Thank you ...........

Thank you for the comment left on the entry. 'A decision has been made ........'. It is appreciated. I didn't attend Tredegar Grammar school, but my sister did, so I will speak with her.

A small start!

This photograph was taken earlier in the week at Wentwood Forest.

My oldest friend telephoned last night to say she would be coming to visit next week. This always gives me huge pleasure, but more so this time as she still lives in Tredegar (we were school friends) and as I have made the decision to do some research work on the town she will be a huge help with memories and contacts. I would like to commence this way, rather than rely on someone else's work, good and factual though it may be, from the Internet. Also, I would like to explore and personalise memories. The history of the Chapel I attended (three times a Sunday!) for many years for example, and our schools and so on.

Well this is the plan! However for now, back to the present. Mrs. H, the lovely MS.A and myself are going out for the evening and I must get ready. Undoubtedly this will provide more to write about in due course!

Friends of ..........

I have written this week about 'Friends of Tredegar House' and 'Friends of the Transporter Bridge'. In my local nightly paper there is an advertisement this evening asking if any members of the public would like to become a 'Friend' of any of the municipal parks in the City?

Membership benefits include having your say as to how the parks are developed. Their aims and objectives are to encourage interest in the ornamental parks of the city and promote a wide range of educational and cultural activities.

I was a 'Friend' to my local Church & Churchyard where I worshiped some years ago. However, that was more geared to raising money, encouraging non practicing Christians to help look after the fabric of the Church (which everyone wants in tip top condition for when they do need it for weddings, baptisms and funerals etc.) even if they didn't attend regularly. I enjoyed that and saw it as a challenge and part of my Christian service to God, but parks.....I'm not sure!

For all you masses out there that are reading this Blog (Huh...I wish!) the contact address is: fnopmembership@googlemail.com

I have found the nightly paper quite informative this week. I had better review my thoughts on this once grand paper....... perhaps it is not such a 'rag' as I thought it had become!

Autumn Thoughts

The day has been wonderful weather wise today, after yesterday's damp, misty day the sun has been shining today, showing the autumn in all it's beauty. I sometimes feel melancholy this time of year. Another summer come and gone, no long periods of sunshine this year, and suddenly Christmas is on the horizon.

The clocks go back this weekend, so there are long dark nights ahead of us; but I always think that in eight weeks or so it will be the shortest day, the winter solstice, and then the nights will gradually get lighter as we travel forward to Spring

A Decision has been made .........

The photograph above is the Nye Bevan Memorial Stones, which were erected after his death, at Bryn Serth on the top of Sirhowy Hill in Tredegar where in years gone by he used to address his constituents. When there was a major event in the town he would come to Wales and stand just inside the town clock (too cold to stand outside!) with his wife, fellow socialist MP Jennie Lee. I spent many a night shivering away in the Circle with my Nanny Jones as she cheered and sang with the crowds while the Bevans looked on!

I have decided tonight that I will definitely do some research over the winter months of the history of Tredegar and surrounding areas. My mother's family were all Tredegar people and my father's family all from Ebbw Vale, another small industrial valley town situated about three miles, as the crow flies, from Tredegar. My parents were married in Tredegar and both my sister and I were born in Tredegar, so I feel a strong urge to know as much about Tredegar and Ebbw Vale as possible.

It probably will be more difficult than it sounds, but it will give me pleasure and satisfaction, and anyway, who said life was easy?

My Personal Roots Chat ...

After posting the previous Blog on the Cholera cemetery in Tredegar, of which I have much more information now, I thought that I needed to address the balance for the good folk who still live in Tredegar.

The picture above is the Town Clock situated in the Circle and Tredegar's most famous attraction. Symbolic of the heart of the town, standing 72 feet high, it's what most people know Tredegar for. Of course, as I have mentioned before, the towns most famous son is Nye Bevan and therefore the birth of the NHS is attributed to Tredegar. It also boasts a whole ton of coal all in one piece, a very ornate band stand, the lovely Bedwellty Park and the much more recent Bryn Bach Park and lake.

Sadly the town centre itself has become quite run down as big supermarkets move ever closer and have forced the traders out. I don't know why this has been so prolific in Tredegar as neighbouring towns such as Blackwood and Ebbw Vale have not suffered such a devastating effect.

I have become quite interested in Tredegar's history in recent years and have decided that I will find out more about it as a small research project for the winter months.

