The Little Tea Room in East St Helen Street closes on 28th August.

This is so that Claire, Louise, and the team can spend more time with family members. Covid has also made the future very uncertain and tough for small independents. During the lockdown, they adapted by selling takeaway boxes.

Many customers visited the Little Tea Room for the last time and booked in advance, and so places have been limited in the last week.

An example of what was on offer is shown above. This is just one of 6 menus. There are a huge variety of sandwiches and teas.

In October 2017 Willow Shake opened in Stert Street and today they moved to larger premises in Bury Street. They have been decorating over the last few weeks.

Inside there is a check floor like an American diner, a sofa, and some wood tables and chairs. The one table outside will be added to in time.

They serve milkshakes in a huge number of flavours, as well as smoothies and hot drinks. Lots of people stopped to take a look at the new place, and quite a few came inside to say how good the new place looked.

McColls / Martins closed all three of their Abingdon newsagents / convenience stores. Two have now been replaced by cafe / takeaways.

Stuart sent me a picture to show that the former newsagent in the Peachcroft shopping centre has been replaced with a coffee house / cafe this July.

The newsagent in the Northcourt Road was replaced by a pizza place in April 2021.

A sign has appeared in the window of Shakeshop in Stert Street to say they will be moving to a bigger place in August.

The new place will be 18 Bury Street, the old Southern Gas showroom – where many of us bought our first cooker.

The word ‘freedom’ was used by Southern Gas in 1974 to promote cooking with the latest cooker.

July 19th 2021 is the delayed freedom day, the move to Step 4 and the end of the COVID-19 legal restrictions. A lot of businesses, and organisations, will not take full advantage of the new freedom yet. There has been a large rise in COVID-19 cases since the move to Step 3 and the delta variant.