The pictures for this week were taken during a brief trip to the UK, where we were going to watch my son’s first bodybuilding competition. Those pictures are elsewhere; what I show you here are (with one exception) pictures from Newport, where the competition took place, Cardiff, where we spent the following day, and Bath, where my son attends university.
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In Newport, we stayed in a rented apartment near the banks of the Usk River. The river at this point is tidal, no more than 1/2 mile from the sea. The photo shows it at “low tide.” At high tide it rises to the level of the mud line shown on the bank opposite. The wharf shown was used for unloading ships that came up on the high tide. At high tide the river is quite impressive with the water flowing back upstream for a number of miles:
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River, mud and bridge:
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Newport is not a fancy place by any means. This is across the street from the Dolman Theatre where my son’s competition was held. I found the disconnect between the sculpture and the businesses in the background visually interesting:
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A scene in the parking lot of our apartment in Newport. The little girl shows a high level of interest in feline anatomy:
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I decided to include one bodybuilding image in this set, but my son is not in it:
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The day after the competition we drove to nearby Cardiff, a city which I have visited before and which I like. There are statues in the shopping district, and seagulls everywhere:
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Seagull, Starbucks and KFC:
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Cardiff Bay is the old waterfront area, which is now full of restaurants and big buildings like this performance hall:
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Lines and curves:
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Sculpture commemorating merchant marine sailors who died in WWII:
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Remembrance:
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That evening, we drove back to Bath and spent the night in the house my son shares with 3 other students. Since they had already left for the summer, there was enough space for all of us. In the morning, I got up early and went for a walk in the neighbourhood. This is one of England’s and hence the world’s first railroads, built by Brunel in 1839-40. It connected Bath with Bristol and later London. When the line was built, Twerton was a separate village with its own station. Today it is just a rather non-posh part of Bath:
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Same railroad, different view:
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Local Twerton cemetery:
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Our last day in Bath was largely spent on shopping. The skies looked iffy at times, but it stayed dry. Note the ever-present seagulls, even though Bath is not on the coast:
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Seagull on the roof:
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Lucky seagull scored a slice of pizza:
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We ate lunch on the terrace of a restaurant near Bath Abbey and had a good view of the small square outside, where this couple seemed to be engaged in a making-out marathon:
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