The £450,000 scheme to refurbish High Street and Ock Street has begun.

So we will probably have a couple of months of this.

I did think the flower beds at the end of Bath Street were also getting refurbished since the Town Council notice board has been chopped down. But have learned that that area is to be used for portacabins, and cutting down the noticeboard was just one of those mistakes that happen. Something similar happened in Grove where the village Christmas Tree got axed despite being inside a fence. Grove are going to get a better tree out of it. Maybe we will get a better notice board and garden area afterwards.

There are a large number of white powder markings around Abingdon. I did hear one person saying it might be rat poison. Another – probably jesting – tasted a bit off their finger and said it was Cocaine. Another said it was flour or chalk laid as part of a run, but Not The Abingdon Marathon.

Does anybody out there have any better ideas?

Poppies were delivered to the shops last Saturday.

Last year Abingdon raised an outstanding amount of £20,793.20 for the Poppy Appeal – a 63.32% increase on the year before giving us a trophy from the Berkshire Country Royal British Legion Manager.

(Abingdon Legion still comes under the Berkshire County Organisation in the British Legion World!! As it does in the Geneology and quite a few other Worlds).

Mary Cadogan, our co-ordinator would like to thank all the people of Abingdon for supporting the Poppy Appeal and without them we could not have raised such an amazing amount of money.

The Poppy Appeal is in many peoples thoughts with the present conflict in Afghanistan and we are raising money to help the solders and their families both young and old.

The poppies in Abingdon will be on sale for the next three weeks prior to Remembrance Sunday which is on 08 November 2009.

There will be also be street collectors in the town centre and outside Tescos, Waitrose and Fairacres Retail Park, and door to door sellers around Abingdon from 24 October 2009.

If anyone would be interested in becoming a poppy person this year helping sell poppies they can contact Mary Cadogan at the Royal British Legion, Spring Road, Abingdon tel: 07867 658159.

… Near the half-way point runners returned to Abingdon along Preston Road . Number 1075 had a good lead by this point.

Harry has a picture of the leading lady at this point on his blog, and since I have already shown her near the Wharf and the Oxford Mail has a big feature on her, here is one of the second place lady as well, Number 1127.

The race was well marshalled with lots of volunteers. Well organised by Abingdon Amblers…
They were even trialing the latest electronic gadgetry. Each runner had a chip so their exact time was transmitted to a results boards as they crossed the line. The results are available at ChipTiming.co.uk which has the winner, Number 1027, as 2:28:37. So I nearly got it right on this picture…

There were a lot of runners still to come in. This is the 25 mile point on the Wootton Road.

And here is a runner going down the underpass, next to the Abingdon Marathon Mural. (By the way that little old lady came 668th with a time of 04:47:35 – far from last.)