
I was asked, by an electrician, on the way to Trinity this morning whether the hole in the road could have anything to do with the almshouses having lost half their power.

There was an electrical fire down a manhold cover in Ock Street on Saturday evening. As far as I know electrical supplies had been reconnected by Sunday morning so the electrician probably just needed to reset something. As to the hole in the road, I haven’t seen anybody working on it during Sunday when it was causing holdups to traffic.
Ripples from a new camera
My wife has not had a camera for quite some time, but bought one a couple of weeks ago. Since then she has been taking pictures – mostly of ripples. This is how they look on her facebook album ‘watery stuff’.

We met somebody on the Market Place today who said to my wife “You must be his other half”

That was a bit rude really. Still to a lot of people I am her other half.

Thanks to her for the ripples. Last one is light from ripples playing on the underside of Abingdon Bridge.
Third Free Yeah Baby Music Festival

Today saw the third free Yeah Baby charity music festival – Abingdon’s Glastonbury.

All through the day there was entertainment, bands, stalls, facepainting, playbus, raffles …

It made the town a fun place to be. There were people going round with buckets collecting for the Yeah Baby charities. The music and fun carries on this evening at the Brewery Tap.
Graffiti Cleaning OX92 OX93 and OX14
The district council has a new, clearer website – just launched this week. The web page about Graffiti Cleaning got my attention with its practical advice …
If graffiti is on private property, the web site says, “The owner of the property is responsible for its removal … the quicker graffiti is cleaned off, the easier it is to remove … prompt removal tends to discourage more graffiti”.

There was a spate of grafitti in South Abingdon about three months ago. Most has been cleaned. Just a few examples remain. Some is on a large green box with the ID: OX092 (Preston Road near junction to Gainsborough Green) and even more on OX093 (Preston Road near junction to Cotman Close).
The district web site has a section on “Graffiti on privately owned street furniture (e.g. post boxes, telecommunications cabinets)“. They suggest contacting the owner.
Both Virgin Media and BT appear to not recognise these boxes so it would be helpful to identify the owner. Nothing on the green box helps very much.

Last section on the Vale website is “What is the district council responsible for cleaning?“.
“… its own property that may include council owned public toilets, rubbish bins and some leisure centres. To report graffiti on property owned by Vale of White Horse District Council, please contact our waste contractors Biffa by emailing admin.vale@biffa.co.uk…”
This information sign at the district council end of the Ock Valley Walk has had graffiti on it for over three months. I have now sent an email.