This dragon is called Pit Dragon Dai and is a miner to celebrate the coal mining history of the Welsh Valleys.  The artists are Beth Downing and Valerie Harding.

This one is called The City and the artist is Amelia Thomas.   Not sure if you’ll be able to see it properly on this photo but it has a funky cityscape painted on it.

The Council also installed these spherical fountains in the square.  I do like the reflections you get!

On the announcement of its coming, Newport Council desperately tried to improve the image of the city, and planned ambitious shopping centres and other developments to entice visitors into the town and away from the more appealing neighbouring cities of Bristol and Cardiff.  Residents suffered the upheaval of roadworks and building sites for months, nay, years; and just as it looked its ugliest, along came the recession and the mall developers went bust. 

To brighten up the place, over the last few months lots of decorations, flags and other colourful stuff has been appearing.  As well as this, lots of little Superdragons, painted by local artists and schoolchildren, are forming a trail around the town.  They are only here till 9 October and there are about 100 of them so I’ve decided to try and photograph them all over the next few months and post photos of them here.  Quite a lot are in the town centre so they will be easy to reach but several are on the outskirts too.

This one is called the Steel Wave Carousel (because it has a design of the red steel wave sculpture by the riverside) and is by Danielle Mayer.  It is standing outside the Civic Centre, just down the road from my house.

This is the wave – it was built to celebrate the steel industry which dominated Newport earlier this century.

This one is Scrum the Superdragon painted by Tim Harries.  It is in the main shopping street.

And this is the Wood Dragon, by Chris Wood. It is in the entrance to the library and museum.

According to the local council website, after the 10 week superdragons trail, many of the SuperDragons will be auctioned on October 27, with proceeds going to charities Tenovus, the chosen charity of Newport’s Mayor Cllr Bill Langsford and the Born Free Foundation. There’s a website about them and also a Facebook page where you can keep track of which have been, sadly, vandalised and removed temporarily for intensive care…

I like the new occupants of the city, even if they are only going to be around for a few months; they are a talking point and whenever I see them, there seem to be groups of people chatting about them, examining them and taking photos.   And the projects are encouraging local artists, local businesses.  Maybe that is the way forward for Newport; to build up local individual shops rather than trying desperately to attract big chain stores that you can see all over the country.  I for one would welcome that.

And if you really want to see what the city where I live is like, do watch this video – it’s a hoot!  And it’s going viral!  Every time I go on Facebook it seems to be there on people’s profiles and has even been picked up by the national press… Here is an article in the Daily Telegraph online

So… I decided that I really needed to buy one of those old lady gizmos which attach to your glasses and hang around your neck. I bought one which was pretty utilitarian and…. boring, really.  I remembered that I had loads of unworn necklaces and chains languishing unused in a drawer.  Eventually I found the right phrase to  Google – glasses chain findings – and a few minutes on Ebay sent a set of 10 winging its way to my door for the immense sum of £2.

Hey presto!  Just the thing!  (sorry about the gawky grin – or should that be owlish? – I took the photo myself) with the camera sort of held out in front of me…

Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos of us (or even just of her!) but you can see a little of what we did on her blog.

She kindly gave me this gorgeous purple silk scarf which she had dyed herself:

And here’s a pic of me wearing it, which I just took myself which is why I look a bit goofy!  Hmm, maybe I’ll use it for my Facebook photo for a change…  Doesn’t it go nicely with my jumper?

Some interesting spiky bits near the Abbey:

Lots of interesting brickwork….

Here is Pulteney Bridge, with shops built actually on it.

I thought some of the reflections were more interesting, providing a dreamlike quality:

The curves of the weir over the River Avon:

This is Laura Place with some of the very striking Georgian architecture:

Before I went, I downloaded an ipod walking tour from the Tourist Office website called In the Footsteps of Jane Austen.  This is Gravel Walk, which is actually following the footsteps of Anne and Captain Wentworth in Persuasion – the walking tour dramatised the relevant passage bringing it to life wonderfully.

This is the Circus – a circle of terraced houses.

And the river again…

I have also had a happy few evenings virtually walking round Stoke on Trent, where I grew up, and finding the streets (and possibly the actual houses) various ancestors lived in, with the help of the census records and a website which converts old street names in Stoke to their new equivalents.  In the 1950s lots of them were changed because the six towns which made up the city of Stoke on Trent had grown up independently and there were lots of duplicate street names, with resultant confusion.  Lots of High Streets, Albert Streets, Church Streets, etc!

Here are a few of the streets in Fenton, not far from where I lived until I was 11.  Fenton is the town that the 19th century novelist Arnold Bennett, in his novels about the Potteries, missed out, and who never forgave him for the omission.

This is Berdmore Street where my great grandmother, Minnie Simpson, was living before she was married:

John Swetnam, my 1st cousin 4x removed, lived somewhere in this street in 1871:

The husband of the half sister of my great great grandmother, Sarah Swetnam, lived in this house in Heron Street in 1901 (sadly Sarah died in 1883 but several of my first cousins 3x removed were there.)

William Brown, my second cousins 3x removed, lived in this street in 1891; then it was Peel Street, now Ramsey Street.  He was a mineral water carter.

Hope you enjoyed this little tour round one of the Potteries towns!