Reading Rocks!

muse.jpgJust had a top weekend at the Reading Festival! Hundreds of bands come to one of the biggest indie/alternative festivals in the world to ply their wares, and I found myself not disappointed with what was on offer.
I’ve been to the festival for most of the last 15 years or so, and this year was definitely one of the more memorable ones. Top performances for me this year were:
Muse
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Pearl Jam
TV on the Radio
Broken Social Scene

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Visitation

shawnavatar.jpgJust had the delightful Mr Shawn Cardwell, inventor of schmicroprizes and lead designer of the lego scale model of PNCA, visiting me in Reading.
After Shawn’s maths and the arts conference at University College London, it was great just to spend time catching up with each other. Shawn is from Portland, Oregon, and we first met through friends at the Downtown House of Prayer a couple of years ago. Anyway, enough background!

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Reflection

For some time now, Shirley and I had set aside last weekend as a time to be quiet before God. Somehow life seems to crowd out such times to the point where I need to book them way in advance to make sure they happen. But when they do happen, they’re so good.
We took it easy in the morning , and then headed up to Douai Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery just to the south west of Reading. After a nice little picnic, we spent 3 hours or so just praying, listening and reading in the beautiful abbey church.

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Walkies

Went for a lovely walk in the countryside just north of Reading the other day, to the top of Streatley Hill. What the map doesn’t show you is quite how glorious the view over the Thames Valley is from the top – its got to be one of the high points in the area. I was walking with Shirley and her mum, who had stopped off for a few days on the way back to South Africa from the States.
The wildlife was behaving nicely, and I got a couple of great shots of butterflys and ladybirds. Oh, and you can see the latest addition to Shirley’s household if you click on the link too; Gemma the kitten. Very cute. Very sharp claws!