After weeks of lying on the ground, the monk is standing again.
Monk Standing
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Freezing fog and twenty years of blogging
The overnight freezing fog left rime on cobwebs and trees this morning.
The sensory garden at Carswell School was designed by Trinity Learning, a charity run by Rosemary Perrow for many years. It helped and still helps a lot of schools and children. Rosemary recently died, but her excellent work at Trinity Learning is carried on by Nicola.
There will be a tabletop sale at Trinity on February 4th.
On Friday evening, the Church in Abingdon quiz took place at Peachcroft Christian Centre with eleven church teams. Trinity won it the last time, but Christ Church – Long Furlong won this time.
I mention those things because twenty years ago, I started blogging, and my first blog was the occasional blog about Trinity Abingdon. The Harry Dog Blog and Abingdon Blog came later in 2006.
Mayor’s Charity Lion King screening at The Abbey Cinema
The Mayor of Abingdon, Cllr Andy Foulsham, was promoting a fundraising event to take place on Saturday, 28th January. The Abbey Cinema is screening The Lion King, in which renowned actor and patron of The Archway Foundation Jeremy Irons voices the character SCAR. Donations to the Mayor’s charity fund for attending the event are £15 for adults and £7.50 for children. The money raised will be split between the Mayor’s charities Yellow Submarine and The Archway Foundation.
Yellow Submarine is an Oxfordshire charity that believes people with learning disabilities and autism deserve to live life to the full.
The Archway Foundation is an Oxford-based charity that helps those suffering from loneliness.
The Abbey Cinema have many other films to enjoy at the Guildhall in the centre of Abingdon.
New proposals for a new reservoir near Abingdon
Reading Evening Post – Thursday 21 March 1991
Thames Water experts expect water consumption to rocket in the next three decades and are pressing ahead with proposals for a new reservoir near Abingdon to meet demand.
The Haverhill Echo – Thursday 13 January 1994
Thames water deferred their plans to build a reservoir near Abingdon because their priority programme to identify leaks and repair them has proved successful. (Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive)
Today in Trinity Church Abingdon, there was an exhibition by Thames Water on their draft Water Resources Plan 2024 entitled ‘Keeping water flowing for the future’. During the lifetime of this blog, since 2006, this is the third time a reservoir near Abingdon has been proposed as a solution to meeting water demand.
The displays around the exhibition showed the challenges of keeping water flowing for the future and some of the solutions. Thames Water plans to reduce leaks by 16% by 2030 and halve leaks by 2050. There is a plan for a new river abstraction at Teddington that could be built by 2030. The largest display was given to a new reservoir near Abingdon in Oxfordshire that could be available by 2040. Another option is a Severn to Thames Transfer. The consultation recommends going ahead with the Teddington scheme, followed by the reservoir near Abingdon while continuing to fix leaks.
GARD (Group against Reservoir Development) banners can be seen around the villages of Drayton and Steventon, immediately neighbouring the proposed reservoir. GARD’s message to Thames Water is: Stop the Reservoir, fix the leaks, transfer new water from the Severn. There are more details at the Gard website.
The Thames Water presentations, and consultation, can be seen at thames-wrmp.co.uk. This includes Thames Water’s reasons for choosing a new reservoir over the Severn transfer. The consultation began in November 2022 and ends Tuesday, 21st March 2023.