Early Christmas Lights

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Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council’s contractor has started installing the Christmas lights, including the Market Place candles, which have been a tradition for many years.

This year, there are also new lights, including a new tree outside the Guildhall. This conical plastic structure is an eye-catching addition to the town’s Christmas decorations, with a large windmill-like snowdrop at the top and snowdrops around the base.

We will have to wait until the Christmas Extravaganza on Saturday, 2nd December 2023, to see the new tree in all its glory.

New Abingdon Hub Offers Support for Mental Health

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The Abingdon Keystone Mental Health & Wellbeing Hub celebrated its official opening today, with a wide range of people attending, including local councillors, support staff at the hub, and people from the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust who provide the service. Meridian News was also present to cover the event.

The hub offers a new approach to supporting people with ongoing mental health problems by bringing care and support close to people when they need it most. Members of the public can drop-in from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. to learn more about the services available, and how to access them.

I spoke to a staff member who provides support to help people stay in work or return to work. I also spoke to some peer support workers who have used mental health services and now provide peer support to others. I took away a leaflet about the Psychological Therapies provided at the hub.

The hub is in the centre of town on Bury Street.

Real and imagined dangers

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The long-standing ‘material containing asbestos’ notices outside the former Chemist shop have been joined by jokey notices outside a lot of other shops in town. Caution tape says, “Enter If You Dare”, and cobwebby strands and orange pumpkins and spiders and skeletons and ghosts are there to give you a scare.

But beware, brave trick-or-treaters, for the greatest danger of all lurks near Abingdon Lock, among the leaves.

Early Sunrise, Early Sunset

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By five past five, it was already getting dark, thanks to the clocks being set forward by an hour last night. Most of our timing devices are computerised and change automatically these days, but the church clock still needs to be wound manually.

Today, the sun was up between 6:53 a.m. and 4:43 p.m. (9 hours, 50 minutes).

Yesterday it was up from 7:51 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. (9 hours and 54 minutes).

We are losing about 3.4 minutes of sunlight a day.

More interesting data about the sun is at https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/oxford?month=10.