We are into another hot spell, and all the petunias planted by the Town Council staff in the beds and hanging baskets around the town centre are looking colourul.

I saw a flatbed truck full of plants going up West St Helen Street last week, and now that they have been planted they need regular watering to help them establish during the dry weather.

There is also the ongoing work of weeding and dead heading to keep the displays looking their best.

Petunias are a favourite choice for town centre and park displays because they flower continuously from early summer until the first frosts.

Mothering Sunday comes around each year three weeks before East Sunday, so the date moves about. It usually falls in March, though occasionally it can be in early April.

Walking around Abingdon today there were lots of people carrying flowers, particularly after church. Fabulous Flowers had their display outside, Waitrose had buckets full, and at Trinity Church baskets of flowers were prepared before the service. The younger members of the church helped put together the posies that would later be given out to mothers and carers.

In earlier centuries Mothering Sunday was about returning to your Mother Church – the church where you were baptised, or the main church in the area. Over time the Mothering Sunday has become Mothers Day and is more about thanking mothers, though the church traditions still continue.

After church this morning I met a young Mormon missionary for the second time. He said he liked the flowers I was carrying. When I explained it was Mothering Sunday, he said that in the United States Mother’s Day isn’t until May. It was promoted in the early 1900s by Anna Jarvis as a day to honour mothers and became an official US holiday in 1914, though she later complained that it had become far too commercial.

You can make a visit to some fine snowdrop displays in Oxfordshire during February. The nearest are probably Kingston Bagpuize House, where the gardens open on selected days, and Waterperry Gardens, with more than sixty different varieties spread through the gardens and along the riverside walk.

But you don’t have to go far to find masses of snowdrops. Walking across the Ock bridge on Drayton Road, it’s worth looking over the side. Below, along the riverbank, is a spread of snowdrops that don’t appear to have been planted or tended. They have grown where conditions suit them.