It is the only Laundrette in Abingdon and to be found at 7 Oxford Road.

Not much more I can say, except read a few notices round the walls inbetween watching the washing:

There is an attendant on duty every day from 9 to 5 if you should need help with your washing. (too late for that)

1) Parent are reminded to not let there children play in or on the machinery. (Children and Firemen !!! – That attempted joke will be lost on anybody outside the U.K or after about Jan 2007 anywhere)

2) Please do not put any washing in the machine after 6 p.m (Cutting it a bit fine)

3) The laundrette is run on a first come first served basis (Only one person here so that’s cool).

5) Customers washing have prior claim on driers (Great stuff. I’m in for a drier against all comers)

Driers are £1. Change is available from the attendant. (They are calling £1 change nowadays. What year is this?)

The driers are Huebsch Originators. (Pronounced Huwerbosch? Huwererbosh? Huberererboshawash?)

Thesiger Road was built on the old site of Abingdon Workhouse in the 1930s, and so has very well tilled gardens.

This house is one of the few houses that has managed to keep the original curved art deco windows. Almost every other house has replaced them with a flat angled window which are much cheaper to maintain. Another good feature of some of these houses is the palatial hallway.

Thesiger Road can be found off Abbott Road, which is near the bottom of Oxford Road. It is named after Sir Frederick Thesiger, the M.P for Abingdon from 1844 to 1852.

You could almost say that everybody who is anybody in Abingdon lives down this road. The musician behind Slam Productions is behind one front door. The minister of Abingdon Baptist Church behind another, the chairperson of Abingdon in Bloom behind another, etc. etc. Need I say more….

The recycling lorry goes down East St Helen Street at about 7:00. The sound of braking glass is normally enough to wake and alert anybody who has forgotten to put out the green box the previous night.

It then goes along St Helens Court, and up West St Helen Street, holding up the traffic for a couple of minutes before disappearing for another week along the High Street.

The collection rota was shown in a previous post . Another post talked about the recycling centre and what can be recycled there. But for posterity – because I know this is not likely to come up at the pub quiz tonight – here is a list of what you can currently put into your Vale District Council green recycling box:

• Newspapers, Flyers
• Aerosol Cans
• Magazines & Brochures
• Food Cans (clean)
• Catalogues (not hardback)
• Drinks Cans (clean)
• Junk Mail, Paper Envelopes
• Aluminium Foil (clean)
• Telephone Directories(no Yellow Pages)
• Batteries (place in small clear bag)
• Glass Bottles and Jars (any colour, clean)
• Car Batteries (place beside box)
• Plastic Bottles (clean) if it had a cap we want it – no other plastics i.e. yogurt pots, margarine tubs.
• Shoes & Textiles (in separate bag)
• Clothing (in separate bag)
• Mobile Phones

There is also a brown wheelie bin for compostable green waste and cardboard.

After the recycling lorry has gone there are sometimes items that got left behind in the green box:

• some cardboard (wrong box)
• the shoe cleaning cloth (fallen in by mistake)
• a few screws (there by mistake)
• the Next Catalog (rejected because of hard cover)

Next year (2007) the Market Place is to be redesigned. So here are a few pictures to show the way it looked back in 2006.

The notice board and Abingdon map are likely to move from the present position at the junction.

This service road, by the Nat West bank, will move over a foot or two to allow the pavement to be widened. The current woodern bollards, looking towards Costa Coffee, will be replaced.

This step will be no more, as there will an incline from the road, plus bollards. The fence behind may also be removed and replaced with a raised flower bed and seat.

The cross pathway will be relayed in York Stone and the path leading across from the precinct will end up nearer the County Hall. Ultimately this will be an Abits crossing point.

The four quadrants will be relaid with the same black granite blocks – which everybody seems to like – but reset with stronger resin / cement because currently they keep need resetting and patching.

The current seats and trees will be replaced with new seats and trees. The trees will may be either London Plane or Liquidambar.

And the pavement will be laid in York stone and widened around the edges near La Baguette and Stroll-In, and round by the Robert Gatwards the jewellers…