This baby was there for a baptism at Trinity today.

At other churches this may be called a christening or a deication, but at Trinity it is a baptism. The bapismal family is made to feel the centre of the whole service.

Lewis Gordon Pugh, 36, has been attempting to be the first person to swim the length of the Thames. The 203-mile journey began at the river’s source in Kemble, Gloucestershire and will finish at Southend-on-Sea, Essex. He swam through Abingdon today passing St Helens Wharf at 16:40.

On his blog he says ‘I feel today that a corner has been turned. After the difficulties of the weekend, I began to really recover on Sunday evening, and some strong swimming brought us from Sandford Lock to Abingdon after a 4k swim. We stopped to pick up supplies in Abingdon, I rested on the boat for two hours. Although we have put a stop to any media activity while I focus on my swimming, interest from passers by is very high and during the Abingdon stretch I spoke to quite a few people, met a walker who was walking the length of the Thames, as well as a swan-shaped pedalo that was trying to paddle from Lechlade to the sea, and stopped for several photographs with passers by.’

As I watched he changed his stroke from crawl to breast stroke passing where the Ock enters the Thames, then reverted to crawl at Margaret Brown’s gardens.

This is the Pirates of the Caribbean display at the Abingdon Woolworths Store.

Tesco are reportedly thriving, while other traders like Woolworths find conditions more difficult. People are likely to buy the things they could get from Woolworths at Tesco while doing the food shopping: childrens clothing, light bulbs, DVDs, computer games, the washing-up bowl and mop.

The aisles in Tesco are wide, and in Woolworths the aisles are too narrow to let child buggies pass . Still Woolworths must do a fairly good trade particularly coming up to Christmas. But they didn’t catch on to the recent world cup bonanza.

Yesterday, Woolworths closed their doors for ten days. Red crates were stacked up ready for the stock to be cleared away.

Here is the old sign with the missing letter H at the side of the shop – for old times sake. All the windows have been blanked out, and signs put up saying “Your fantastic new look WOOLWORTHS opens – Tuesday 1st August 10:00 AM”. Woolworths are revamping 100 of their 600 stores this year.

In the States I read on Wikipedia that in 1997, F. W. Woolworth Company converted itself into a sporting retailer, closing its remaining retail stores operating under the “Woolworth’s brand name and renaming itself Venator Group.” But the chain are still going in the UK, and looking at ways they can still compete in the 21st Century.

The umbrellas were up. This is looking down St Edmunds Lane, across the West St Helen Street Carpark, to the brewery development.

These cars are coming round Stert Street into High Street, and making a splash.