A hundred years ago this bank (at 11 Market Place) would have had the Corn Exchange as a near neighbour to the right, and above the doorway, the word BANK was engraved in stone. The building is still a bank but it has no Corn Exchange and has probably undergone a number of changes as little banks became bigger banks. There was once an Abingdon Bank which issued its own notes.

This building now stands tall as the NatWest bank. The Natwest came into being in 1968 when the National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank merged. The NatWest has since been taken over, in 1999, by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

On Sunday morning when not many people were about, a crane was lowering some building supplies onto the roof. It is yet another building with scaffolding and work being done.

Currently you’ll see taxis trying to park in front of the NatWest in the early evening, and people stop on the corner to nip out and use one of the two cash machines. That corner can become quite a squeeze.

With the crane it was impassable.

The first picture is of the Foxy Lady knitting display in Masons on Stert Street. There is a notice advertising a beginners knitting course. But there is also a reflection of the de paauw shop over the road.

Across the road to de paauw (Dutch for Peacock and quite a common name in Holland) where designer children’s wear is on show. The shop was opened earlier this year by a lady with de-Paauw in her name.

A few doors up is a display of second hand musical instruments in the Oxfam window. The back reflection from Prices the Stationers makes the picture looks a bit like a Picasso collage with bits of musical insrument all mixed up with the reflection. As well as the guitar and violin is a concertina and zither.

Lastly (and there are lots more interesting windows to choose from in Stert Street) is the Finishing Touch with autumnal colours.

“We plough the fields, and scatter the good seed on the land,
but it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand:
he sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain,
the breezes, and the sunshine, and soft, refreshing rain.”

This hymn may feel like it grows out of our the soil of our English Countryside, but it was a German Peasant song discovered about 1780

The rainbow harvest table was taken at Trinity this morning.

About halfway down the Vineyard is Pedal Power the bike shop, with Mr Lee Hairdressing on one side, and a pub, converted to housing on the other.

I took my bike there last week for a new brake block. The chap went through a box of brake blocks but could not find a match. The designs change rapidly nowadays. Anyway, went back, and he had one this week. But now I need the wheel unbent. Rather stupidly, I left it locked up overnight on St Edmunds Lane and somebody has given the wheel a kick.

Pedal Power is quite traditional with a large workshop at the rear, and bikes for sale in the front, mostly Dawes and Raleigh. Then there are boxes of bike parts.

It is part of the Vineyard, a road named after the Abbey grape growing area.

Anyway, on the subjects of bikes, cycling back home tonight with the bent wheel hitting the brake blocks, I got stopped by a policeman. “Excuse me Sir? Your back lights are not showing.” True enough, the battery was getting weak.

People might be glad to know the police still do take a note of such things. Even though five minutes later I saw six young lads cycle past without a light between them, nor a policeman in sight.