At the town council offices, the disability anti-discrimination act has given a good few jobs to ramp makers.

The Abbey Gateway looks complete, apart from perhaps a little remedial work where some flag-stones have got chipped. In any case more bollards have been added to stop the heavy vehicles.

The Abbey Grounds have been re-opened for over a week now. There may have been a ceremony, or that could still be to come.

Some areas have been recently reseeded with grass, and so for the present there are notices asking people to keep to the paths. But the paths are far more extensive than before, and you can do a circuit on the way to see Queen Victoria.

Trendell’s Folley has also been opened up with new paths. All of these grounds were originally laid out by Mr Trendell who lived at Old Abbey House.

And stones like this now mark the likely shape of the great church of St Mary, which graced the centre of Abingdon Abbey.

These two New Season models look out from New Look at the start of the works on the Market Place.

The work is due to take 18 weeks. Firstly, the granite sets are being pulled up. They will be re-used, together with some already stored away when the sets were removed from Abbey Close.

The trees will all be replaced by liquid amber trees. The near one is already leaning quite severely.

The Market Place work will all cost around £280,000, half from the Town Council and half from the Vale of the White Horse. The Town has been putting aside money for some time. Another bit of money will come from the County Council to re-lay and surface the side road (next to the NatWest). It is cobbled like the Market Place. (And Abits will also be reducing the lanes and widening the pavements on the main thoroughfare during the year.)

The Market is to be held at the Civic CarPark during the works, and the stall holders will get a discount.

From some way away a buzz-saw could be heard.

The 2000-odd trees round the lake had been numbered. This is number 510.

Trees have been felled, left to be collected later.

The bailiffs have set up camp, where the protestors were, at the cottage called “Sandles”. They were having a good laugh when I went past. There had been a silent walk-past protest earlier in the day. The Bailiffs could now relax.

My sister was one of the young women protesting at Greenham Common, and she was regulary shown the way out by the bailiffs. Many years later we discovered, through friends re-united, that one of the Greenham Common bailiffs had sat next to my wife, as a 9 year old, at St Werburgh’s Catholic Primary School, Birkenhead.