Undoubtedly there will be more to talk about on Blogger!

Something I didn't know about........

............... Tredegar, my home town!

I read tonight in the local paper that the largest of the two cemeteries in Tredegar, the Cefn Golau cemetery, was originally the Cholera Cemetery for the county. It was in a small section of the paper called 'Past Times'. I simply chanced upon it.

Tredegar is 24 miles away from this City where I live now and I thought I knew most of what there is to know about my home town. Yet it seems that this isolated site, set on the bleak mountainside in Tredegar is one of the most evocative sites in the South Wales Valleys.

Mortal remains of at least 200 people who were cholera victims are buried there. The article says...

There were two major cholera epidemics in Tredegar, the first in 1832 and another one in 1840. There was a smaller outbreak in 1866. There are still 26 gravestones standing, surrounded by broken fragments of many others. Cefn Golau Cemetery is a scheduled ancient monument and is protected by law.

Well, I never knew that! I wonder if my Aunt, who died aged 96 years earlier this year, new about this. She, like me, was a valley girl in her youth. I feel another photo opportunity coming on! I simply must do that.

Mr Jaguar!

Yesterday I went out to lunch again with a friend who has now been nick named (by my friend Miss L) ...... Mr. Jaguar. -Why?..... because he owns two Jaguar cars and I never know which one he is going to turn up in!


The lunch was lovely and so was the car, a hard top car yesterday, not as nice an experience as the soft top one when we had the hood down, but very nice all the same. He asked me if I wanted to buy this one as he is thinking of selling it. I laughed all the way home!!!

Second Severn crossing.......

I couldn't write about the Severn bridge (see previous Blog entry) without mentioning the second Severn crossing pictured above.

Just like the Aust-Beachley ferry the original Severn bridge eventually became swamped by the level of traffic using it over the years and was unable to cope with congestion efficiently.

Planning on a second Severn crossing commenced in 1986 but it was to be another six years before the second bridge was opened. In 1996 Her majesty the Queen opened the second Severn crossing situated just downstream from the original bridge. To date both bridges are servicing the traffic from England into Wales ( and vice versa) efficiently and are now part of our everyday lives.

Before the bridge.

The pictures above, which I took last week, are the jetty of the old Aust Ferry with the original Severn bridge in the background and the toll gate where the foot passengers paid their toll. This ferry closed in 1966 when the Severn bridge opened and has just been left to rot and decay.

The ferry was the only way to get across to Wales unless you drove 50 miles around Gloucester, a terrific distance in the 1940's and 50's, to access Wales that way. This small ferry operated between Aust on the English side of the river Severn and Chepstow on the Welsh side where it was generally known as the Beachley ferry after the small village where it docked.

There were three ferries working and the largest carried just 17 vehicles! The distance is just over a mile and the tides run swiftly there. During the summer months cars had to queue for hours to get on the ferry and there was a school of thought it was quicker to 'drive around' than to queue up. By the 1960's the Beachly-Aust ferry was swamped.

The Severn bridge had been a decade in the planning stage. The idea of a bridge across the Severn had been a dream for many years, but it took modern technology to solve the foundation problems. When it was finally opened by Her Majesty the Queen in 1966 it's span was the seventh largest in the world.

While were were photographing all this history my friend recalled queueing for the ferry on a school trip in the 1950's and dropping a half crown ( a huge amount of money then) down through the planks. We had a quick look to see it it had surfaced over the years but alas ....... no luck!

'Up and Running' ...........

The picture above is a photograph of the alter at St. David's chapel at Llantony Abbey mentioned in my Blog entry earlier today and taken yesterday in the Black Mountains.

I have now had my 'lost' files restored....I think I have most of them anyway...

I may even try to redesign my Blog page now that the 'add a gadget' section is working. I wish I could say that I learned a lot from what was done for me this evening, but sadly most of it went over my head. I explained this to the person who was helping me out and she commented that it is unlikely I will need to know anything this complicated again. Let's hope so!

A Helping Hand!

For all I have said earlier in this Blog, I managed to talk my cousin (on the phone) through finding an address through Google and how to put something in 'My Favorites'. It's a funny old life, I didn't know those things myself not so long ago. It's a nice feeling when you can help someone else. Keep going cousin W!

Frustration and Thought!

