Pictures from the Abingdon Arts Festival Photography Competition are on display on the High Street for the next two weeks.

The pictures are a welcome relief from an empty shop window.

The winning entry is quite stunning. Its of a square in Prague.

We visited Praque when Czechoslovakia existed as a communist country – in 1973. At the border control they found some books in our luggage they didn’t like. The border police interrogated my dad about the books for some hours. Then they let us in, having stapled a note about the books on our visa to ensure we brought them out again.

The main square in Prague had flags and posters celebrating the day the Russian Tanks had arrived five years before to freeze out the Prague Spring. Life went on. A painter painted.

Its been a busy week leading up to Mothers Day. Fabulous Flowers opened their first shop in Abingdon in 2004.

They now also have an Oxford shop – near to Gees Restaurant on the Banbury Road. A picture very like this can be seen on their website.

Fabulous Flowers have also set up an Online Shop – so I suppose that is three shops in all, but with only two rents. In retail parlance that is three for two.

Throughout the day a collection of Abingdon Artists have been working away in the Guildhall, each painting one square from Holbein’s picture ‘The Ambassadors‘

Jennifer Gerrard, who did much of the organisation, chose ‘The Ambassadors’ picture – at least partly – because every square had enough detail to make it interesting to paint.

From 4 PM, the bigger picture was assembled.

This is the children’s version.

And this is the adult’s version with the collection of artists beneath.

Both pictures can be seen over the next two weeks, for the duration of the Abingdon Arts Festival, in the Guildhall.

Last night must have been windy but I didn’t hear anything. So when I went for a walk down near Abingdon Lock it was a suprise to see a tree down.

It had smashed the end of the handrail of the bridge, and knocked over a litter bin, and bent a direction post. If it had fallen directly on the bridge it could have caused a lot more damage.