The Abingdon Mummers were performing their traditional Christmas Mummers play this evening around drinking places in Abingdon including:

• Punch Bowl, 
• Broad Face, 
• Kings Head & Bell, 
• Old Anchor, 
• Tipsy Mercer, 
• and the Conservative Club.

After the Conservative Club the players headed for the last performance of the evening at the Brewery Tap.

The play tells the battle between King George and the Bold Slasher. First King George is killed and has to be revived by the doctor.

(That is after Bailey the dog tried her best.)

Then the Bold Slasher is killed. On this occasion the intervention of the doctor fails, and Mrs Finney is called in to revive Bold Slasher.

The play is all about light and dark, life and death,

Father Christmas comes in to lead the singing of We wish you a Merry Christmas.

A collection tin was then handed round for BeFreeYC (befreeyc.org.uk) which helps young carers in Oxfordshire.

There was a festive end of term for the Abingdon Silver Club at Abingdon College. They enjoyed cakes and savoury treats after a final rush to finish off various silver items including spoons, earrings, pendants and silver Christmas tree toys.

The Abingdon schools broke up today for the Christmas holiday. The holidays run from 20th December 2019 to 3rd January 2020 – during which there will be feasts and festivities. (The silver dog is in the Abingdon Museum)

That reminds me The Abingdon Mummers are performing their Christmas play round the town centre and Ock Street. I shall dash out to see if I can find them ….

The Oxford Caledonian Pipe Band led the parade at today’s Christmas Extravaganza in Abingdon.

Organised and funded by Abingdon-on-Thames Chamber of Commerce, with volunteers, the day  was sunny, and brought in large crowds to Abingdon.

Father Christmas was accompanied by the Abingdon Lions. They will also accompany him round the estates of Abingdon from the 4th to 17th December.

Maleficent has been showing at The Abbey Cinema in Abingdon. She had escaped from the cinema screen and was there in the parade. The Abbey Cinema also had a stall on the Market Place featuring another Disney Film – Frozen 2.

Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council were there in full regalia, led by the Mace Bearer.

Bath Street was closed to traffic during the Extravaganza. Along Bath Street were fair ground rides for children, stalls selling food, crafts,

and lots of Community Groups, including Abingdon Rotary,

and Friends of Radley Lakes.

At the end of Bath Street were some donkeys from the Donkey Sanctuary.

The Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers elected Layla Moran to be Maid of the Mill. Layla was the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, and is hoping to be re-elected . The Morris Dancers danced round Layla for a couple of minutes then lifted her in the air.

At St Ethelwold’s House Oxfam had their own Santa’s Sleigh with reindeer. St Ethelwold’s had Oxfam stalls, coffee and cakes, and music.

Members of the Abingdon Community Orchestra were crammed into the office performing carols. Last year they were forced to squeeze in there because of the rain. This year they did it from tradition. (Play the video and see if you can identify the carol.)

Abingdon Baptist Church were holding their own Christmas Fair, and had benefited from removing the pews and replacing them with easy-to-move seats.

St Nicolas Church still has half their pews with a flexi space at the back. They had tombola, raffle, and were selling lots of things. At the front were performances by the Abingdon Community Choir among others.

On the Market Place there were many more stalls and a Santa’s Grotto. Martin was there as official photographer. He is seen here with Joanna Page, Welsh actress and comedian, best known for her role as Stacey in Gavin & Stacey. I am looking forward to the Christmas Special reunion. Martin will have lots of photos on Facebook of the Extravaganza.

The Market Place also had a stage where groups performed during the day. This group sounded good.

Large crowds were there at six when Joanne Page turned on the Christmas Lights. This was followed by some super splendid fireworks.

The crowds then made their way home under the Christmas Lights.

Healthy Abingdon invited people interested in our local health services to a presentation and discussion on Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in Abingdon.

Primary Care Networks were set up in July 2019, after six months of planning. They group GP practises into larger units covering between 30 – 50,000 people. Abingdon is split into two PCNs. One covers The Abingdon Surgery and Malthouse Surgery, in the town centre, with 33,657 people. The other covers Marcham Road Health Centre and Long Furlong Health Centres in Abingdon, Berinsfield Health Centre and Clifton Hampden Surgery with 30,043 people.

PCNs will allow closer coordination between GP practises to allow things like better extended hours cover. They will also get more funding for extra specialist services in the area. One such service that has already been set up is Social Prescribing. More services with funding will follow.

Social Prescribing is something GPs have always done. It is referring people to activities in the community, possibly college courses, possibly for help from voluntary groups (The Abingdon Bridge – counselling, and Health Walks Abingdon are examples). Treatment from the NHS is not the only answer.

Having a specialist Social Prescriber allows GPs to do this more effectively. Emma and Emma, the two ladies who job share the role, told us something of what they did and how they help people. There followed an interesting round table discussion about what people in Abingdon would like out of social prescribing.

About forty people attended the meeting at the Conduit Centre, at Trinity Church, in Abingdon.