Goodbye and Hello!

Having had several emails from followers of missjonesonline.blogspot.com I thought I would post a thank you message to say thanks for your kind comments and best wishes for continued success with missjonesjournal.

Keep following, you will either be bored or amused if nothing else!

Ponypool Jazz Festival

On Friday I was invited  to the Pontypool Jazz festival. When I heard that the marquees had been abandoned, after being washed away three years ago (the whole Festival was a wash out that year apparently) I was disappointed, but I needn't have been so. It was brilliant, even though it all took place indoors.


This years Festival has a 'Jazz from Wales' theme and showcases the tremendous number of hugely talented Welsh-born and Welsh-based jazz musicians. The singer in the second half was a young girls called Alicia Hooper, it seems her dad is the well known Welsh jazz musician Dennis Hooper. She sang the Amy Winehouse number 'Valerie' brilliantly and there were loud called for an encore, even from the friend I was with, who doesn't get excited about much! There was an encore of course, and we all left Pontpool park on a high. If that was the first night, I am sorry I can't make the rest of the weekend!

Transporter Bridge, Newport

The river Usk taken from mid-crossing

On our way up they valleys yesterday, I decided to take my friend as a foot passenger on the Transporter bridge. She had photographed it last year when it was being refurbished, so I thought she might like to see how the work had panned out! I have been over twice since it re-opened, thus the photos. However this was not to be yesterday!

The SDR bridge taken from mid-crossing.

A man, from London, dressed as the Incredible Hulk had scaled the iconic landmark and unfurled a banner. The banner then became entangled in the workings of the bridge gondola and it had to be closed for safety reasons.

Newport's iconic Transporter Bridge.

Well, a worthy cause I am sure, but the police time and disruption to the newly refurbished landmark isn't really worth it, as it will be old news tomorrow and he ends up in court. What message does then send to the person he wants custody or justice from?

The Cholera Cemetery, Tredegar.

 I paid my third visit to the Cholera Cemetery in Tredegar today. I took a friend of mine with me as I have been promising to take her for some time. She, like me, found it an emotional, lonely and evocative place.

I have blogged about this before on missjonesonline.blogspot.com so I won't repeat myself, but I will post a poem that I wrote after my first visit there some two years ago.

The Cholera Cemetery

-six standing gravestones visible. The rest have fallen with the winds of time or stray animals which, until relatively recently, were allowed to roam the moors and disturb them. The graves are now fenced in and only sheep are allowed to graze there to keep the grass and heathers at an acceptable length.

May their souls rest in peace and rise in glory.

The Cholera Cemetery

Lying like coffins,
granite grey and worn.
Headstones, where words,
once engraved,
have faded now.
While others,
swathed in moss.

Shaped like coffins. Broken in two.
Unkempt, uncared for.
Forgotten.
Erased from social order,
stigmatised in death, as in life.

Bleak, hard, lonely place,
apart from society
and conscience.
Only a secular burial,
prompt and impersonal.
Shunned by humanity.

People who once laughed,
danced, loved.
Made contribution to a culture
that has rejected them.
Now lying under mossy mounds
where no one remembers them.

The tightrope walker ... Olivier Roustan

Newport had a 'Big Splash' weekend. Well, it goes on until Sunday 5th September I believe, and this afternoon was good, really good, with loads of people about. This was due to the tightrope walker in the main and of course the good weather. My friend Anne and I went to support yesterday, but it was really chilly and quite breezy so Monsieur Roustan couldn't perform, which left a lot of people disappointed, but you can understand his point!

But conditions were better today and the man walked the walk. So where did he walk? Across the wires that run along the top of the Newport City Footbridge. His daring walk on the suspended wire was really spectacular and a little spine chilling. The danger was ever present, he looked like an ant when he started on the East side of the river Usk, but as he came nearer to the West side the reality hit you. This was a man, a human being doing this and a rapturous applause rang out. It was quite emotional. Well done Olivier!

The dragon trail...

There are seventy of these dragons dotted around the city and it's outskirts. They are there as a celebration of Newport's vibrant art scene (yes, we have one apparently) and the dragons photographed showcase a cross selection of work from some of the areas leading artists.




Newport superdragons are the result of many months of hard work from a truly amazing group of people. Sadly not long after they were placed around the city at least 15 of them were vandalised. Predictable in any city I suppose, a sign of the times, which I think is deplorable.




I wonder how the sculptors felt about that, and the school children who designed the smaller ones? In society today there is always a small number of people who will spoil it for the rest. It spoiled the dragon trail too. A super idea for tourists and locals to follow the map to where they are situated, but after the repair of the vandalised dragons, they were put in safer locations and not necessarily placed back where they were, so that rotted up the trail to a degree.





It must be disheartening for the organisers of this event, which is part of the Newport Festival Summer, a fore runner to the Ryder Cup. One wonders what will happen when that comes to town. You can bet there will be someone out there waiting to disrupt that event too.

Revival!

After deciding not to blog earlier in the year, and then returning to my first blog,

http//www.missjonesonlineblogspot.com

to find that somehow the format had been changed and it was all up the creek, I decided to make this second one, that I started in March, my main blog from now on.

So What am I going to talk about today? I am going to tell you about Tuesday, when I went on a dragon hunt, well more of a trail really and how pleasurable it was.


Please see next posting.