I’ve just moved work and now sit next to some people who talk in phrases like “Joined up” and “Blue Sky” thinking.

To my mind this blue door looks all the more striking because of the red leaves above it. This door is at the intersection of Bath Street and Broad Street.

There is a letting agency in Abingdon called Blue Door letting, run by Greg. His office backs onto the Old Gaol on Bridge Street, and you can see his style of “Blue sky” thinking with property descriptions like “This is the sort of apartment 007 would live in!”

Greg also sits in the same building as the Music Centre, and the separate Language Centre. According to Greg, it looks like the lady running the Language Centre hasn’t returned from her holiday. And so it looks like “Au Revoir” “Auf Wiedrsehen” and “Goodbye” to the Language Centre.

A few weeks ago John Reid , the Home Secretary, was running out of prison places. Among the many suggestions I have heard for the Old Gaol is to return it to its original function. Perhaps a bit too “Blue Sky” and not “Joined up”.

I also heard, and this is only tittle-tattle and heresay, so don’t quote me, that an executive member at the County Council said a bomb should be put under Abingdon’s Old Gaol. Very “Blue Sky” I must admit.

I wonder in what “Blue-Sky” ways Greg could describe the Old Gaol as a property.

(As the final picture shows, some of the Christmas lights are now up and we do have a blue sky over the Old Gaol this morning.)

We are expecting news of the Old Gaol fairly soon.

Last time I told you what a nice time we mice have at Abingdon Library. I spoke too soon. Everything has been thrown topsy turvey. I heard one librarian saying that all the non fiction has gone upstairs, and fiction downstairs. Pugsy is on the library desk today selling books to raise money for ‘BBC Children in Need.’ That is Human Children not Mice Children.

Upstairs the shelves have got much longer, and there are far more books. And the sitting area with all those nice easy to tear newspapers and magazines has been moved downstairs – in full view of the main desk. We’ll have to keep on our toes for a bit.

St Edmund Rich, Abingdon’s greatest son, was born sometime around 1175. Edmund was educated at Oxford and Paris, but his greatest influence was his mother Mabel, a devout lady who attended St Nicholas Church, where she is buried.

Edmund became the first lecturer in Divinity at Oxford and an inspiring preacher. In 1222 he became Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral and in 1233 he was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a gifted administrator. His diplomatic skills helped avert war between the King and the Barons.

Edmund died on November 16th 1240 in Soisy-Bouy in France.

A chapel in his honour, thought to be near St Edmunds Lane, was built in Abingdon but all trace of it has long since disappeared. The Catholic Church in Abingdon is named after him (church banner picture 1). In the 1970s, the Friends of Abingdon erected a tablet in his honour in the front wall of St Nicholas Church (picture 2). All we need now is a statue.

This evening at St Nicholas Church the monks of Douai Abbey sang Latin Vespers in honour of St Edmund. It was part of the Abingdon School 750th Anniversary celebrations. There was only standing room at the back.

Douai Abbey sounds sort of French, but they actually have a monastery in nearby Berkshire (between Reading an Newbury). They are Benedictine, as was Abingdon Abbey, and as was the original Abingdon School (picture of monks borrowed with thanks from their website. I couldn’t get near.).

My first job after school was working in one of the large mental hospitals that housed upwards of a thousand residents.

Cecil Parkinson, Margaret Thatchers close ally, wrote a report that led to their closure, and to care in the community (or lack of care in the community).

I believe that this wall along Box Hill Recreation Ground is all that remains of the Old Abingdon Workhouse. Many large workhouses were turned into asylums and then mental hospitals, but not Abingdon.

Abingdon has always had lots of Care in the Community.