The sun was shining today after a hard frost last night.
Here is the Old County Hall reflected in yesterday’s rain.
But being January the sun never got very high in the sky. Here are trees with long shadows in the Abbey Meadows.
This is some of the old man’s beard nearby.
These swans were on the Mill Stream. Somebody was telling me you can tell the male swan by the thicker neck and the bigger black brow.
In December 1988 fossil bones were found at a gravel pit at Oday Hill, Abingdon. A small group of archaeologists investigated and identified the front half of a huge ichthyosaur. (The composite picture, above, of the crushed up skeleton is on display in Abingdon Museum).
The bones were put together with the help of staff from Oxford University Natural History Museum and can be viewed in the attic gallery at Abingdon Museum.
The museum blog has more about the Abingdon Ichthyosaur.
The attic gallery has other fossils showing how the changing climate has influenced life in Abingdon. The ichthyosaur ((Ancient Greek for “fish lizard” ) lived here during the Jurassic period when this region was under water. In the museum basement you can find out about how humans have influenced the changing climate in recent times in what some are calling the Anthropocene epoch (proposed geological epoch where human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems has become significant).
It may take a bit longer to clear away Christmas this year. The tree in the Market Place is still there even if the lights and baubels are gone.
The sign outside St Edmund and our Lady in Abingdon still has the joy of Christmas.
On the church noticeboard a poem says the work of Christmas begins when the Kings have gone home and the shepherds are back with their flocks. Peacemaking is never complete.
Saturday was wet. There were people from One Planet Abingdon talking to people about some of their projects under the old County Hall.
There was a blue sky today, Sunday. This Kite was circling over when we walked out along the Ock Valley Walk. For anybody not from these parts, the Kite was saved from extinction and now is a common bird over Abingdon and central England.
There were lots of people out on the Ock Valley Walk. The path itself is sticky and muddy. Ivy grows up a lot of the trees and stumps. So there is still a lot of green about.
The back path is less muddy. Lots of birds singing and flitting about. Near here new trees get planted with plastic tubes, and some make it and grow strong, and some don’t.