There is a trophy in the window of Patisserie Pascal to mark their winning of the best window on Extravaganza evening.
Mostly Books took second place this year.
If I had been at all involved in the judging I would have given a prize for the roaring fire in the window of the Nursery Shop. It uses a VDU screen with fire surround.
Best window could have gone to this residence in East St Helen Street.
One thing is clear, The Fitzharris Arms has been already sold to Tesco, who plan to turn it into a Supermarket. The Herald had the ‘Fury over Pub Sale to Tesco‘ story this morning.
The Fitz was built in 1952 along with the surrounding houses. So it serves a large area with no other nearby pubs. Local people – many of them elderly – depend on their local pub for their social lives. A social group of elderly residents meets every two weeks at the Fitz, and their Christmas Party was planned for the day the pub is to close.
Also worth noting is that Tesco own the One Stop supermarket just down the Wootton Road. So are they planning to have two shops so close together? They did buy the Fox and Hounds pub on the Abingdon Road in Oxford and it has remained derelict since 2007.
A For Sale sign has also appeared over another Greene King pub in the town centre: The Plough.
The Plough re-opened in July after being closed from the start of the year.
Those two pubs may be just the start. There are rumours of other Greene King pubs being sold off.
(Greene King got a majority stake in the Abingdon based Morland Brewery, and all it’s pubs, in 1999. )
These geese are heading north. Birds normally migrate south at the start of winter. So this group must be heading back to their overnight roost.
In the second picture there are two sources of water vapor.
To the west, some newer smaller cooling towers – hardly towers at all really as they are no higher than houses – cool the water from the gas-burning Didcot B power station.
The larger cooling towers are part of the older coal-burning Didcot A power station. It only generates electricity between October and March – a peak demand period when it can run at a profit.
Didcot A will be decommissioned by 2015.
Bob the Snowman was an important part of the window display at Lewis Baker until he was sold a few days before the Christmas Extravaganza evening. Eric the snowman went soon after.
Lewis Baker did not quite win the best window at the Christmas Extravaganza. If anything they peaked too early.