How can a reasonably intelligent person not get a 'knowledgeable grasp' of the basics of computer technology ? My sister says it's because we all have different strengths and weaknesses or because I, like her, don't have the kind of mind that can sit for hours on end assimilating stuff that is in the main surplus to requirements. Maybe a bit of both. The methods and devices used in this particular field are beyond me. So much so I have been seeking help from wherever I can get it on the liberation of my files from the old folders to the new!

To this end, I had to go and weigh in at Weight Watchers this morning rather than this evening as yet another person is coming to help me with this computer thing tonight. I have lost 2lbs again this week. This is incredible that I have lost nearly a stone in just over a month, but I was warned this morning that it WILL slow up from here on in. My difficulty is that when this happens, I will need to sustain the equilibrium to continue with the eating programme and not get despondent.

Mmmmm........easier said than done!

Stress & The Black Mountains.

This photograph was taken in the chapel of St. David at Llantony Abbey and added to the Blog after the text, and after my Pictures were restored to my computer.

This afternoon my friend Ms A and I went for a drive through the Black Mountains. I needed to get away from my immediate problem, the computer, and Ms. A just needed a different environment. I can empathise with that.

As we drove through the magnificent countryside we talked; although she is recently widowed and I am divorced, there are a lot of similarities in the aftermath. The same rejection (one case because he left and the other because he died and left anyway) the same hurt, the wishing that you could enjoy self esteem and be confident calm and relaxed again. Still believing in the Power of Positive Thinking and wanting to gain control of your emotional life and move beyond your disabling emotions, but underestimating the power of the sub conscious mind.

The small Chapel of St. David at Llantony caused me to reflect on the peace on this earth, it's not all tumult. When we moved on we got a cup of coffee in the small bar that used to be the cellars for the Abbey and my spirits began to lift. We then travelled through the wonderful Black Mountains to Hay-on-Wye where we had a very late lunch of Mediterranean fish stew. WOW! If I could eat like that all the time I wouldn't need Weight Watchers! It was fantastic.

When we got back to the City we both felt better for our afternoon out. Ms A. went home and me ....back to the computer for the stress to build up again!

Technology - Ugh!

I have been offline for the last four days! A 'Windows' update was trying to load itself onto my computer and therefore slowing it down to 'almost non exsistant' mode. I loaded it eventually (taking two and a half hours) and then the computer would not re-boot. A trip to the computer specialists was required. Fortunately they are just around the corner from where I live, but it was still a pain to have to disconnect it all, take it around (it was heavy!) and then be without it while it was repaired. I then asked them to phone me when it was ready ...they didn't ... I chanced upon it by calling in and asking where they were at with the repair! I duly paid over £40, got it home to find they had taken all my data and stored it somewhere else, so I now have to find out where it all is and somehow put it back where it is suppose to be!

Now I am not the greatest at this kind of thing so it could take quite a while. Well ....it will keep me out of mischief for a few days!!!

At least now my 'Add a Gadget' window is working..........YES! What I have to do next is find my photos! Ah....life's a challenge!

A moan about my Landlord!

At Easter my cold water tap in the bathroom seized up. I duly reported it to my Landlord, a nice young man of about 28 years old, and he mumbled something at me about not being a plumber. Since then several people have had a look at this tap and offered various opinions. Last week when I was feeling pretty peeved at an unrelated matter, my Landlord rang about something else and he got the full storey again, chapter and verse, about the damn tap!

He rang yesterday and said he would be around to assess the matter at 5.pm this evening. Sure enough he came on the dot! He then proceeded to shrug into some overalls and started to do the job himself there and then. Boy was I glad the taps were being done! No more cleaning my teeth in the bath tub with my back seizing up if I was down there too long!

It is now 6.45 and he is still up there. Anyone who has ever tried to diet seriously will know that if you get too hungry you will end up eating more than you planned. As I write I have no water, no heating, a lounge full of junk from under the stairs where he needs to go to get access to the stop cock and I am starving! What price my diet tonight I wonder? B-----y men!

Photo scanning!

I have resumed my photo scanning programme today, but after I had finished the chores. No ducking and diving between the two like last week! Being a photographer of many years standing, albeit not digital, I have thousands of photographs. This job is going to be a long one as predicted.

The picture above is the Transporter Bridge, an aerial ferry that spans the river Usk and is situated about half a mile from where I live. I see it every time I drive out of my street, so thought it fitting for this Blog! I have literally dozens of photos of it but this one was taken with my new camera.

