The harvest festival at church is not what it used to be. At Trinity on Sunday, the congregation brought tins, pasta, and cleaning products. More money was given than produce. The produce went to the Abingdon Food Bank, and the money went to Asylum Welcome.

There were displays of flowers, apples, and pumpkins around the church, but they were just displays. Reverend Ian, the minister, reminded us of the aroma of all the vegetables and fruit at harvest festivals when we were young and the bread that looked like a sheaf of wheat.

We sang the traditional harvest hymns, such as “We Plough the Fields and Scatter” and “Come, Ye Thankful People Come,” as well as some more modern ones. So that felt like a traditional harvest festival.

Later in the day, I saw some of the harvest from the gardens of St Ethelwold House for sale. People could make a donation to buy the produce. There were hollyhock and other seeds from the garden for people to scatter in their own gardens.

I saw this new post box topper on the Market Place this evening. It’s a sign that autumn is coming, and it’s been a really rainy week. The puddles on the roads have been growing and shrinking and growing and shrinking again and again from all the rain.

The previous topper, which I didn’t write about then, showed pupils returning to school at the beginning of the month. Then, all the problems with RAAC concrete started. One Abingdon school closed in the first week because they might have had some RAAC but didn’t. Then another Abingdon school discovered they did have RAAC and closed the week after. I didn’t know what RAAC concrete was before this month, but I do now. RAAC is a lightweight form of precast concrete, frequently used in public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1960s to the 1990s. It was invented in Sweden in the 1930s and has limited durability, and must be monitored. As should most concrete. I don’t expect the multi-storey to have a RAAC problem, but it has been partially closed for a long time now.

Autumn will bring a lot more shocks and thrills. For one thing Abingdon Street Fair posters have been let down in empty shops as a reminder that Autumn could be a wild ride.

It’s autumn on the postbox topper on Abingdon Market Place.

It’s autumn around the war memorial.

There’s autumn climbing out over the wall from Abingdon School

There is autumn or jesień in the Polski Sklep Żubr shop window.

A book called Hello Autumn is in the Mostly Books shop window.

Autumn is the season between summer and winter when leaves fall from the trees, the Michaelmas Fair comes to Abingdon, the clocks go back, and squirrels used to hibernate, but they don’t anymore.

New exercise machines are on one side of the Caldecott Recreation Ground hedge.

On the other side, where the canal once flowed, are a dozen horse chestnut trees.

There was steady rain and a lot of conkers fell today on the last day of September.

There is still time to enter the World Conker Championship in our neighbouring county – Northamptonshire. The championships take place on the 9th of October 2022. To enter, go to https://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/. The rules say you cannot use your own conkers, so none of the Caldecott conkers will become champions.