According to the South Wales Argus News paper HERE NEWPORT’s transporter bridge could join the Taj Mahal and Great wall of China as a World Heritage site.

Of course this is only if! A British bid for UNESCO recognition gets through.

Our Bridge is 105 years old! I think its fantastic what comes up with a quick google search

Simple stuff Like its a grade 1 historical structure, standing ~242ft (74m) above the River usk and was designed by a frenchman!

This is the best bit for me!  How many Bridges do you know of with it’s own fan club? yep ours does FONTB

I have some more of the bridge on my flickr, enjoy

Doug

Now I don’t know about your household, but in mine we have some basic rules about going to the beach or for a walk, or anything that involves us all going out as a family. Of course this varies from activity to activity; however in the main, most occur with frequent regularity.  Below is a list some of our rules from last weekend’s trip to Porthcawl;

Rule one. Only decide to go out at the last minute. For example last weekend although we had spoken about going to Porthcawl on Saturday (ok so it was because Doctor Who filming was spotted) we only decided that we were all going around 2pm on Sunday!

Rule two. No matter where you are going, always have three bags full of stuff with you. I am not fully sure what is in each bag or indeed if some of the stuff ever comes out of the bags, but we need them, so in the boot they go!

Rule Three.  Forget something, could,,, be your wallet or your phone, but the important thing no matter what you forget, you must only remember once you are far enough from the house to um and err  and discuss the merits of turning around to allow you to go a bit further to make it all the more annoying to have to go back.

Rule Four.  Now I know you’re going to say it’s an obvious one, but hey it’s still true. The moment you join the motorway, one of the Children will require the toilet.

Rule Five. On arriving at your destination, spend at least the first 20mins driving around looking for a car parking space 100yrds closer than the first one you spot.  Don’t forget Rule five (a) When you cannot find a space you go back to the perfectly good one, that is now full and spend another 5mins arguing before finding a space that’s much further away.

Rule Six. On getting the world out of your boot, suddenly remember something that would have been an excellent item to bring with you. Then spend the rest of your day etc., discussing the merits of said item and how perfect it would be right now.

Rule Severn. One of your Children will star running and fall over, and then scream, then demand to be carried the rest of the way.

Rule Eight.  The beach may be 10 miles wide; however one member of the group will find the dog mess with their right shoe. Again a sub Rule to this one is that a mad, often wet, often twice your size dog, will find you on the beach and either want to hump you or at least jump all over you.

Rule Nine. Your Children will start to pick up stuff, might be stones, seaweed or anything random and insist you collect them, bring them home even.  Anyone need some pebbles for their plant pots?

Rule Ten. Run, Run and Run some more. Make sure you get as much air into to those wonderful Children. You want them to sleep don’t you?

Rule Eleven. Spend way too much money not winning a teddy in the arcade.

Rule Twelve. It does not matter how cold it is, you have to buy ice cream.  Of course it has to get dropped and more tears will follow.

Rule Thirteen. The Children, no matter how hard you try, they will fall asleep on the way home. This means a nightmare for you when you are exhausted later, when they will be in party mode, again!

Rule Fourteen. When everything has returned to calmness, sit back with a cup of tea, install rest 2.0, put your rose glasses on and look forward to doing all again sometime very soon as you has such a great time.  Don’t forget at this point to make mental note about Rule Five for next time

What are your Rules?

I have been away this week, so this weekend I needed to get out and do some shooting.  No better time for this, The Ryder cup is on, so I was off to Cardiff.

You never know I might catch a celeb or two.  Also fitting into this excuse to go to town, was the AVForums photo competition with an October theme of ‘Shoot a Stranger’

For those that frequent AVF will know it can be tough. I did get runner up once!

Once the topic for the competition is decided, there is often some good banter on the theme, from how it will be interpreted, to how tough it will be.

This month from the off, it was clear that many will be out of their comfort zone. Not only because you have to go out into the street, pointing your camera at people that do not know you, but the fear of getting harassed by the Police, being accused of being a paedophile or worse (not sure what could be worse though) getting punched in the face.

Me? Well I am not normally bothered doing street! Today though, I wanted to do something that goes against the grain and pushed a few buttons! Gulp.

I was going to use my rather stand out like a sore thumb 70-200mm f2.8 IS L USM lens, for those not of the way, this is a rather big white lens that, well kind of, makes you, erm well not very conspicuous shall we say.  But rather using the long lens to snap in secret, nope, I was going to keep pointing it at people until they looked at me.  CLICK photo done!  What happened after each click, well I will get to that later

For now, enjoy this shot of Mr Angry! Who you will be happy to know walked on and did not punch me. Please do click on over to FLICKR and see the rest of my Set from a Saturday afternoon in Cardiff

Another Big Weekend! This time in Cardiff @ the Admiral Big one. More info HERE I was there for Sunday night headliners Athelete and Feeder. Both bands were good, however Feeder,  WOW! they rocked! See the rest of the set on my Flickr Page HERE

Do not forget!  if you would like to buy a print from any of my streams do get in touch, or if you want to use on your blog or Facebook (non comercial) either just link or keep my  logo intact, thanks for looking

One for the Ladies! JLS Marvin on stage During the Big Weekend at PontyPridd.

