A fantastic weekend of sport topped by England winning the Ashes. For one horrible moment I thought Australia were going to do it, but the good news is, it’s not all over yet as cricket fever seems to have swept the nation.

In fact, according to our latest figures, searches for cricket sports equipment and sportswear in Oxford, along with local cricket clubs, have surged dramatically since the start of the Ashes. I wonder if any budding young cricket players in this area will end up helping lift that little urn at some point in the future?

One of the places I never go to enough is Oxford’s Covered Market. When I did last go specifically to track down something, it was a Sunday and closed. It certainly surprised me (although not sure why? Perhaps because we’ve all got so used to shops being open now?)

Having walked away in frustration, I then thought it was quite good and how nice it was that it hasn’t succumbed to the usual demands.

So I don’t know quite what to make when I read about a new trial for Sunday openings. It is part of a three month pilot scheme to see if opening seven days a week can help traders battle the recession.

As the article suggests, the biggest problem will be publicising that it is now open on Sundays (partly why I thought I’d write about it on here of course!). It seems to have the backing of at least some of the traders, so as long as they benefit from it… In the meantime, I may pop down this weekend and try it for myself

I had a bit of a shock the other day after venturing into a supermarket without realising that they no longer gave out free plastic bags.

Apparently it’s been policy for a few weeks now, but being a visitor to the area, it totally threw me.

I was, of course, left with a few choices. I could simply put everything back in the trolley, push it out to my car, fill the boot up by hand and spend agonising minutes at the other end unloading it all. Or I could have bought the 5p bag that was available.

On principal, I went for the trolley/car option, although even I realised as I drove away how silly I’d been. For regulars of the shop, it has probably sunk in now, lessons have been learnt and everyone now takes their own bag. On the off-chance they forget, pushing the boat out and buying that 5p bag probably doesn’t break the bank.

So I dug around and found that there are many organisations across our region trying to achieve similar feats, and just in case you are interested, you can read how Oxfordshire County Council are lending a hand to make as many supermarkets in Oxford ”bag-free” here

Apparently 13 billion plastic bags are given out each year but I know other big chains are following M&S’s lead on the bag front. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of drilling it into people to ‘bring their own’. Either way, I certainly wouldn’t recommend the stubborn take-the-trolley-to-the-car approach, it takes ages…