It is a Grade 1 listed structure and it's historic importance stems from it's unusual design. Sadly I cannot write that it was designed by a Welshman because it wasn't. The chap who designed it was French, Ferdinand Arnodin.


I know very little else about it's history only that it was commissioned in 1902 and completed in 1906 and was opened by Viscount Tredegar (the Morgan family again ...... from Tredegar House). The bridge celebrated it's centenary in September 2006, my son and grandson when to the 'jollies' and said it was good fun.


When I first came to Newport from the Valleys I would hear people under stress say 'I'm going to jump off the Trannie'.........I didn't have a clue what they meant, but was quickly 'filled in' on the local slang. Due to it's height and breadth sadly some people, who were obviously ill, climbed to the top of the structure and jumped off....... thus the saying! The slang continues in this City to this day!

As with Tredegar House there is a group of people called 'Friends of the Transporter Bridge' they are getting a lot of media coverage locally at the moment to try to pressure the City Council to speed up the repairs to the bridge and reopen it, as their repair contract has overrun by almost nine months. This group of people are a Registered Charity and dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the Transporter Bridge. Long may they continue.

You have to laugh.....

Settling down with my local evening paper I came across an advert for Valentines Day.... We are barely in mid October and there it is in a large block advert 'Valentine's Weekend' ......Book Now!


I had to smile....does this mean I have missed Halloween, Bonfire night, Christmas and New Year?

It has to be up there with Christmas cards on sale in July?

Financial Crisis

Chatting with a friend this morning on the telephone we got talking about the UK financial situation. We were wondering how it effects us directly, what to do with savings and the cost of living etc. I have to admit I don't have a financial mind, managing my own affairs is a challenge to me!


The way I understand it is the tax payer is bailing out the banks, this week alone to the tune of £37 billion for three of the UK's biggest banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds/TSB and Britain's biggest mortgage lender the Halifax. My friend and I went on to discuss whether we should move our savings and the answer is we are unsure as no one seems to know which bank/building society is a safe bet.


The press tell us that we should never have been in this mess in the first place but your average 'Joe Public' does not know about the problems within the banking institutions until there is a crisis.


What I think for what it is worth, is that if no lessons have been learned from this then it is only a matter of time before it happens again.

Weight Watchers - Week 4

Another 2 and a half pounds. I am well pleased with that! I expect it will tail off a bit now as my body adjusts to less food, but still, to shed over 11 lbs feels good.

Computer Tuition

This is a picture from my visit to Tredegar House yesterday. It was such a super day weather wise that all the pictures I took came out very well.


The weather today is as lousy as it was great yesterday, so I stayed in and had a computer lesson. Miss L came down and we got through quite a lot. I am a bit intimidated and confused by computers and find the traditional manuals are overloaded with technical details. I am not exactly dumb on these issues, but find PC hardware, software and indeed all the vocabulary associated with computers make me feel helpless ... and I am not the most patient person in the world, which doesn't help!


I learned many things today, but tonight before I go to bed I have to set the computer to De-fragment. It reorganises pieces of files that are on your hard drive so the drive can access them more easily....I think! Anyway it will all happen when I am sleeping as it takes a good few hours. Only one issue we cannot resolve, and that is on this programme actually. We have to email Japan to find out how to correct an issue on Blogger. Friends who have friends with oodles of knowledge is essential!


Off to Weight Watches now.....I am always full of self doubt at this point!

This Slimming Business!

I have decided to stay with Weight Watchers and go tonight and be weighed at the same place on the same scales.

If I change now as I was going to, then a different scales might show a different weight and so on. Why alter something that is working? So, Weight Watchers it is then...6.30 tonight. Watch this space!

Tredegar House

I feel Autumn has really arrived. Another beautiful day greeted me as I opened the kitchen door this morning. It was super. I had planned to do the housework today while listening to 'The Archers' on Radio 4, this has become my Sunday morning ritual! However, as the day was so glorious I decided to go out with my camera instead.


This gloomy City is surrounded by beautiful landscapes strangely enough, but I decided on a local venue Tredegar House. When I got there, the Heritage Centre and Gift Shop have closed for the winter. I knew the house was closed but thought there might still be someone about to chat to in the out buildings, who would refresh my knowledge of the history of the house, but it was not to be.


