Traffic was again tailing back as it was reduced to a single lane, and stopped by temporary pedestrian lights at the bottom of Stratton Way. Here is the tail back along Ock Street at the junction with Conduit Road.

This was an added complication for the two hundred and fifty delegates attending the Methodist church synod (Oxford and Leicester District) at Trinity Church on Conduit Road. Trinity has a large church building, and so often gets chosen for hosting such get togethers.

I am not sure why the Methodists built such a grand Gothic church in 1875. It was designed by J Woodman, and has a matching church hall called the Conduit Centre.

Something a bit more contemporary. The lawn is shown here with the Conduit Centre behind. A prayer labyrinth has been drawn onto the grass. The instructions on the board tell people to go prayerfully round the labyrinth.

There is a new art gallery that opened a week ago in Stert Street. The work inside is contemporary, and has been collected for sale by Jennifer gerard. A gallery like this would not be out of place on the High Street in Oxford.

Abingdon already has an art gallery in the precinct (The Gift Centre and Abingdon Gallery). They are just finishing an exhibition of water colours of local scenes by Ken Messer. This one shows the Old Gaol. From May 20th they will be featuring original watercolours of Oxfordshire landscapes, and rowing by Ron Cosford.

Just catching up on these three young trees last seen in February.

The first two are just coming into leaf,

but no leaves yet on the third.

The Abingdon Herald has a front page article “TESCO looks poised to win its battle to expand its Abingdon store by more than a quarter.” This will be at the expense of the Garden Centre.

It used to be a good garden centre with a good variety of herbs, heathers, and alpines. However of recent years it has looked less cared for.

The garden centre shop used to be turned over to a toy shop during the pre christmas period, but that function has been taken over by the main store.

Over the road, on the Fairacres estate, Homebase have a garden centre. The Homebase Stores group have recently been brought by the group that owns Argos, and the store has had complete refit.

B & Q also have a garden centre. They and Homebase are open until 8 PM, whereas Tesco which has the main store open for 24 hours, has a garden centre that closes at 5.