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.

Looking at one Abingdon shop window earlier today, I saw some talks on offer. The Abingdon Carbon Cutters have a talk, on Wed 20th Nov 2019 – by Chris Church of Friends of the Earth, on Local Climate Action Now!

The Cow has been blamed for damaging the planet by breaking wind, but Neil Rowe will be speaking on behalf of the Cow. You will have to go to the Atom Society talk to hear the Cow on Thu 21st Nov 2019. This follows a short AGM.

More than three men in a boat is another talk the same evening – charting The rise and fall of pleasure boating on the Thames.

If none of these events are of interest then look on the Town Portal at https://www.abingdon.gov.uk/events to see whether there is anything else in Abingdon of interest.

In St Helen’s Church centre the Friend’s of Abingdon Community Hospital held their AGM and raffle draw. The big prize was a Miele Vacuum cleaner. There were lots of other prizes. Wyn, seated nearest the camera, was delighted to be taking back a prize to a neighbour to whom she sold the ticket.

In St Ethelwold’s House the Abbey Artists have an exhibition this weekend. I got talking to Dougie Simpson who does those lovely pictures of Abingdon that are sketched painting with outlines in pen and ink.

On the Market Place the Kennington Memory Club had a stall. The Alzheimer’s Club in Abingdon closed down, and Kennington have taken over running a day centre with activities.

Ian, of the Oxford Waits, was busking in Bury Street. The Oxford Waits had a successful sell-out concert at the Unicorn Theatre last night. I am told there was a great atmosphere. I got there with ten minutes to spare. The man at the door said to the couple ahead of me ‘You are lucky. Two tickets left.‘ Then told me, ‘Sorry! Sold out.‘