What I remember from 'Homework' days when the boys were in school, is that the mansion is 17th Century, designed in Charles the second architecture. Originally owned by Henry Morgan (Later Lord Tredegar), it stayed in the family until they left in 1951. It then became a school for 23 years before being purchased by the then Newport Borough Council in approx. 1976.



There are a group of people in the City who are 'Friends of Tredegar House'' and their sole task is to raise money to furnish the house with all it's original furnishings, or at least those that they can track down and buy back. They have bought much of the furniture back from America and other parts of the world. Many of the rooms are now completely restored and reflect the rise and fall of the Morgan family through time. Henry Morgan's claim to fame is the he was a Pirate! Hmm... must have been some money in it!


I have been around the house a few times, but not for many years. However, it is the 90 acre park I went to see today as I wanted to use the camera. The picture above is of the lake. There were a pair of swans who swam over to see if I had any food and their rapidly growing cygnets were with them.. This provided a wonderful photo opportunity, and I was at just the right angle to get the reflection from the sun on the water. The park and woodland walks are open all the year around from 9.am till dusk, so there were plenty of people about.


As well as taking the photographs, it was another opportunity for exercise! I have to go and weigh tomorrow night, so I am doing all the right things......... while I am still keen!

An Anglican Community

A wonderful autumn day again today. I took my recently widowed friend Ms A. from the city to the convent near Monmouth for Holy Eucharist. We met another friend of mine there and the three of us went to the daily communion service.


The convent is set in beautiful, extensive grounds where the nuns live a contemplative life of prayer. As we were early for the service and I had taken my friend for peace and reflection we wandered around the grounds in comparative silence. I watched as one of the nuns went about her daily duties outdoors and tried very hard to place myself within the lives of these people. I couldn't. They live their lives based on silence and solitude giving themselves totally to God. What inner strength they must have.


I watched later on as we were passing the Peace in the chapel and the look of joy on the faces of the nuns as they passed the peace with each other showed their love of God and their contentment within their own lives.


As Christians we endeavour to live as good a life as we can, but these people under monastic vows, are as pure in heart as any I am likely to see in my lifetime. What a privilege it has been to be introduced to this community.


The gardens there offer the own particular gifts of peace and beauty (see picture above) where to walk there offers solitude and gives a person time for reflection.


This is an elderly Order and when their time on earth is over these nuns will leave a huge void in the local communities and neighbourhoods in which they live; also to those who have been privileged to worship there and who they have touched in their simplicity.

My Friend!

My friend Miss L has just emailed me a picture (above) of the car I went out to lunch in yesterday. Now the reason for this is unclear. Maybe she thought I had forgotten what it looked like or maybe thought I wanted to remind myself of a nice lunch or maybe, just maybe, she wanted to have a peek at it on the Internet to see what she was missing.

Whatever the reason, I was very pleased to receive it and shall keep it in my photos folder. Thank you Miss L.

Isn't it a good thing we can tease our friends? I'll get some stick for this!!!

Green Tesco's!

I went to Tesco's today to do the weekly shop. The local press have been all agog this week regarding the newly passed planning application for a new Tesco store on the site which will be one of the 'greenest' in the country. Tesco's is just around the corner from me so all the locals have been following this saga with interest. The existing 400 or so jobs will be saved and another 250 created which is good for this City as there have been a lot of factory closures the last few years. Good old Tesco, home grown British firm, bringing employment and opportunity to this small industrial City.


The press tells us that there will be 16 concessionary units in store which could be used by hairdressers, Banks, gift shops, coffee houses etc. This will give further opportunity for people to obtain a franchise.


The new stores environmentally friendly features will include rainwater recycling and roof level glazing for natural lighting and so on. If this is the case then this is bound to cut the carbon emission. Everyone is quite excited, well almost everybody, the local small shop keepers are not to thrilled!


The only thing I hope is that their petrol station will be a 'Drive-In' like Asda has. At the moment if you want to get petrol at Tesco, they have 'Pay at the Pump' system which is awful for people like me, who put their cards in the wrong slot, press the wrong button, forget about my Club Card and generally cause mayhem, thereby giving up and going to queue in the Kiosk, forgetting to note what number pump I am at and getting back to the car trying not to look at the person behind who is scowling at me, barely controlling his contempt. So I go to Asda to save myself this embarrassment ....drive in, fill up, drive over to the Kiosk and pay... there simple. Come on Tesco... don't provide a wonderful 'Green' modern store to suit the environment and retain an archaic system for getting fuel!

