Abingdon Bridge on Easter Sunday

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Abingdon Bridge on Easter Sunday
A house on Thames Street, at one end of Abingdon Bridge, has a rainbow with gold at one end.
Abingdon Bridge on Easter Sunday
The Nags Head has been worked upon and redecorated near the other end, but has not been able to reopen since the work.
Abingdon Bridge on Easter Sunday
There is a Thank You NHS sign on the entry into Abingdon-on-Thames.

The car parks – 2 hours – free parking sign does not tell the full story. Following the announcement of travel and business restrictions on 23rd March, the Vale of White Horse District Council have suspended all parking charges.
Abingdon Bridge on Easter Sunday
Over the bridge the pavements are narrow and do not exist on one side. People walk in the road when passing others on Abingdon Bridge to keep a Social Distance.
Abingdon Bridge on Easter Sunday
Near Abingdon Bridge, a boating wood carver has been forced to stay in Abingdon. He was kept here by the floods and high water, and then by the lockdown. He hoped to be in Rugby by Christmas 2019 and is now targeting Christmas 2020.

Sunshine and flowers on Easter Sunday

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Easter Sunday
On the first Easter Sunday Jesus appeared to some women first …

Luke 24:1-5 New Revised Standard Version
1. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 

At this morning’s virtual service at Trinity Church Revd Ian Griffiths said “On that first Easter morning, it was as if the whole world were sleeping when the most amazing thing happened.”
Easter Sunday
This Easter morning I am looking out of the window, and see new leaves on the trees. There is a house in East St Helen Street in Abingdon where there is a display of blossoms and flowers and palm crosses, that many people can enjoy walking past.
Easter Sunday
The lockdown is a strange return to almost forgotten days of family life. Our grown up children are back with us because of the lockdown. We decorated Pace Eggs with flowers, and then wrapped them in onion skins and string, and boiled them – as is the custom in my wife’s home town Ulverston. The picture above shows a Pace Egg in the Pitts Rivers Museum in Oxford – a few miles from Abingdon.

The Cross on Good Friday

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Good Friday
Abingdon has a historic connection to The Cross.

The symbol of the Borough of Abingdon was a cross surrounded by four small crosses.

The Fraternity of the Holy Cross was instrumental in building Abingdon Bridge (around 1416) and the Long Alley Almshouse (around 1446) and works in St Helen’s Church. Ancient tradition held that St Helen found the original cross in Jerusalem – the cross that held Jesus. According to Francis Little, The Fraternity set up a stately cross in St Helen’s Church (before 1388).
Good Friday
Christians remember with solemnity the death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. They believe that Jesus was crucified by the Romans on a hill outside Jerusalem and died on a cross. It was a cruel and humiliating way to die.

The gravestone with the metal cross is in St Helen’s Churchyard.

On the River Banks

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On the River Banks
Tony says ‘Ten years ago in April you could find butterburs all along the Thames from Abingdon lock to the first gate. Today, with extended mooring and I suppose more walkers, there are just a few clumps of them. These wonderful pink flowers appear before the leaves which can be quite big and downy.’
On the River Banks
We saw these two grebes bringing twigs and making a nest in a place not very far from a road, and on the other side of a hedge and fence. They got vocal and agitated when a cycle passed by their chosen spot. It was not as secluded as it could have been.
On the River Banks
The black headed gulls wheel and swoop for crumbs of bread thrown in their path by humans. It is like feeding time at the zoo at St Helen’s Wharf when it happens – which is less often during the lockdown.
On the River Banks
This butterfly had settled near the River Ock on a nettle. Nettles are young and fresh at the moment. Butterflies normally flit away long before I get near with the camera. The information board at the start of the Ock Valley Walk has a picture of a Red Admiral, but this one looks like a Tortoiseshell. Somebody might know.