This week there is an article in the Abingdon Herald saying that Aldi will be coming to the Fariracres Retail Park if they can get planning permission.
Presumably that will be in the unit vacated by Beales last year.
Over the road holes have been drilled for the pilings for the redevelopment of the Oxford Abingdon Hotel as a Hilton.
Aldi is a global chain of over 10,000 supermarkets based in Germany.
Hilton is a global chain of over 570 hotels and resorts based in the USA.
At lunchtime on New Years Day there was dancing in the undercroft of the County Hall in Abingdon. The Old Speckled Hen Morris dancers,
and the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers were dancing.
The old year had died on December 31st, and January 1st was a new chance to dance and bring life to the new year. There was more dancing at the Broad Face and music for most of the afternoon.
According to the Lunar Glow-in-the-dark calendar for 2018, that I got for a Christmas present, January 2018 brings us a month of extreme lunar phenomena. The Full Moon on New Year’s Day is the largest of the year, with the moon coming to it closest approach to Earth all year, when its distance will be 356,565 kilometres (221,559 miles) at perigee.
The first picture shows the moon shining through cloud as viewed from St Helen’s Wharf.
In the second picture taken from St Helen’s Churchyard, the moon is hidden by the central aisle of St Helen’s Church.
As the skies cleared, the moon was clearly visible from Abingdon – as seen here above the Christmas Candles round the Market Place.
I was amazed by the detail I could see using a compact camera with optical zoom. The image was even clearer than this in the camera screen as the camera rested on one of the Market Place bollards.
This evening, of the 2nd January, as the moon becomes ‘waning gibbous’ the skies are cloudy and rain is falling.
The moon will be the farthest from the earth all year on 15th January. There will be another full moon on 31st January (the first blue moon since July 2015). That full moon will be in total eclipse for 1 hour 16 minutes across Asia, Australia, and western North America.
The annual January 1st Christian Aid Sponsored Walk met at St Helen’s church centre. For the first time the eight mile walk was entirely in Abingdon. It began by going round South Abingdon, and then went round part of North Abingdon.
Cliff Marshall, the co-ordinator, gave instructions and reminded people that the government would double all the sponsorship money they raised for Christian Aid.
An hour later, at 11 am, on the Market Place, participants of the Boundary Walk were photographed for the Oxford Mail / Abingdon Herald before leaving on the 4 mile walk round the 1556 Abingdon Borough boundary.
Councillor Helen Pighills, a former Mayor of Abingdon, led the walk, helped by Patrick Bird, of the Guild of Abingdon Town Criers.
Because the Ock Valley walk is still closed the Boundary Walk had to be diverted down Caldecott Road, along the route of the former canal. There they met the Christian Aid walk coming the other way.
Soon after that it rained heavily on both walks for about twenty minutes. But spirits were not dampened. Patrick Bird invited anybody listening to come and join the boundary walk, despite the rain.
Happy New Year!