“How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower”!

At the end of January 2008 the Busy Bee newsagents closed because trade was not that good down West Saint Helen Street.

The Co-op building is nearing completion, and things are stirring inside the nearby Busy Bee. Not newspapers this time. There could be a clue in the verse above.

The premises was the Venue bar and more recently it has been vacant, and soon it will be a betting and gaming office.

Ladbrokes are relocating to Bath Street. There is currently a Ladbrokes in Stert Street and another in Ock street. (What I don’t know is which is moving. )

There were no large public firework displays advertised on November 5th. (There are two on Saturday: one at Dalton Barracks, and one near Long Furlong Community Centre.)

There are some new Christmas Lights on the Market Place that look a bit like fireworks.

The Millenium needle does look like a Roman Candle, and there were plenty of distant explosions in the night sky.

Waitrose could have been one huge bonfire – using a long exposure.

And HSBC may well have been on fire. One of the fire engines stayed for a couple of hours.

The footpath over one side of the Drayton Road has been closed for a few days.

A new road junction is being created.

This is where the Esso Service Station and Cross Roads Garage once stood. The planned housing on the site were probably put back by the aftermath of the floods last year.

The side view of the same development, taken from near the River Ock, shows that the floor level should be above any future flooding.