It is the start of the road to the Abingdon Passion in 2016 and the first fundraising event took place on Saturday evening at St Nicolas Church …

1) There was a concert including 4 pieces by French composers culminating in the ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ by Olivier Messiaen, written and first performed when Messiaen was in a prison camp in the Second World War.

2) Tuesday March 24th, 7.30pm in Christ Church, Northcourt Road there will be a performance of “Inheritance” by the Riding Lights Theatre Company. A Passion play with a difference! Tickets £10.

3) Saturday March 28th, 7pm in St Helen’s Church there is Come and Sing Fauré’s Requiem.

4) Antiques evaluation day on May 9th.

On Saturday 31st Jan 2015 (2.30 – 4.30pm) Caldecott Meadow, behind South Abingdon Children’s Centre, will see the revival of wassailing in Abingdon. Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers will lead the festivities round the new apple trees.

You are asked to bring along:

• your pots and pans and wooden spoons to make a lot of noise 
• ribbon and wool to dress the trees 
• a plastic bottle to make your own shaker 
• a jar to make your own fire lantern

In other towns and villages the tradition of wassailing the Apple Trees – some time in January – still continues, and was intended to produce lots of apples the following season by pouring some of last year’s cider on their roots. Read more at Here We Go A-Wassailing.

On this occasion the cider will be apple juice because it is an alcohol free family wassail.

About 9 months ago the Vale of White Horse District Council (VWHDC) moved a lot of their staff out of Abbey House in Abingdon to offices at Crowmarsh Gifford – home of South Oxfordshire District Council, as part of a closer collaboration between the councils to save money. The space they released at Abbey House was then used by Oxfordshire County Council.

It was a shock to see those joint offices in flames on 15th Jan 2015. Two other buildings were also set alight, and a local resident arrested for arson.

Nobody appears to have been hurt.

Meanwhile, there were many comings and goings at Abbey House in Abingdon. An early police presence made people speculate that it too might come under attack.

Core people were moved to ‘hot desks’ at Abbey House. And we were told:

• Services such as recycling and leisure run by external contractors would carry on as usual
• Council Tax payments could be paid as usual.
• Emergency services such as people made homeless, or dangerous structures needing inspecting, could contact the council number – the Abbey House number.

Most council employees were asked to work from home until desks were available.

Residents who wanted to contact the council, with non urgent matters, were asked to delay for a  few days until people and systems are back in place.

The sale by VWHDC of Old Abbey House (next door) was delayed because of a community challenge a few months ago. The delay was to give time for bids for community use to come forward. The Vale’s empty properties, like this, may get used again, bringing more Council employees back to Abingdon for a while.

Today’s Herald has a fuller roundup of the year, but I have run out of time to do 2014 justice except to say it went very quick …

In 2014 we sadly said goodbye to a number of well known Abingdon people. The funeral of Les Argyle, former Mayor of Ock Street, was on the blog in January, for what was a moving send off by the Morris Dancers.

One of the more spectacular blog pictures of the year came in February, when a tree came close to demolishing the Conduit House in Albert Park.

Our local recycling centre, in Drayton, has made a display of discarded Christmas decorations. I went there today to clear out some things that were beyond repair.

Our front door wreath was also recycled.

In March we got home to find that our son had recovered a wreath from a skip up the road. I wrote about the skip and some dangling guttering on this blog in a piece called “A Posh Skip in West St Helen Street.

April to October then just sped by…

Radio Abingdon Xtra stopped broadcasting in November. Their web site says “AbingdonXtra was a community radio station for Abingdon-On-Thames. Due to other commitments and funding it was closed down 20/11/2014. Thankyou to all out listeners, broadcasters and Sponsors.”

And in December we have learned that Abode are to close. There were queues for the start of their closing down sale on 27th December. Their window poster says “It is with great sadness that we have finally decided to close our fabulous store in Coxeter House, Abingdon. The past few years have been very challenging in the retail sector, and the way people shop has changed dramatically.”