Tenby 24/7

On Monday 12th September, at 7.30pm on BBC One Wales, a four part reality series documenting life in Tenby will air. Filming took place in early August for the series, named Tenby 24/7, and Creative Services (aka Promos) were asked to put together a trailer for the programme.

It occured to me, shortly after rejoining BBC Wales to work with Creative Services, that the one thing I have access to that a lot of other bloggers don't is the world of television. Not actually as glamorous as most people imagine but lots and lots of fun.

I happened to mention in the office that I'd never been to Tenby and was nicely surprised to be invited along for the shoot. This involved a drive up to Pembrokeshire on a Tuesday mid-morning, an overnight and then a drive back that afternoon. A nice, easy couple of days you might think. Ha!

Phil (my boss) having decided his premise for the trail would be 'the colours of Tenby', put together a colour wheel and a list of things he thought we should shoot. Jon, the cameraman, added a few extra. I just went along to carry things, build sandcastles (that never made it in to the finished promo damnit!) and negotiate.

If you follow me on Twitter (@torsgrantham) you'll have noticed I suddenly developped an overwhelming love for Tenby and the RNLI. For those not in the know, Tenby (according to the BBC website for the series) is one of Wales' busiest holiday resorts, where people work hard during the summer to feast or famine in the winter. It's a beautiful town, located in a national park situated on the west coast of Wales (the sticking out bit on the left of the UK for those not local). Tenby's town houses are painted gorgeous pastel colours and the beach is all sand, blue sky and blue sea. The RNLI very kindly let us film the launch of their boat from right beside the sea doors, granting us access not normally allowed to the general public and I have to say, it was awesome! A big thank you has to go out to the residents and visitors of Tenby who were so helpful and not at all camera shy.

I specifically took my camera with me and took some shots, as and when I was free and able, of the filming and general vicinity to show you all. This will, once again, be a picture heavy post because I couldn't choose which ones I liked most (although be grateful I managed to scale it down at all, there were over 50 photos in total!)

(what to wear to a film shoot on the beach) I wore:
Skinny jeans - New Look
Shades - New Look (I'm sure I had a pair of these in the 80's)
Jumper - Oasis

Thanks for stopping by,

The Pumping Station

Sorry everyone, another picture intensive post (as are all the posts planned this week). I'm desperately trying to get to grips with my camera and am still rather rubbish as I can't quite figure it out. I'm sure I'll run out of things to photograph soon, just bear with me.

I was at a bit of a loose end one weekend and decided to go for a wander around the Pumping Station in Cardiff, a beautiful Victorian pumping station once owned by Welsh Waters and now a treasure trove in a Grade II Listed building. Everything is for sale, and it has everything you can think of: antiques, vintage, even modern day ... erm, stuff. My parents, once they learned where I was headed, decided to tag along to hunt for a birthday present for one of their friends. The Pumping Station is so big, so packed with goodies, that we only covered the ground floor before lunch. So we headed to the nearby Harvester in Cardiff Bay for yummy goodness and then returned to the Pumping Station to scour the upstairs floor. Be warned people, you could lose days there.

Some old friends ... erm, miniturised

Apparently, this is the world's largest lion and is in the Guiness Book of Records.
When he died they stuffed him and he ended up here!

I wore my Ginger skirt that I'd made (and completely failed to blog about, shame on me). I love my Ginger skirt, unfortunately my step-dad can't seem to work my camera either and the photos he took of me were mostly too blurry to post. Suffice to say, the skirt looks awesome, fit together really well and completely deserves its own blog post (note to self, write that!).

Not only did we manage to fit in the Pumping Station, but we also decided - as the weather was being particularly lovely - to go for an ice cream and a wander along the Victorian Pier in Penarth as my parents had never been. The art deco pavillion on the pier is beautiful but in need of restoration, Penarth Arts & Crafts Ltd are asking for local volunteers to help with their planned renovations. The pavillion managed to survive a fire in 1931 that destroyed much of the pier, the Port Royal Park (a 7,000 ton ship) being blown by gale force winds in to the pier in 1947 and the Bristol Queen paddle steamer running in to the pier during dense fog in 1966. Poor thing, it's had a bit of a bad time of it, and it's one of the last remaining Victorian Piers in Wales. It's not particularly long but it has great views and, on this occasion, a local brass band playing. Any day that involves ice cream is a good day, but this one was particularly lovely.

Thanks for stopping by,

The Big Cheese 2011

Every year my local town, Caerphilly, holds a free festival called The Big Cheese on the last weekend of July. So named - I presume - because once upon a time it was an actual cheese festival to showcase Caerphilly Cheese. Nowadays it's the site of a huge fun fair and market with organic food, homemade gifts and exotic animal showcases (the birds of prey are fabulous). There's living history and battle re-enactments in the castle, not to mention the mead and ale tent. Oh, and the hog roast. There's an awful lot of pig eaten at this event.

Every year I take the wolf for a wander through the crowds ... a very slow wander as we're often stopped every couple of feet by people asking about him. This year I took my camera and below are some of the things I snapped whilst out and about. Warning, a little picture intensive (I got a bit over-happy to be posting a non-css post).

I was a little fascinated by this lovely cider press, but it was awfully noisy

Thanks for stopping by,