There are four Local Excellence Markets a year in Abingdon and two craft markets. At today’s market there were craft stalls with paintings and photos. The one in the foreground is Martin Wackenier’s stall selling his photos.

Every Local Excellence Market allows a different community group to have a free stall each time and today that was the Green Forum. They bring together all Abingdon’s Green groups. They were doing a survey with six items about transport. The first item was School Streets. A School Street is a road outside a school with a temporary restriction on motorised traffic at school drop-off and pick-up times. There has been a trial across 9 schools in Oxfordshire, including St Nicolas. 60% of the 120 parents and residents who responded to the School Street survey said they supported the school Street at St Nicolas.

The core stall of any market is fruit and veg. Paul, one of the coordinators, told me that six people retired from doing outside markets during Covid and so he has been looking for new people and trying to get a good mix of stalls. There used to be a lot of people wanting to sell jewellery. Since Covid there have been a lot of people making cakes. New on the market today were a cookie and fudge stall.

The post box has a crochet dragon and a tiger. The Chinese New Year begins on February 1st. 2022 will be the year of the Tiger. In China dragons are seen friendly and the bringers of good luck.