Just catching up on these three young trees last seen in February.

The first two are just coming into leaf,

but no leaves yet on the third.

The Abingdon Herald has a front page article “TESCO looks poised to win its battle to expand its Abingdon store by more than a quarter.” This will be at the expense of the Garden Centre.

It used to be a good garden centre with a good variety of herbs, heathers, and alpines. However of recent years it has looked less cared for.

The garden centre shop used to be turned over to a toy shop during the pre christmas period, but that function has been taken over by the main store.

Over the road, on the Fairacres estate, Homebase have a garden centre. The Homebase Stores group have recently been brought by the group that owns Argos, and the store has had complete refit.

B & Q also have a garden centre. They and Homebase are open until 8 PM, whereas Tesco which has the main store open for 24 hours, has a garden centre that closes at 5.

One could easily pass by without noticing this small Vietnamese cafe on Stert Steet. Anybody who has not been to Abingdon for a couple of years might remember this as the home of Poppies tearooms – once loved by my mother in law as a traditional tea and scones cafe.

The decor of the Ha Noi is simple with 7 round cafe tables, and the food and service simple and good. We went there for a meal, and took our own bottle of wine to accompany the noodle dishes – which is allowed, and makes the meal very reasonably priced.

The new team rector of Abingdon, the Rev. Dr Charles Miller, was Inducted at a service at 7:40. It should have been 7:30 but the AbITs program was doing some major works today (the Ock Street / Stratton Way junction was down to one lane), and the queues were so bad around town that the service was delayed.

At one stage in the service called “The Induction” a chap introduced by the Bishop as the Arch Deacon gave the temporal keys of the church to the new Rector and said “I induct you into the real, actual and corporeal possession of the parish churches or St Helen, St Nicholas… Christ Church with Long Furlong and St Michael and All Angels, with all the rights and responsibilities belonging to them.”

The new Rector might be worried about the state of the St Helen church building he has inherited with all that scaffolding round it. But it is only for the new bells and clock.

Anyway, a lot of the service was ceremonial, and the service booklet was a huge 20 pages long. But the Bishop did explain at one stage to the uninitiated that the bishop’s hat he wore and all the ceremony did not really matter. What matters is faith lived out in love by all believers.

Revd Dr Charles Miller is an American, and the second American to hold the office.