Get On Yer Bike!

I have always enjoyed cycling ever since learning to ride a bike at an early age. I had a real cycling resurgence a few years ago, but have let it slip in recent times. Today, Easter Monday, the weather was absolutely glorious so I got my bike out of the shed, went and got a new inner tube for the back wheel and away I went. The first picture is taken looking back towards Reading which was the the direction I had cycled from.

I am lucky enough to live a five minute cycle ride from The Thames and the two mile section between Reading and Sonning is just stunning especially when the sun shines. I went to school along this section and have walked along this section many times especially when going for a drink at The Bull in Sonning. The next photo is looking towards Sonning Lock in the distance. This is also the stretch of river when I did my short lived rowing career from the Reading Blue Coat School Boathouse. How I wish I had given that a better go...

I spent many school lunchtimes at Sonning Lock, one or two drunken evenings there in my younger days, and these days just enjoy the picturesque scene which is so English. I once hired a boat with school friends after our exams and we had great fun going through the locks between Reading and Henley, but especially Sonning Lock as pictured.

Just before I left the river to head back towards home I came within view of Sonning Bridge. I bridge I go across most days during the working week. It's a gorgeous bridge dating back to 1775 linking Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

It's a bridge that I would have loved to have seen over a hundred years ago as in the picture below dated at 1885. The view is from the other side of the bridge to where I took my photo from on the Oxfordshire bank looking across to Sonning on the Berkshire side.

So not only did today give me ample opportunity to get snapping with my camera it also reminded me just how much I enjoy cycling around the English countryside, and how you get to see so much in such a short space of time. I think when I drive around I don't always manage to take in all the wonderful scenery, where as on my bike it is so much easier to appreciate it, and to take it all in.