Five on Friday

Hello everyone.  After a break of a few weeks from blogging I'm joining Amy of Love Made My Home blog for the Five on Friday linkup. Thank you Amy for organising the linkup. As we've just returned from a time in Reading in Berkshire I'm sharing some iconic images from a mural that we saw on a walk that we took with our daughter and a grandson along by the River Thames at Caversham Lock and Weir together with a few photos I've taken in the past when walking around my home town. 

1. the weir - it's possible to walk across from Caversham Lock onto three small islands in the river

The mural shows:-

2. Sports

carrying the Olympic torch with the flame as part of the relay

around the UK before the Summer Olympics 2012

The Reading Football Club (The Royals) home colours

3. Iconic buildings in the town and on the local skyline

Reading Town Hall, an office block which stands 128m tall called The Blade,

and the huge Green Park wind turbine near the Madejski Football Stadium

Reading Town Hall

We had our wedding reception here and at one time I was a secretary in

the offices in the building on the extreme right before I trained to be a teacher.

The buildings here and opposite were badly damaged in a bombing raid during WWII

 with loss of life. Later some buildings were rebuilt and new ones created in a redevelopment

 project - more about this another time as I have memories of stories

 I listened to as a small child (a few years after the war) which touched my own family.

The Blade offices

5. Wild life along the river

5.  Finally a view across the river to the island by Caversham Lock which was the starting point for the walk in Christchurch Meadows, across the river to Reading Bridge and Caversham Lock, which I'll share another time.

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Signs of new life

We've just returned from a time in Berkshire where we st

The above photos are flowers in our own garden.  The snowdrops have been flowering for some weeks now.

Today I want to share the detour up a country lane to see the snowdrops and aconites in the churchyard of St. Botolph's Church in the village of Swyncombe in Oxfordshire.  I've shared photos on this blog of a previous visit to the church and other photos sent to me when our daughter visited there for 'Snowdrop Sunday' on the second Sunday of February when there are refreshments and a talk and blessing in the churchyard by a priest  - click on the side bar label for Oxfordshire and scroll down to the appropriate blog if you wish to see them.  It was good to be in the area at this time of the year to see the flowers for ourselves as well as the snowdrops flowering on the grassy banks and in the beech woods as we drove through the winding country lanes of south Oxfordshire. Comparing our daughter's photos and mine I think that the flowers were even more prolific this year. The flowers were also more open as they responded to the milder weather and sunshine last Sunday morning.

the War Memorial and avenue of trees through the nearby hamlet of Cookley Green

Finally, back home shrubs in the local park are beginning to burst into new life.