Steve’s ‘Exotic’ garden will be open on Saturday. On top of Steve’s previous achievements, his garden was featured in the July edition of the RHS members magazine, ‘The Garden’.

There will also be the Oxfordshire chilli Festival on the Market Place on the same day with chillies, chilli sauces, and chilli foods; live music from 11.30 am to 3.00 pm; followed by an adult chilli eating competition.

Then just three weeks after is the Abingdon Horticultural Society Autumn Show.

Abingdon-on-Thames Visitor and Community Information Centre has moved to Roysse Court.

There are lots of visitors this weekend in Abingdon. Most have come with caravans or with scooters and tents. I don’t know how many need to visit the centre to ask for information.

The caravans can be seen on the other side of the River Thames on the Cricket Field.

The scooters have come for the 2019 Oddballs Rally at Abingdon Rugby Club.

At the Oddballs Rally there are oddball stalls selling oddball parts. There are large white marquees where bands play oddball music which leads to a lot of oddball dancing and bouncing around.

I took this picture the morning after when there was a relaxed campsite feel with occasional announcements from the P.A. about buying raffle tickets. Money is raised for charity at the Oddball Rally. Some people were relaxing, others had gone off on their scooters, or walked into town by the River.

The launch of the Lion King happened yesterday, 19th July, and people look to have been having fun. When I walked by the  Abbey Cinema, at the Guildhall, there were giant jungle animals drawn in chalk outside.

The foyer had been turned into a jungle with monkeys swinging from the netting. This 2019 film is aremake of the 1994 Lion King with clever computer animations.

As part of their French course work at John Mason School, a party of students are on a three day visit to the Dunkirk and Boulogne areas of Northern France.

Their first stop was to visit the Operation Dynamo museum. They then made pilgrimage to the Commemorative Memorial by the beach.

During their course work it became evident six soldiers from Abingdon died during the operation to evacuate 330,000 troops from the beach head in May and June 1940.

At the memorial their teacher gave a brief description of each of the six soldiers after which two of the students, Megan and Chloe, laid a wreath and six named crosses on behalf of the teachers,staff and students of John Mason School.

Thankyou to Steve for this report.