Category Archives: trees

Overnight Snow melting fast

Snow
The overnight snow was already turning to slush when we went out at 9 am Sunday morning. Work continues in St Helen’s Churchyard. They dug so deep putting in ducts and pipes last week (under the path) that Oxford Archaelogywere on hand to check for remnants of antiquity.
Snow
A dozen or more trees near the Ock Valley have been chopped over the last week or two, some near the end of Hermitage Road, and others down the town end.
Snow
Evidence of dog walkers was to be seen everywhere in the snow. These paw prints and footprints were seen at the end of Healey Close where the estate meets the open space beside the River Ock.
Snow
This may, or may not, be the only snowfall this winter so some children were out making the most of it. There was just about enough snow left on the Caldecott Recreation Ground to make a smallish snowman.

Other places round about like Lodge Hill, Oxford, and Cumnor seem to have lots more snow than us in Abingdon.

Inconvenient Trees

Inconvenient Trees
Two more of the trees at the top of the Old Cemetery in Abingdon have been felled. The trunk shows no obvious sign of disease so it could be that they have become inconvenient.  They cast a shadow and dropped debry on nearby houses.

Inconvenient Trees
There was a fine colonnade of six of these trees at the top end of the Old Cemetery.

Now only two remain. What meets the eye now is a white wall one side, and new houses the other.

Autumn Leaves

The clocks go back tonight and we have a very welcome extra hour in bed. It also means no daylight after work and so getting pictures for the blog gets a little bit harder.
Autumn Leaves
These liquid amber trees were not here in the spring.  They add autumn colour to The Square and war memorial.
Autumn Leaves
Only half the autumn glory on this particular building remains this year. A ‘To Let’ sign was put up earlier in the year – cutting half the vine off from its roots.
Autumn Leaves
This youth shelter at Box Hill was not there in the spring. It replaces another shelter that had seen better days.
Autumn Leaves
In the Albert Park the extensive Leylandi have been replaced by more sensitive deciduous trees. This is the second or third autumn for this very well designed project.

Apple Day – at South Abingdon Children’s Centre

Apple Day
Nicola Blackwood, MP for Abingdon, and Mike Badcock, Mayor of Abingdon, were there at the Apple Day run by Abingdon Carbon Cutters, and the South Abingdon Children’s Centre.
Apple Day
Nicola planted a representative tree as a symbolic start for a future orchard and forest at Caldecott School.
Apple Day
There were a number of stalls at the event… Ruth Ward was there with her book ‘A Harvest of Apples’ and a display of lots of different sorts of apples. As well as apple folklore, and history, her book contains lots of apple recipes.
Apple Day
There was Grow Your Own Allotment advice, from a lady who runs some training allotments on Peachcroft farm. Email on the board in the picture (gyoveg at hotmail.com). And there was a representative from Drayton Road Allotments.
Apple Day
There was Abingdon honey for sale from Virginia Arnott, beekeeper of Abingdon (v.arnott at ntlworld.com.) You can also get Abingdon honey from Radley Road bees – on sale at Added Ingredients, for they were there too.
Apple Day
But the main business of the day was apples…
Apple Day
juicing them
Apple Day
and drinking the juice. TV cameras, for BBC Local News, were there too and here is the link to the video story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-15327064 saying how the people of Abingdon wanted to reintroduce more Heritage apples with a community orchard .