Strong winds on October 31st have blown down leaves. Today, November 1st, all was calm and sunny.
The water of the River Thames looks blue from this angle.
The works at St Helen’s Wharf have all been completed and the benches are back. The ‘Happy to Chat’ bench has moved down a tree. The ‘Happy to Chat’ bench is not just an Abingdon thing. Such benches are used in many places and are intended to combat loneliness and isolation.
Halloween is over for another year. Apart from the shop window displays, it passed us by as we don’t have young children.
In the town centre we are not visited by Trick and Treaters and no longer buy a supply of Haribo Tangfastics. I would end up eating them in any case when nobody came to the door and would regret it.
This year we haven’t even bothered with a pumpkin and candles.
Shop widows will change from Halloween to Christmas on November 1st. Some shops, like Finishing Touch, are already there.
There are a hundred poppies outside the Royal British Legion because it is the Centenary of Royal British Legion. (Clare, the poppy collection organiser for Abingdon, helped organise this.)
The War Memorial in Abingdon is also one hundred years old. The opening ceremony was in September 1921. The remembrance day service this year will be on November 14th.
On the Markey Place in Abingdon there was a poppy stall, and army cadets were selling poppies round town.
The poppy stall was one of about twenty stalls taking part in the Local Excellence Market on the Market Place.
In St Nicolas Church the Kennington Memory Club had a large charity sale.
Part of the Dalton Barracks site (in the red area) was chosen for development as part of the Vale of White Horse Local Plan (to 2031). The development will include 1,200 homes as well as a primary school and a local centre and will use Garden Village principles (good design and quality development).
The VWHDC (Vale of White Horse District) are creating a supplementary planning document (SPD) for the site. This with the local plan will be used when considering planning applications at the site.
They want people’s views. You can read the draft SPD for the site and then comment using a survey. It can all be found at https://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/vale-of-white-horse-district-council/planning-and-development/local-plan-and-planning-policies/supplementary-planning-documents/dalton-barracks-supplementary-planning-document/.
The consultation runs to Thursday 18 November.