Here is Abingdon’s very own Turkish Donna Kebab man with a van. He can be seen here most days at about 5:20 unlocking and locking the Market Place gates. His vehicle is the one licensed to trade there selling hot food.

Earlier this evening at about 5:25 he plugged his cooker into the market place electricity supply.

Before he has had time to even open the side-hatch of the van, a chap on a bike called across, “Mate, you got any drinks.”

So he opens up, serves the first customer and then a second customer. Only then has he time to open his first big bag of chips and start to prepare the days hot food. Top of the menu are Donna Kebabs (Döner kebab in Turkish means ‘turning kebab’ and seems to involve a hardly recognisable meat in pitta bread and salad).

Thats how most evenings start (Sundays start earlier).

The van has a relatively quiet time until people leave the pubs and its “Weerrll!! … time for a kebab!”

He asks with a broad smile “You wanna it open, for eat now?”

He doesn’t finish until about 1:30, and locks the gate behind him as he goes.

For anybody who has read the novel Nausea by John Paul Sartre, or ever feels as confused as the hero, this post is dedicated to you.

In the novel, the hero can no longer separate himself from what he sees in quite the normal way and becomes overwhelmed by just looking at a tree – all the bark and branches etc… They appear quite monstuous as he goes into a state of what most of us call mental breakdown.

These picture were all taken along the bushy , and swampy area, inbetween the Thames Walk and the Abingdon Vale Cricket pitch. Here you’ll find old tree stumps left to rot, and a clearing where a bonfire has been lit, and a ditch.

Looking back at my Abingdon 1910 reproduction map, bought for £2.20 at the library, I see that the ditch looked then more like a stream, possibly even bigger. The County Boundary between Berkshire and Oxfordshire ran down it before rejoining the Thames. So this little bit of land on the opposite bank was not Oxfordshire but Berkshire like Abingdon. The area contained mostly trees and was called the Rookery and had:

Some old stone steps leading to the bottom of a circle of stones… Anyone know what this was?

And a low bridge crossing the ditch…

And big trees that would have scared the living daylights out of the hero of Nausea, or anybody of a nervous disposition.

The Kings Head and Bell public house takes you back into a world of dark wood panelling. There is a courtyard with tables where you can sit outside in summer, and a snug with a blazing fire in winter.

It is an old Pub with records going back to the 1500s. The out buildings would have had a hostlery and smithy for horses. As can be seen there is enough room to drive a coach and horses.

There are stories about King Charles I having come here during the early years of the Civil War, before the Roundheads took over Abingdon.

In any case, the sign remembers that very King.

The facade was altered at the beginning of the 19th Century to look as it does now.

There is a jazz club upstairs sometimes.

One of my favourite Abingdon pubs although the music can be loud at times. Not that I mind loud music. I’m just no good at lip reading.

This coming Sunday will be Harvest Festival at Trinity Church which is where I normally go. People bring food and other gifts which get shared out the next day among people ‘in need.’

And where better (in Abingdon) to go at around Harvest than to Peachcroft Farm.

I was suprised that they are still doing “Pick your Own” so late in the season. They have some late raspberries, runner-beans and sweet corn.

They have a nice little shed selling fruit and vegetables – pre-picked. And behind that is a proper shop run by “Wells Stores.” The Peachcroft farm web site says the store “is bursting with all kinds of country food – the kind of fresh and home produced food that makes your mouth water.”

And alongside the shop are lots of turkeys running about in the sunshine, and clambering over the bales of straw. The turkeys also get a note on the website as “‘old fashioned’ slow growing strains, and grow to full maturity, giving their meat an excellent texture.”