Little bit of Abingdon

So, for the first time in ages I had my phone with me when I was in Abingdon so managed to get a few shots.

This lovely archway is part of the old abbey, little of which survives now.  Henry VIII & the Dissolution of the Monasteries made sure of that!

Looking back through the archway!

I love doorways ...

 And windows ...

But this little beauty is my favourite.  I like to imagine all sorts of things behind doors like this.  It has endless possibilities.  In reality it's a small side door into the church which was the abbey church for the townspeople. But in my imagination ... well it could be a door to anywhere!

Word of the Week

A newly found blog by Jocelyn · thereadingresidence.com has prompted me to think about summing up a week in a single word.  It's harder than it sounds!

This week's word is ...  Painful!

Most week's I'd find it difficult to find a single word that would sum it all up.  But this week has been a week of pain.  The nasty pollution smog has left me with a 3 day headache which is seriously dragging me down.  I've fought the urge to medicate the hell out of the damn thing as it's not a usual headache.  It's all down to environmental things so I need to ride it out.  Thankfully it's turned into an  irritating buzz in the head rather than the sharp pain of Wednesday.

What word sums up your week?

 

Finally writing about Abingdon!

It occurred to me yesterday that, although I called this blog after my home town, I've not written about Abingdon yet.  So I'm going to address that this month.  I want to write a serious of posts about Abingdon to give you a taste of what it's like to live here and what 's going on.

Abingdon is a small market town in South Oxfordshire and at one time was the county town of Berkshire.  Now it's part of Oxfordshire albeit a rather southern outpost of the county.

I thought I'd start with my own little part of Abingdon, namely my house and garden!

We live in the north of Abingdon on the site of the old Warren Hospital - sometimes I bump into folk who were born in the hospital or had their children there which is spooky!  Our house is a 4 bed detached, simple and compact, just about big enough for the 3 of us (I'd like it to be bigger but it isn't so that's that!)

  This is a view of the rear of the house - see what I mean?  A normal, standard house, no frills here folks!

This is the view down the garden towards the shed - lovely!  As you can see I'm no gardener!  Every year I vow to clear and sort the garden and every year I fail.  Things burst into life and flower, some are even plants rather than weeds, so I leave well alone and vow to be better next year!  I also tell myself that the cats like the wild, jungle look.  Well. I can't upset the cats, can I?

  This little, out of focus fellow is chomping his way through some unidentified plants in the garden.  He's brought lots of friends with him and I hope that this means there'll be loads of butterflies later in the year.

I've also got plenty of snails munching on the rosemary.  I'm a fan of slugs and snails and have no problem with them making themselves at home in my garden.  I've never used a slug pellet since an A level Biology field trip when we counted and identified slugs on the Long Mynd.  They're fascinating creatures and I like to watch them and feel them slither over my hand - does that make me weird?

So that's my little corner of Abingdon.  Next mission is to visit and photograph some of my favourite bits of Abingdon and share them here.

World Book Day

World Book Day seems to be a good excuse to blog about book and reading.

I was a slow starter at reading, much of my time at Infants School was spent struggling through the first two colours of the reading scheme.  I had trouble moving on - I recognised the letters and could read the words but it was all painfully slow.  By the time I got to Junior School I was way behind my peers and where I should have been.  For a while I even had remedial reading lessons but there was no discernible improvement.  One teacher even suggested to my parents that I was 'slow' - this incensed my father who insisted on seeing another teacher to get to the root of the problem!  Luckily they managed to scrape him off the ceiling and all was well.

Then a light seemed to go off in my head and I began to read all the time.  It's hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened but I know why.  I was read a fantastic book at school.  Our classroom teacher, Mr Ellis, read The Hobbit to us as a  class and I was hooked.  I loved the story and wanted the reading to go on and on; there was never long enough and that awful moment when he closed the book came far too soon.

The first book I remember reading independently was The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and it fired my love of losing myself in a book which is still with me to this day.  There is nothing better than disappearing into another world for a few hours - or even days.  I tend to read fiction rather than non-fiction - I think I lack the patience to stick with them, it's easier to vanish into a fictional world than read about real things.

Some books stay with you for life.  We all have our favourites and I could read some books over and over, and I have!  This always baffles my husband who isn't a great fiction reader.  If I've read it once and know what's in it and what happens, how can I read it again and lose myself in the story again?   I don't know why or how but I can and do!  Among my favourites are Wuthering Heights which I must have read 6 times at least; The Night Circus, just the most fascinating fantasy novel which I fully intend to read again soon; To Kill A Mockingbird, powerful, thought provoking and touching; 1984, a terrifying vision of hiow the world might have been; Being Dead, moving, shocking and heart warming with an usual narrative.  I'm currently enjoying Wolf Hall which is taking me back to the court of Henry VIII and dragging me into the world of Thomas Cromwell - such a treat to read about a period in history I'm familiar with in a fresh way and from a different perspective.  It's also well written which makes it a joy to read.

Here's hoping that we all enjoy a good read on World Book Day.