Santa's on His Way

Gloomy sky when I took this on top of a local garage

That's it for this year, I'm taking a break till the new year till then

Have a great Christmas and New Year 

Santas on his Sleigh

Christmas Trees at Basildon Park

Went along to the National Trust Property at Basildon Park to see the decorations and as usual I took a few photos for you to see.

The day was quite cold & bleak but the decorations were welcoming 

the entrance decked in garlands

 The tree in the entrance hall

 The dining table set out for Christmas

 Music room  with deorated tree

 The music room tree

 Present sround the tree

 Looking down on the entrance hall tree

 The tree in the old kitchen looking very rustic.

Taking part in Our World Tuesday

Gun Street Mural

Spotted this on the end of a building on Gun Street Reading

Taking Part in Monday Mural

Three Days Last Week

Last week was not the best and started off miserable with fog about so I took some photos on three consecutive days out of the office window

Tuesday

Looking towards the trees nearby from the window, the sky is somewhere above the tree outline

A wider view of the area

Wednesday proved a little clearer with the sky showing and you could at least see the downs in the background  

Wider view shows the area more clearer

Thursday was rain

The sky looked miserable again

But lunchtime it cleared up again and looed a lot nicer. How was your week?

Giant Turkey

Behind the Fence

Following on from my previous posts I decided to go up and check out what was being done behind the big fence you see

Quite a long section had bee fenced off from  view

Behind it was obvious they were stripping back the top layer of soil looking for archaeology, the yellow markings showed areas of interest

This is what the rest of the field looks like

Lucky one of the archaeologists saw me hanging about and came over, his assistant had a bucket which he showed a few things they picked up, some of it Roman. There were roof tiles and parts of pots, the small round one is the base of a little beaker.

This one he held up was off a storage jar

The last time the dug ten months ago they found a Roman Building or Villa in that fenced off area and it was excavated, had I realised I'd have been round like a shot. The building extended off to the right under some 1960's housing and no doubt was badly damaged in the work being done. I came away feeling quite pleased we had such history in the Village. The fenced off area was covered to preserve what is left of the building and will become a childrens play area. Don't worry I'll be back for an update as they are going to do an open day to show people what they found.

Taking Part in Our World Tuesday

Black Mountain Sky

Last Saturday my wife & I wet down to the caravan site to close up the caravan and put it in storage for the winter. We came home the usual way through the Black Mountains. The week before I noticed snow on the tops and a week later it was still there waiting for more to come. The photos were taken out of the passenger window as we drove past  towards Sugarloaf Mountain  and the dark sky above.

Heading up the A40 road through the mountain

Heading down and looking back towards the snow capped tops there are times when low cloud hides them all.

Fluffy Chicken

Ten Months Ago

Last week I called my Blog Watch This Space the photos were taken from across the fields near the local Vets a place I have to go every few months with our dogs. Ten months ago I

was taking one of them up there when I noticed a load of trenches had been dug in the nearby field 

Last week I showed the fence on the other side of this field where they are going to build

The fenced off area is near the houses you see in the distance, what I did not realise at the time is there were trenches there as well or I would have gone to get photos of them and what was going on

As you can see this is a big field, the line of trees you see in the distance and houses on the right  are beside the Reading Road (A329) 

One of the trenches, where I Think there might have been a ditch in the middle

 This one has had a small section dug deeper uncovering something

This is looking towards the old Hospital at Fairmile 

And this was the culprit responsible for the trenches. They had been dug for an archaeological survey of the field for a prospective development of housing. If it goes ahead I would imagine the best part of 1000 houses being built here, I might add last week I said 20 houses were going in across the field I think it is nearer 60 that are supposed to be built. What will happen here on this field I could not tell you but if it happens then I will be on hand to get a few photos. Next week I will show you what is behind the fence across the field

Taking Part in Our World Tuesday

Reading Minster

This week I'm showing some of the increadible work in Reading Minster Church St Mary

Above you see the back of the altar in the Chancel

The noth aisle you can see a painted screen and beside that an Altar 

 The altar with the paiting above it 

The Painted screen with figures that have muical instruments 

The Painting above the Altar showing St Mary

Taking Part in Monday Mural