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.
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.
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.
These liquid amber trees were not here in the spring. They add autumn colour to The Square and war memorial.
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.
This youth shelter at Box Hill was not there in the spring. It replaces another shelter that had seen better days.
In the Albert Park the extensive Leylandi have been replaced by more sensitive deciduous trees.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.
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.
Nicola planted a representative tree as a symbolic start for a future orchard and forest at Caldecott School.
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.
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.
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.
But the main business of the day was apples…
juicing them
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 .
The news said that yesterday was the hottest September 30th in 100 years, and went on to predict that today could be the hottest October Day on record. It began with sun light streaming through the trees of the Ock Valley Walk.