Usksider's Photo Blog

It was a beautiful morning so I stopped off briefly on my way into work to take a quick snap of the River Usk passing under Caerleon Bridge.

Yesterday the river was in flood. Today the flood waters have receded and although the water level was still high, the Usk is constrained by her banks.

For those interested in such things, the city of Newport gets its name because a new port was built further down river from the old port, which was located at Caerleon.

The Romans constructed the first real port to serve their fotress, Isca in AD 75; Isca being the Roman name for the Usk. Isca was garrisoned by the Second Augustan Legion; the soldiers of the legion not only built the fortress, but also the network of roads and auxiliary forts through which the newly-subdued tribes were controlled.

The above photograph was taken from the quayside at Caerleon.

I was going to post this yesterday, but the damn server wouldn't play ball last night so I'm posting it now instead.

We had a little rain in Wales on Monday night and as usual my river decided to take a stroll across its floodplain.

No doubt we’ll experience drought conditions again this summer because with all this water around we must be desperately short...

The truth is of course this is the result of the wrong kind of rain, coupled with too many households who have either paved or decked their garden areas so when rain falls it doesn’t soak into the ground, but just runs off; you must all have realised by now that any water shortage must be your own fault, haven’t you?

A drop of flood may do a lot of damage, but it also makes for some interesting photo opportunities...