Sitting on the Dock of the Bay*

This statue of a couple at Mermaid Quay represents the indigenous workers and the people from all around the world who have settled here over the past 200 years, contributing to the cultural mix and making Cardiff Bay a place with a strong community spirit. My daughter and her partner say that now there is a new transient immigrant element of people with the money to buy the new flats on the bay that have replaced the traditional housing, but who take away more than they contribute. This new Cardiff Bay has replaced traditional local centres like family-run cafes where people of all races met and socialised with chain restaurants and development as a play rather than living area.

Between the two figures is the Norwegian church (another landmark of the bay's past trading and maritime status), which I blipped the summer before last.

All seven of us had a delicious Turkish lunch in Bosphorus, a restaurant built out over the water and which reminded me of similar meals eaten at the waterside of the real Bosphorus many years ago.

* Some music that brings back memories of my teenage years in Istanbul - the dock of another bay, which daughter and her partner visited last year.