May Day Morning in Abingdon and Oxford

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May Day Morning
Despite a covering of cloud the sun cast mauve colours
May Day Morning
and then appeared burning bronze on May Day in Abingdon – seen here near Abingdon Lock.
May Day Morning
The May Day celebrations in Oxford were without the Abingdon Morris Dancers, but some of their members were there with the Oxford teams.
May Day Morning
The Oxford Morris are led on May Day morning by Jack-in-the-Green, who appears only on May Morning after the Magdalen College Choir sing from the tower.

A young tree needs protection – Part 5

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Back in 2006, when I started doing This Abingdon Blog, one report was about three trees that had been planted in town. One got vandalised, one had a bad lean, and one was doing well.

Here they are again some years later…
A young tree needs protection
The vandalised tree is long gone but another tree, planted nearby, is doing much better. I hope the new generation respect trees more.
A young tree needs protection
The leaning tree continues to lean and still has a tree guard.
A young tree needs protection
It also has a band to keep it from leaning any more.
A young tree needs protection
The third tree is doing well. The tree guard has been removed and lower branches cut. That tree was planted in honour of John Jones OBE – a former Mayor and Freeman of Abingdon.

Vale House + Dementia Friends

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Vale House + Dementia Friends
On the Market Place last Saturday Vale House had a stall for fund raising, and raising awareness.

Vale House was founded in 1990 to care for people with dementia however severe or complicated, and to support their families. The original house was in Botley, and now, after a lot of fund raising, they are in a larger, better designed building, at Sandford-on-Thames. Alison Rooke, a former Mayor of Abingdon, is one of their trustees. Their website is http://www.valehouse.org.uk.

Related but quite separate are Dementia Friends in Abingdon. They have courses to help us learn more about what it is like to live with dementia and be able to help when needed. There is a course on 21st May in Abingdon. If you are interested, see if you can find the Information Session and Book. Start by going to ‘Become a Dementia Friend’ then ‘Find an Information Session’ and find locations near your post code.

Politics may be a farce but the next choice is yours

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Abingdon 100 years ago
Some of you may have read in the Observer this morning about the people of the idyllic market town of Abingdon saying ‘politics is now a farce’.

Parliament has failed to deliver the 52% Leave vote because David Cameron did not define what Leave meant before the referendum. Politicians have failed to agree a Leave deal that the EU agrees with since.

There are local elections on Thursday, and the Observer observes that Abingdon people are affected by this national disillusionment with politics. People slam their doors against canvassers saying ‘I cannot take any more politics!’

The choice is yours on Thursday if you choose to vote. Some of your local politicians have done a good job locally irrespective of their national party. New people are standing at the local election as well. It is for you to judge. At the very local level we should try to vote for the best people. I hope you end up with an excellent Town and District Council – one that can take Abingdon forward.