Planning is progressing for the 2018 Abingdon Head of the River rowing event.

About 360 rowing crews will be attending, bringing over 2,000 people to Abingdon. Anybody local can go along to watch the rowing. The club are looking for people wanting to promote their business, and support this community event.

The majority of club members and other volunteers give many days of their time before, during and after the event helping to set-up, supervise, and put away.

It was a sunny day last year. Let us hope for another sunny day this year on Sunday 8th April 2018. Thanks to them for the email about the event. More on the rowing club website.

The heart as a symbol of love is not restricted to Valentine’s Day as can be seen from this stone at Abingdon Stone & Marble Ltd.

There are a lot of hearts to be seen in the weeks before Valentine’s Day – February 14th. Some are fabulously inventive… Fabulous Flowers have heart shaped boughs round the door, and pelicans forming a heart in the window.

The Finishing Touch have two swans in the centre of many different sized red hearts.

There are messages on paper hearts in the window of the British Heart Foundation charity shop for Valentines Day.

Sue Ryder usually have a seasonal display, and now that Valentine’s Day is over, and the happy couple are off on their honeymoon, Chinese New Year will take its place in the window.

“Shrove” is the past tense of “shrive” which the Collins Dictionary defines as “to confess one’s sins to a priest in order to obtain sacramental forgiveness”. When I searched for references to Shrove Tuesday in, and near, Abingdon I found no references to confession but did find the following…

1. Pancakes

Snick, snack, the pan’s hot,
We’re come a shroving
Strike while the iron’s hot –
Something’s better than nothing.
Flour’s cheap and lard’s dear
And that’s why we come a shroving here …
(Rhyme from Drayton near Abingdon quoted in May Day to Mummers)

2. Throwing Sticks at Cockerels

In Abingdon Museum there is the notice about Shrove Tuesday cockerel throwing – an old tradition abolished in 1805.

Samuel Pepys describes both these traditions in one short paragraph on Shrove Tuesday 1661. “Back to Mrs. Turner’s, where several friends … dined. Very merry and the best fritters that ever I eat in my life. After that looked out at window; saw the flinging at cocks.”

Pepy’s continues “I found my Valentine with my wife … Then I sat and talked with my Valentine and my wife a good while, and then saw her home.”

It is Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and Ash Wednesday.