Posted in Garden visits, Gardening, Gwent, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Gardening, Gwent, Wales on May 2, 2017| 9 Comments »
The western entrance to Belle Vue Park, Newport, South East Wales
Before I stopped working in Maesglas, on the western side of Newport, I made sure I visited nearby Belle Vue Park, which opened in 1894 and is a typical Victorian park with a pavilion and bandstand at the centre of wonderful trees, shrubs and Japanese-style plantings. (more…)
Posted in Garden shows, Gardening, Gwent, Non-digital archive, Nostalgia, Photography, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Gardening, Gwent, Nostalgia, photography, Wales on February 19, 2017| 14 Comments »
The red dragon of Wales at the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival in 1992
I can’t believe that 2017 sees the 25th anniversary of the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival that brought two million visitors to Blaenau Gwent in South East Wales.
The festival lasted six months, from May until October and transformed a derelict industrial wasteland into a blossoming landscape nearly two miles long. (more…)
Posted in Gwent, Nature, Street plants, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged flowers, Gwent, Nature on July 3, 2016| 22 Comments »
Yarrow or milfoil (Achillea millefolium) in the office car park, June 2016
For a few months now I have been working three days a week in an unprepossessing low-rise office on a small industrial estate in Newport, South East Wales, about 10 miles down the road from Cardiff.
I don’t go out much, as the weather has been wet and there isn’t a lot to see apart from corner shops, but the other day I found myself wandering around the car park in the sunshine, while on my mobile phone to someone. And I suddenly realised that the scruffy edges of the car park are full of wonderful wild flowers. (more…)
Posted in Gwent, History, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Gwent, History, Wales on February 23, 2016| 8 Comments »
The housekeeper’s room at Tredegar House
When I posted about the gardens of Tredegar House I did say I would come back to write about the interior of the mansion in Newport, South East Wales. I’m a bit reluctant now, as my pictures are a bit sparse and badly framed, but here goes anyway. (more…)
Posted in Garden visits, Gardening, Gwent, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Gardening, Gwent on January 26, 2016| 16 Comments »
Zinnia elegans in the gardens of Tredegar House in late September, 2015
You know how it is – you go to so many places in September that you suddenly find it’s January and there are autumn visits you haven’t had time to blog about yet. So I apologise that this post isn’t topical – although it is at least colourful during these dark, wet days of midwinter.
Tredegar House in Newport, south-east Wales, was taken over by the National Trust in March, 2012. Most of the red-brick house dates from the late 17th century but I will write a separate post about the house itself. This time I want to feature the plants in bloom in the gardens in September. (more…)
Posted in Gwent, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged Gwent on January 3, 2016| 10 Comments »
The Newport Wetlands on Boxing Day
Very heavy rain throughout December and over Christmas and the New Year here in South Wales means the weather hasn’t really been good for anything. We have been lucky to miss the flooding that has hit the North of the UK, but it has still been so miserable that it has put a damper (or dampener) on our seasonal gallivanting.
Usually we make it to West Wales, but this time the highlight was just the Newport Wetlands nature reserve on Boxing Day. (more…)
Posted in Birds, Gwent, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged birds, Blaenau Gwent on December 2, 2015| 6 Comments »
A tawny eagle (Aquila rapax) at the Ebbw Vale bird of prey sanctuary
Whenever we go to the Festival Park shopping centre in Ebbw Vale, Blaenau Gwent, we like to visit the owl sanctuary, which has now been there for 14 years. Although it’s called an “owl” sanctuary, it is home to about 60 different birds of prey, not just owls. Most of these poor creatures were bought as pets or gifts and then the owners decided they didn’t want them or couldn’t look after them properly.
The majority of the birds cannot be released into the wild as they were either bred in captivity or are native to far-off lands. (more…)
Posted in Gwent, History, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged architecture, Gwent, Monmouthshire, Usk, Wales on March 8, 2015| 7 Comments »
A winter day at the Priory Church of St Mary, Usk
On a day when winter was still cold and dank, we visited Usk in Monmouthshire. We sometimes go there for lunch at the Three Salmons Hotel, but we were early, so wandered more than usual. New to me was this little Priory Church of St Mary. New to me, but it has been there for 900 years.
Maybe it was the shade of the low winter sun, or the dark colour of the stones, but to me it looked a bit creepy, the sort of place (more…)
Posted in Gwent, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Gwent, Monmouthshire, Usk on March 4, 2013| 8 Comments »
A little lock-up in Bridge Street, Usk…
The small town of Usk has several blue plaques placed by the civic society but I hadn’t spotted this one before. Which is strange, as (more…)
Posted in Glamorgan, Gwent, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Glamorgan, Gwent, Monmouthshire, Wales on January 5, 2013| 7 Comments »
House sparrows in a bush, Tintern, December 23, 2012…
I’m back at work now after a long Christmas and New Year break, and I’m picking over the scraps of our midwinter wanderings. I regret that the weather was mostly very wet and dark, so I was mostly hard pushed to take pictures as a record of where we had been.
Although I have a couple of complete blog picture posts pending, there are lots of (more…)
The Squirrelbasket 