Find more photos From the Big Weekend, including JLS Roll Deep and the Telent that is Alex Gardner on my flickr page HERE

Supporting Leona on her tour Gabriella Cilmi was erm, well ok really. The sound was not great and that costume did nothing for her looks. For me the band looked out of place and as support acts go, it was not inspiring. She did do sweet about me, which was nice, as it’s the only one I think all of the audience recognised. If Climi is going to be successful, she in my opinion needs to move it up a gear!
Leona Lewis, was fashionably late not taking to the stage till almost 9pm, however when she did, it was to a raptures Welsh welcome. The True Welsh Girl looked extremely relaxed and if she is still feeling the recent pain of her break up, it was not showing as she belted out the first couple of songs.
Then she did something I personally am not a fan off which is to go off stage and play a song with her on the big screen, whilst on stage were the dancers. Don’t get me wrong they were good, but you’re paying to see Leona not watch her on a screen right! However when she returned she was wearing an amazing dress and that small moan you had went out the window. Leona could be forgiven for having a voice not at top notch; it is the end of the tour, but no! She was singing like the true world class act she has become since the X-factor made her a Star.
If you can get a ticket for her Last show tonight in Cardiff, do it, you will be treated to a wonderful performance by a confidant relaxed Diva, of course at home in Wales!
See Picture of Gabriella here

When they said they would have an extra special guest at the media launch for the Ryder cup ‘Welcome to Wales’ concert at the Millenium Stadium, it could only be one Star. Our very own Katherine Jenkins!

Jenkins will star next to Catherine Zeta Jones and Only Men Aloud during the televised event which takes place at the Millennium Stadium on 29th September two days before the tournament tees off in Newport.

Katherine told us she was going to have some golf lessons soon, in the mean time all the jurnos and other togs were more than happy to help her with her grip.

The Isle of Man TT 2010 is in full swing with over 40,ooo bike mad vistors, most on bikes themselves zooming around the Isle of Man.

So far it has been Ian Hutchinson’s TT with a Hat Trick of wins

I took this picture of Ian on the Padgetts honda during the Royal London 360 Superstock

I was on the outside of the track, just infront of the Pub on the grass. It was so hard to time them coming around the corner.

Of course I could hear them, but had to be ready for when they came flying around the corner!

Ian finished the race with not only the the win but the fastest lap 17 mins 18.91 secs  given an average of 130.741 mph

Lets hope the weather holds out, as I think the Snr race on Friday is going to be another cracker.

You can see the rest of the set HERE

For the past last 30+ years, the Village of Magor has had a Society called the Magor Churchmen
I am very fortunate to be a member of the Churchmen, continuing to keep the Spirit of Magor Village alive, whilst helping raise over £7000 worth of donations every year. I have been an active member since 2002. this year I have taken on the role of Treasurer.

Before you ask, I am not a Bible basher nor a massive fan of religion, The name of the Society dates back to its beginnings, although, today we still have a very positive connection with our local church, it is not the foundation of our Society, and we welcome both male, female and any person; Christian, Muslim or even Jedi. The only thing we ask, is that you want to support our village, with a desire to raise funds for local charities.

Each year we run four main events, May Fayre, Frost Fayre, Fireworks night and on Christmas eve we help Santa come early to a fair few hundred Children.

With it now May, we have just had our May Bank holiday Fayre. We raised over £1000 on the day for the Churchmen, and helped many others raise funds, for either they’re local business or Charity. It was an early start for us at 9am setting up stalls, closing the road and setting up our Famous Hog roast and the stage, aka an open sided lorry.
I took this picture of a very pretty girl having her face painted, in the gardens of the Papist Church, who also run an event on May day. For lots more pictures visit my Facebook  page.  http://bit.ly/9jYF1t

I was in the kitchen the other morning eating my breakfast, when I spotted this feller in the garden, looking a bit lost. I could see it had tags on its legs and looked a bit tidier than your average Pigeon, so I went out to investigate, of course with camera in hand.

Such a friendly Pigeon, He, well I say He! In the male sense, I am no fancier, so to keep it simple let’s say He is a bloke.

He was more than happy to be handled and walked about eating some bird food from our bird table. I took down the number and called the owner to be told if the bird was not sick, then let him carry on and rest, and phone back  if he was not gone in a few days.

Tatum thought it was fantastic, so we spent some time playing and watching our visitor, who stayed for three days.

This Picture, was just crying out to have a caption. Hope you like it.