The Mayor Patrick Lonergan was there to cut the cake at the Mostly Books party to celebrate the ‘Best New Bookshop’ award. There was not just cake, but also champagne. The toast was ‘To The Queen, the town of Abingdon, and Mostly Books.‘

The Performing Arts Department from Abingdon & Witney College performed songs and dance on the Market. Good weather again.

Thames Water are beginning again with the public consultation on the need for a huge new reservoir near Abingdon. We have been through this all before – a couple of years ago. This time there is a slightly different emphasize but the same reservoir.

Leach’s the Printers have been in their Ock Street premises for 71 years, but at the start of June will move to the Nuffield Centrum.

Leach’s will be near neighbours of The Abbey Press. The Abbey Press recently consolidated their operations at the Nuffield Centrum, and their old printing works at Thames View have closed.

Dotted throughout the town are areas of green land, not large enough to be parks, that appear to be common land…

until, that is, a fence is put up. This fence is a ‘contentious issue’ on the Ladygrove Estate.

A comment in the Abingdon Herald recently said:

“I visited Abingdon a couple of weeks ago, for the first time and had thoughts of a nice affluent rural English village, wow what a change when visiting the place for real. I found Abingdon to be derelict, depressing and covered in CCTV. What has this country come to when small towns are in this sort of mess?”

Not sure if the comment is for real. But I do know that when I’ve put upbeat comments about Abingdon in the Herald web comments I’ve had people say “Are you for real?”

Here a coot is bringing up her chick on the River Thames near Abingdon town centre: complete with upended drink bottle, apple core, litter including bread wrapper, and lots of uneaten bread. Two sides to every story.