A weekend in the country

On the first of our out-of-London excursions we spent a weekend in Berkshire with our friends Barbara and Michael. We took the train from Paddington along the Great Western Railway (another legendary name) to Taplow.

At Eton we parked in the High Street and walked across the Thames to Windsor. We gawked at the Castle (no, she wasn’t in) and took a long walk along the Long Walk. Good name for it.


Back over in Eton students hurried along in their morning coats or cricket whites. A shop sold classy merchandise for the school; when I bought a fridge magnet the woman served me with a sniff, which I thought was hilarious given that she was the one who sells fridge magnets for a living.

We had the mother of all afternoon teas at Oakley Court, a Victorian mansion in mock Gothic style, used as a film location in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Murder by Death and lots of Hammer Horror movies. It’s just up the road from Bray Studios, where Gerry Anderson made The Thunderbirds.


Barbara picked up Tess the terrier from home at Maidenhead, and we went to Cookham. After visiting the churchyard of Holy Trinity church (where Barbara’s parents are buried, as well as the artist Stanley Spencer) we walked along the towpath beside the Thames and through a water meadow. All I could hear in my head was Paul Weller’s beautiful words for Tales from the Riverbank, which suited the place perfectly.



It was the classic ‘green and pleasant land’ on which I was brought up. A winding road took us up Winterhill from where you can look down on Marlowe across the Thames Valley.


At Maidenhead the Thames is spanned by I.K. Brunel’s Sounding Arch. A part of the Great Western Railway, the bridge was painted by Turner in Rain, Steam and Speed which we saw at the National Gallery last week. It’s the ‘Sounding Arch’ because of its powers of echo. When Michael took us there on Sunday morning a goose was entertaining or confusing itself by honking at the echo of his own voice. Our laughter echoed, so did whoops, claps, and other weird noises, coming back multiplied as the echoes echoed. Good fun.


On Saturday night Barb and Michael took us to a little pub called ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, where we had a great time. I wish we’d had more time to spend with them. Next time!