A Fabulous Lunchtime.

I went out to lunch with a friend. We met at a newly opened pub in the city and CM thought it was charmless with no atmosphere. He suggested we could do better and suggested Cardiff Bay!!! I have written about this before and considered it to be far more charmless that where we were; However, I agreed to just go to have a ride in his new car! He has just bought a brand new Jaguar XK8 with a soft top. WOW!


We went right over the other side of the Bay to where I was on my last visit and went to a five star hotel for a light lunch. It had to be light because of my Weight Watchers commitment! I am not going to say I have changed my mind about Cardiff Bay because I haven't, but I certainly saw the other side of the Bay (literally).


To walk off our lunch we walked to the Norwegian Church (Pictured above). It is the former Norwegian Sailors Church and is one of the landmark buildings in Cardiff Bay. Since 1992 it has been a cultural venue and has a wide and range of art exhibitions, today's was modern art, also concerts are held there so I am told. It has a small coffee shop, which we were too full from lunch to avail ourselves of, where you can sit outside and look at the only natural waterfront of the Bay.


The day was a surprise and, as unplanned things always are, turned out to be super. It was only later on the drive back home I realised that the hotel where we had eaten was the St. David's Hotel where Madonna has recently stayed (on three floors) when she kicked off her UK tour. It's a long time since I have had this kind of classy experience, not since my marriage went pear shaped, best I don't get too used to it!

Introducing exercise!

My neighbour P. across the road called and ask if I would like to go for a walk this afternoon. I readily agreed as the swimming alone is not enough to burn up the amount of calories I need to.


The day is lovely, some cumulus clouds and lots of sunshine. We walked briskly for two miles, about as far as my arthritic knee would allow, but it was easier than the last time we did that walk....although that was Christmas eve!


These forms of exercise, although not terribly strenuous, keeps me busy and makes me feel good. It gives me a great sense of achievement and I feel like I have more energy the following day. It also helps me if I have a bad day. As long as my knee holds up, I am all for walking. Long may it reign!

Tommy Scott & the Senators

I was just checking my emails before going to bed and I found that my friend Miss L had sent me a recording of a radio programme through iplayer. It was an interview with Tom Jones.

When I was a girl I used to go down the valley on the bus to the next town and bop the night away in the Working Men's Institute (the 'Stute). The main attraction was Tommy Scott and the Senators, the guy that we all now know as Tom Jones.

I was delighted with this interesting interview as he mentioned his wife Linda, which he rarely does, and was quite candid about their relationship. I remember, she was always at the venue when he was playing, a blond beehive hair 'do' and a slip of a thing then....like us all I suppose. For all his years living in the USA he still has his Welsh accent, he has a stronger accent than I have, and I have never lived outside the UK! Good on you Tom!

St Ann's Well (The Virtuous Well)

Another very wet day. I decided to carry on with my photo sorting project, it's going to be a mammoth task! I came across some work (photographs) I took when doing my photography exams and this one above was one of them.


The Virtuous well was once known as St. Ann's well and was famous for it's cures. It is said to be four springs, three of them containing iron and each curing a different illness. Its niches held cups and offerings and there were also stone seats once situated there for travellers. It used to be a place of pilgrimage. The Well had been a significant religious site for many centuries before 1689, however little is known about the present structure.


To photograph it for my project I had to lie flat on my 'tum' in the field and inch closer on all fours if I wanted to get different angles as this horse-shoe shaped structure is partly sunken into the meadow. I hope there was no one watching!


I shall pack my project away for today, whilst coming across all sorts in these boxes, I am not exactly getting upset, just nostalgic for a life that is past, so time to call it a day!

41 years..............

Today my eldest son, pictured above, is 41 years old. That means it is 42 years since I first came to this City as a young wife just out of my teens. I can hardly believe where the years have gone.

It wasn't all romantic and exciting, although there was a certain amount of that there obviously, some of it was hard for a girl of just 20 years old. I was homesick, my Welsh valley home being a huge 25 miles away....and in those days it might as well have been Timbucktoo, the young wives in Newport laughed at my Welsh valley accent, I missed working, new mums didn't go out to work then, husband number 1 was working all hours so that we could pay the mortgage and I was lonely.

