There were sail boats and rowing boats on the River Thames in Abingdon this morning, but unlike a year ago no steam was rising from the giant cooling towers of Didcot ‘A’ Power Station. The coal fired Didcot ‘A’ Power Station has been decommissioned and some of its transformers have already been transported away. The cooling towers, love them or hate them, will soon be gone.

More efficient, and less visible, gas powered generators have taken over at Didcot.

New signs have appeared along the Ock Valley Walk. The message is addressed to ‘Pet Owners.’

‘Please clean up after your pets and keep them under control’

Easier done with dogs… Cats make messes, but tend to do it in a neighbour’s garden rather than on public paths. Then they fight and wake all the neighbours.

Dog Owners are no longer being singled out.

The new notices mark a shift from the previous campaign where it was all about dogs.

I was sent some pictures a week or so back by K.R who was not altogether happy with the way that the hedge had been cut at the corner of Twelve Acre Drive and the Road to Radley Village.

“It looks like somebody has bulldozed it with a very blunt instrument and the result is it has split and shredded the branches and main trunks of the hedge…. This method of hedge cutting is the worst because it leaves the hedge very vulnerable to disease and weakens the hedge too. It’s a messy job – there are bits of broken wood scattered all over the road around the roundabout and path, and all the grasses, thistles and wildflowers (some of which were very pretty and visited by bees) all around have also been indiscriminately mown close to the ground….”