The Monday Market came back to life after last Monday’s winds. No more missing canvas covers or missing stalls, just people doing their shopping and chatting.

But the flag above County Hall … was it missing? Half-mast maybe? As I looked, the white flag lifted a little, and at first, I thought it said “World Women’s Day.”

Ah, but no! The flag must have been put up for Saturday’s Holocaust Memorial Day.

On January 27th, the world remembers the horrors of the Holocaust. This day was established by the United Nations in 2005.

It marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Nazi concentration camp where millions of people were murdered during World War II.

It remembers the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, as well as the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution, including Romani people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and people with disabilities. There were two Jehovah’s Witnesses with their trolley of leaflets beside the Market Place, and during the day on the Market Place, many jews, people of Romani descent, homosexuals and people with disabilities.

The lights are looking good in the town centre.

We do need the lights to cheer us up at this dark time of the year.

Poundland has re-opened and the number of flowers outside have grown since I took this picture.

At St Ethelwold’s House yesterday they had the annual summer celebration. Visitors enjoyed tea and cakes in the garden, and some joined in circle dancing, followed by a time in the Sanctuary – celebrating the cycle of life that came into being in the spring, reaches its height of glory in summer, and then dies at harvest. Somebody quoted “‘Where there is light, there must be shadow, where there is shadow there must be light.”

Mark’s wildflower meadow at the bottom of the garden is named after a young man who died last year under tragic circumstances. The Prime Minister admitted the government were wrong to cut his benefits. And Atos, the company in charge of assessing whether a lot of vulnerable people like Mark should return to work or not, have lost their government contract because of the way they have mishandled cases.

I see from the St Ethelwold’s Blog that Mark loved nature, and the garden. He even had an art exhibition in the Garden Room in 2005.

Spring Gardens Cemetery (formerly the New Cemetery) in Abingdon has a new area of marble vaults – each can contain up to two containers of cremated remains.

The area has been landscaped, and the new vaults are provided by The Columbarian Company whose company slogan is ” Bringing cemeteries and crematoria to life.”

Elsewhere in the cemetery catkins are out.

Life goes on.