I asked myself this morning would I do it all again and the answer is yes, otherwise I wouldn't have my two boys, but maybe I would do a bit more growing up before making that kind of commitment if I had my chance again.

Happy Birthday NJ...you still mean the same to me now as you did then.

Weight Watchers - week 3

I have just come back from Weight Watchers and I have lost 5lbs! Yes, 5 lbs....... That is more than last week. That is 9 lbs in 2 weeks, I can hardly believe it, all by following their eating plan. I am thrilled to bits!

Photo hunting.

This morning I decided to hunt through what photos are available to me (most still in the loft after my move from my marital home) to find a photo of my paternal grandmother to 'even things up' on my blog. I came across many photos past and present and very many from the days when I was married. I surprised myself I was not upset!

However, I found this one of a colliery wheel. As a girl growing up in the Welsh valleys this was the view from my bedroom window, as we lived just a mile or so from Ty-Tryst Colliery which was situated opposite my family home. It is the wheel that runs the mining cage that takes the miners to the bottom of the coal face to work and the same cage brings them back up at the end of their shift. Of course there are no mines left in Wales nowadays and you will not see sights like this in the Welsh valleys in 2008. This photograph was taken at the one remaining pit face which has been turned into a mining museum at Blaenavon and extremely popular with tourists.

Blaenavon is just fifteen miles from the City where I live and will be featured shortly on the new series on BBC Wales 'The Coal House'. This series, which followed modern families from 2007 living and working as they would have done in the 1930's, and was very popular in Wales. The new series will follow families in the same cottages (another museum in Blaenavon) working in the pits and coping with life during the second world war. Different families are taking part, as the first set of families declined the offer to do it again. Who could blame them?

This marvellous documentary takes months to make and will be shown shortly on BBC1 Wales. I was a big fan of the first series and will be watching the second series with as much avid interest as the first.

I still haven't found the photograph I was looking for this could be a long job!

Solo Cinema

On this wet October Sunday afternoon I decided to go to the cinema by myself. It is not the first time I have done it and it won't be the last. There is a sense of determined independence about it.

I went to see Brideshead Revisited. The book, written by Evelyn Waugh, was serialised on television over 11 weeks back in 1981. I did not see that adaptation and have never read anything by Evelyn Waugh so though I would fill in this gap in my literary education by seeing the film version of the book.

I have read and heard so much about this landmark in TV history back in 1981 I was not expecting to be disappointed. The storey centres on Charles Ryder, a poor but educated Paddington painter who is drawn into the aristocratic world of the Marchmain family and their particularly severe brand of Catholicism. It is a story of passion, scandal and tragedy set in London in the 1880's that doesn't quite get off the ground. Unlike The Forsyte Saga by Galsworthy which kept me on the edge of my seat when that was televised, this storey was pale by comparison.

There are two issues here for me, one being I know the storey of Brideshead Revisited and won't be rushing to read much more of Evelyn Waugh and secondly, and more importantly, I am gaining in strength and independence and not as afraid of life on my own as I used to be. That counts for a lot for this little girl from Tredegar who has never lived on her own before now.

Weather stops play!

This is a piece of driftwood down on the Lighthouse Road not far from where I live. It was one of the first digital shots that I did. My friend Miss L and I were going out with cameras this afternoon, but by the time we had eaten our lunch it was raining hard and we had to postpone, so I thought this might remind us of what we couldn't achieve this afternoon!

I had some more computer lessons and had some things explained to me, that if things don't work it is not necessarily my fault. We think there is a fault on Blog spot this weekend. Neither of us can post photographs on the right hand side of our Blogs. I have been berating myself that I am doing it all wrong, but seems I am not. That's me all over....no confidence in myself.

We went to visit some other friends of mine instead, Mrs H and the lovely Ms A, it was nice to see my friends altogether.

Our photo session will have to wait for better weather, but one of the daily papers said not to hope for an Indian summer in October that we are more likely to get snow and bitterly cold weather. It is not April so it can't be an April Fool, that means it probably will be so. Ugh.....for such a beautiful country why is the weather so rotten?

A change of Slimming club?

I am considering changing my slimming club. After two weeks I am finding this watching points a bit stressful. The problem arises when you are hungry and under pressure to convert calories to points. When a person is stressed we release a hormone called cortisol, which encourages our bodies to store food around the middle. This I do not need.

I have looked at Slimming World online and they produce a good old fashioned diet sheet, advising what to eat for breakfast, lunch and supper. This I can cope with.

