detail except for the pants primly provided where the original seemed to have forgotten them, 2000 years of odds and ends, a collection of biscuit tins, and a taxidermied badger wearing a shirt asking people not to pet it. I don't often get political, but people need to stop petting stuffed badgers. They're delicate, and they're being ruined by your selfish insistence on touching them. It's nothing to do with me, I don't pet badgers.
Apart from being close to Heathrow and cheaper than London, Reading's other attraction is that it's on the Thames Path. Close to the city, there are multitudes of geese, swans, and ducks, whose down and feathers litter the adjoining green fields. Swans paddle up eagerly when a child pauses by the water but go away hungry, twitching their rumps in frustration. Swans' noble appearance is a real handicap in their begging. They want you to know that their graceful appearance doesn't mean they have any dignity. They are happy to do degrading tricks for french fries.
Interesting boats are moored along the river. There's a stubby green one with solar panels and a military-surplus look, like someone's post-apocalypse plan is to run canal tours of the Cotswolds -- everything will be valueless except ammo, canned food, and scenic boat tours -- and one that has sunk. It clearly sank some time ago, but disposing of it is probably an expensive job, and the owner, judging by their boat, may not be prospering. My suggestion, which I offer freely to the local authorities, is to put up a sign saying that it's an important habitat for riparian wildlife. And why shouldn't it be of historical interest? "Went down with no hands in the moderate breeze of February 11, 2018, which caused £18 of damage and annoyed several people in the greater Reading area."
Moving west, there are several rowing clubs, and scullers are going through their paces with coaches barking at them from little motorized coaching-boats running alongside. In a green space to the south, an inflatable theme park is taking shape behind trucks painted with "Infatable Theme Park" and "In Town Now" -- self-evident statements, maybe, but the excitement is understandable. Would it be weird for an adult to go to an inflatable theme park by themselves? What if they really want to?
In the next open space, a toddler has begun to feed the birds, which converge in amazing numbers, swimming up to the bank and marching in columns across the pavement. The real reason for the 'no feeding' signs is surely that it allows anyone to muster a waterfowl army capable of terrorizing a city. This particular little girl has no villainous scheme in mind, but that's just luck.
The path, which is paved near the city, becomes a dirt track, and is pleasant enough, except for the caches of empty beer cans and some of the moored boats. A couple of these belong to a species of nautical hoarder I didn't know existed. In general, the canal boats are not the charming type tourists photograph in quaint settings. If they were land vehicles, they'd be up on blocks. If you have a boat you don't want, you apparently moor it here late at night and sneak off. The riverbed on this stretch is probably clasping dozens in its mucky embrace.
The trail now crosses the train tracks that run parallel to the river and, for unclear reasons, takes a long detour through a suburb. It picks up again at a village commons repurposed as a playground but still feeling like a farmer's field, and then enters a pasture of shaggy horses, some free-roaming and some in separate electric-fence paddocks. A notice on the gate I exit by explains that there's been an outbreak of The Strangles, which is apparently a horse disease. Having looked into it, it's less fun than the name makes it sound.
When the river reappears, it's running through a lock and weir. Nearby is this stretch of trail's main sight: the Mapledurham house, an Elizabethan mansion with a watermill that was featured on a Black Sabbath album cover -- surely a source of fierce pride to the inhabitants. Whether you're into Ozzy, 16th century English architecture, or both, the Mapledurham house has something for everyone. My first plan was to await a social invitation to a country-house weekend, at which my manners and neatly-combed hair (I recently purchased a comb) would have made me a great success. When no invitation arrived, possibly due to a postal error, I thought of stopping by from the path, but, in fact, there is no way across the river for miles in either direction. In the end, then, I got only a distant glimpse of the house. But I did get exposed to The Strangles. We always seem to be compensated for life's disappointments.
The final stretch to Pangbourne runs through vast and peaceful English meadows, where raptors circle in a gloomy sky and it's easy to imagine Jerome K. Jerome boating alongside with a couple of friends and a dog. Pangbourne has the look of an attractive and wealthy village, but it's the train station and its promise of a quick return to Reading that interests me most.
