Flood Meeting

The first picture shows Turbeville Close in South Abingdon in July 2007, and was taken by me.

The other pictures are thanks to a young lady who lives in Turbeville. She, her brother, and mum and dad were flooded out for over a year.

This week a meeting is to be held to set up a flood group or groups along the River Ock - depending on response. 900 odd fliers have gone out. The meeting will be...

Date: 22 January 2009
Time: 19:00 - 20:30
Location: 35, Ock Street Community Centre (in front of the Baptist Church).

This meeting is to enable residents to come together to look at ways to respond to the threat of flooding including amelioration measures, arranging community warnings and actions, and emergency planning. And as a group they will be able to get funding and help from councils and other authorities.

There will also be advice on protecting property.

(There is already a longstanding campaigning group called SAFAG - South Abingdon Floodplain Action Group, but as I understand it they are more a pressure group, wheras the new groups will be more about getting people working together at a local level. Another flood group on the River Stert has also been set up.)


Finally the River Ock wending its way to Abingdon tonight, just after the mill, and just before sunset, and secure in its banks.

In the space of a few hundred yards

Near one end of the Ock Valley Walk a primitive construction has been put together by some school boys.

While at the Drayton Road end these three story dwellings, on the site of the Crossroads Garage, have just had the rafters added.

A misty day

Looking upstream from Wilsham Road, Saint Helen's church steeple has all but disappeared above the wharf.

Along this line of Horse Chestnut trees, near Caldecott Rec, is where the old canal once ran.

More Of Abingd0n Past & Present

This new book has recently appeared in shop windows. Its a sequel to Abingd0n Past and Present, contrasting more past and present scenes.

The second picture shows more copies of the book in the Bookstore window.

A new Abingdon shop blog has just appeared called 'Retro Sweets in Abingdon.' The shop 'Sweets Chocolate' bring tastes from the past into the present. They have just introduced a sweet from 1898 - uncle joes mint balls

And shown here from their main website is a selection called 'School Days'.

Opens 22nd January 2009

Just 9 days to go,

and somebody has already begun stacking the shelves.

The old music shop

The Scaffolding was put up at the old music shop last Wednesday.

Up the front and over the top...

but down round the back it has already been taken down. That work has been done. The building is being refitted with flats above, and a shop just on the bottom story.

It used to be a two-story music shop with: CDs, sheet music, and instruments, and above it all: children's music lessons in the rooms above the shop, accessed by the old fire escape.

Now, Abingdon is a musical place with musicians and bands but no music shop.

A Change in the Weather?

This is how it was left last night. Still cold. Everything was outlined in white as night fell. The ground was hard.

This morning we woke to a red sky, and a thin layer of snow on the pavements of Saint Helen's Wharf

, but despite the early snow it felt as if the cold had let go its grip.