I need to continue with the weight loss programme as I am not as active as I might be due to an arthritic knee, but if I am to continue and not give in to comfort food then I have to follow something I can understand totally. Planning a week's menu ahead and organising my shopping list would really help, not wandering around Tesco's wondering how certain foods converts to points. Hmmmm........I will sleep on it.

Pause for thought

I had a telephone call this afternoon from a local prison asking me if I would like to return to the voluntary work that I did for 21 years. It stopped me short in my tracks because I had never considered returning to that line of work.


It is an interesting role and can be extremely rewarding. Volunteers to join the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) are drawn for members of the general public. Appointed by the Secretary of State. IMB members act as independent observers of all aspects of a prison regime and as such have access at all times to the prison to which they are appointed. The work is voluntary and unpaid.

I must admit I was very tempted to accept the offer. Then I thought about the huge responsibility and exactly what is involved. Having to be satisfied regarding the treatment of prisoners, the state of the prison premises and the facilities available to prisoners to allow them to make purposeful use of their time. Reporting matters of concern to the Governor and when necessary to the Secretary of State. Then there are their personal problems and those of the staff, all which is in the remit of an IMB member. That is before you are requested to attend adjudications as a visiting magistrate, as and when these days, as a lot of them are now done internally by staff.


Then I thought about why I left. Lack of enthusiasm in the end, the huge time commitment involved and constant and wearing comments from those around you, friends and family, about 'the soft option' in prisons and how they are like hotels etc, and you get tired of answering the criticism. Anyone who has ever been inside a prison knows there is no such thing as a 'soft option'. They can be dreadful places, many Victorian buildings, which no matter how you try to improve them, still are just that. Old, impractical buildings and usually smelling of food or urine, no decent habitat for a human being.


So the answer must be NO. Let someone else, someone younger with all the enthusiasm and commitment that I once had have a go now. With good communication skills and the ability to assess situations and draw conclusions, build relationships with both prisoners and staff, a really committed person could do the job very well. Anyone with a marked reluctance to do these tasks would not be suitable.


My decision maybe not to return, but there is a certain envy for people just starting out in the role. It gave me such huge satisfaction in my life and it has been a sad personal loss to leave it behind.

19th Century Miss Jones

The picture on the right titled 'The Original Miss Jones' is not strictly correct. It is in as much as I used the name for my 'Blog Handle' after this lady, but she was not the first Miss Jones in my living memory. Her mother was Miss Jones (before my time) and married a Jones therefore becoming Mrs. Jones as did two of her three sisters. This is where I get the interest in the name from....all this Jones family history. We lived with nanny Jones (above), she was the matriarch of our family, a formidable lady, who one went out of their way not to cross, including me as a child and teenager!


The definition of the surname Jones is 'Son of John' (God has favoured or gift of God). It is the most common surname in Wales. The origin of the surname is Welsh, however Johnson is a common English version of this name.


I am thinking of researching family history this winter, but I don't think it will be this side of the family as Jones might be too confusing to research as the above information shows. I will probably research my own maiden name, fairly uncommon therefore easier to trace I should imagine.


A few years back, when my marriage broke up I thought about changing my surname to Jones, but life and circumstance got in the way and I didn't do it, now I have lost the urge, along with some of the bitterness toward the sudden ending of my marriage, and I guess it will now never be, that is largely why I choose it for my Blog.

I choose the above picture for today to remind me of warmer days, and of what few sunny days we had! The last two days have been quite cold, although sunny. Life has been quite hum-drum here. I went shopping with a friend yesterday. While she was paying for her purchases I was looking at training shoes. I thought maybe I could get fitter by walking a bit more and might invest in a pair. The trainers I was looking at had a reflexology bar in the centre of a curved sole that creates a rocking motion so your heels and toes can't touch the ground at the same time! Hmm....The assistant assured me that you feel like you're rolling, but it actually strengthens your core muscles. Then I asked the price...... '£129' was the reply. Needless to say they are still on the shelf!


Today I simply had to clean the house, although I freely admit it was a bit of a pathetic attempt as I found some old photos and started looking for a photograph of the original Miss Jones. I don't have a lot of willpower and although the housework was eventually finished, it was punctuated all the morning with looking out old photos, and took twice as long as it needed to.


As I said, a mundane few days. Maybe something exciting will happen tomorrow!