OUR GOOD, BAD AND UGLY OF ENGLAND - PART 1 — Wandering Wolfs Travel & Photography

Expectations and companionship, two factors that can play such a big role in your experience and opinion of a place…

We had 2 days in Dubai after an unforgetful trip to Europe before we left again for the UK. This time, however, was a tag-along for me, as T had to go for work. Our first stop would be Manchester, a weekend in Sonning, and ending in London.

Let me start by painting the expectation picture I had before boarding our plane. Due to our elaborate road trip the weeks before, and all the planning that went into that, I did not do the usual amount of homework. I’m still not sure if this was a good or bad thing. My sister Anika is married to a pilot, which meant that before they started a family she did some traveling with him. Out of all the places she went, she always told me that London was her favorite, and how much she loved everything about it. In the same breath, she mentioned that Manchester was not the best part of England.

Boarding our plane, I expected the following:

Manchester – Not so great
Sonning – Knowing nothing, expect nothing
London – Amazing

Misleading Manchester.

Our flight to Manchester was booked solid, with what felt like a 50-50 ratio of adults and kids. We have never seen so many kids on a flight. The apartment we stayed in (booked through Airbnb) was brand new and comfortable.

Weather, as expected in England, rainy. Everything was good, and we even went a day earlier so T can do some sightseeing with me.

That weekend Manchester had 2 major events. A Muse concert expecting around fifty thousand people, and Parklife concert expecting around ninety thousand people. These led us to see some of the most interesting people (who apparently don’t feel the cold) and their weird and wonderful outfits. We unfortunately only managed to steal a few of them while out.

The shops were interesting, with eccentric merchandise to match the eccentric people hanging around.

Cosy Club

The Sunday morning, we went looking for breakfast to start our day off. Since T and I are early risers, we weren’t spoiled for choice. We ended up at the Cosy Club. Initially, the quirky and spunky, off-beat design intrigued us. We soon found that they did not only have the interior going for them. The staff were friendly and helpful, the food was good, and they even had board games. I could have easily spent the day there, but things to do and places to go.

Since we live in Dubai, and rarely see rain, we do love it. In Europe, we never complained when it rained, and more so in Manchester. But oh my word, we haven’t seen that much rain in forever. It would rain for hours and days on end, and then the sun would come out, I’ll grab my camera equipment, and by the time I get outside, it started raining again.

The town itself was not at all as bad as I had expected. Sure the littering was bad (compared to Austria we just came from, and Dubai where they have cleaners everywhere).

The buildings were old and new all mixed up, and the people mostly friendly.

During our stay, we started noticing the bee. On the dustbins, lampposts, shop windows, and even artwork all had the bee incorporated. With some reading up, we discovered that the symbol was the “worker bee”, and adopted during the Industrial Revolution. Since the 2017 bombing, the bee also represented a unity against terrorism.

Sonning

The weekend between T’s Manchester work and his expo in London was ours to do with as we please. We have dear friends that we met back in South Africa who lives in Reading. It was then a no-brainer, we would go to Reading.

The train trip between Manchester and Reading was an absolute nightmare. This was our own fault due to a lack of research. We ended up on a train ride of more or less 3 hours, with half the time without a seat. I misplaced T’s train ticket and only found it again after we disembarked, and had to please explain to the ticket master about 4 or 5 times. And to top all of this off, we had 2 huge suitcases, my camera equipment case and T’s backpack. At this point T and I made a pact, to never have that amount of luggage again if we have to use public transport.

Since the Coopers (our friends) have a family of their own, we booked our own hotel, and would then just meet up with them over the weekend. When booking the hotel (The Great House), we didn’t realize it was actually just outside of reading in a village called Sonning.

This, however, was the best thing we did in our whole UK trip. Although we did not take nearly enough pics of the hotel, I did take some pics of Coppa Club restaurant which was on the premises. It’s a lovely little restaurant, and I can not recommend the coffee and pancake breakfast enough. It was so good that we went back two mornings back to back for EXACTLY the same breakfast.

We only managed to meet up with the Coopers on that Friday evening, since their little girl got sick the rest of the weekend. This left us with a chance to explore Sonning and or Reading.

Sonning is the picture-perfect example of the countryside. With rivers, meadows, woods, walkways, a lock, houseboats, and so much more we fell in love. This was the most beautiful little village. They even boast about the fact that George Clooney lives there as well as the previous Prime Minister Theresa May.

On our morning photo journey, we saw this giant rubber duck in the river behind a vessel, or boat, or something. It was only after further exploring that day, that we got behind the story of the duck… He was on his way to the water festival. We also ended up at the water festival and attended, but to this day we are still not sure what that water festival was about.