There will be a series of lunchtime history talks in St Nicolas Church at 12.30 p.m. starting next Wednesday (“you are welcome to bring your own lunch“). This year the running order has:

• 20th June ‘The Restoration of St Nicholas’ Church In 1880/81-changes and riddles’ Mr Dick Barnes
• 27th June ‘The History of Harwell, 1905-1955’ Mr Nick Hance MBE
• 4th July ‘St Nicolas Church during the Civil War’ Revd Peter Doll
• 11th July ‘Reform and Improvement in 19th Century Abingdon’ Mr Trevor Davies

Next year, I would like to hear a talk on the ‘The History of the Takeaway in Abingdon’

Outside John Mason school nothing much to be seen at this mid morning hour: one 4X4, but no humped zebra, and no herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the Wootton Road…

The white building with the ring of pillars that fronted Penlon Place has gone. All that remains are the roses and a circle of earth.

However the marketing suite for the Riverside Collection is still there – for the time being.

Ox-eye daises stretch from Rye Farm all the way to where Swift Ditch leaves the Thames.

Also in abundance alongside the farm road are mallows, and poppies.

A mound of mallow and cow parsley hides Kingfisher Barn.

But there is no escaping the daisies.