Tuesday 7th July
Would you credit it?
All the forecasters got it wrong.
Dry but cloudy?
Pitch black and pissing down more like.
I had just looked out of my bedroom window when the phone beeped to tell me that I had a text message.
The lovely outside location had been changed to a much less exciting but much drier indoor location.
We were to do the broadcasts from a sports hall in the University of Swansea.
My colleagues Simon and Jason were already there along with Oliver and Jim starting to get things set up.
Things were all going very well until Pete in the satellite truck told us that one of his satellite encoders had stopped working.
That meant that there was only one camera being sent back to the gallery in London.
It was Simon’s camera. So he did one of the little teases that we had planned to do on two cameras on just the one.
Christina the Producer then had the great idea that as I had nothing to do, what with no camera to play with, I could take part in the workouts.
I rather like being behind the camera as opposed to in front of it.
I was very keen that Pete find a solution to the fault nice and quickly.
I was very happy when I went out to the truck to check the progress and whilst he was speaking to someone on the phone about the problem he gave me a very positive thumbs up sign.
Simon had a great idea of getting some of the beefy guys from the University to carry Deanne and Rachel into do the workout.
Surprise surprise there was no shortage of butch volunteers.
Complete with dodgy looking dark glasses we borrowed from people in the little crowd they looked the part and were great sports.
Once we had finished the live broadcasts we all had a quick breakfast back at out hotel.
The sat navs said that the journey to Biggin Hill should be about three hours.
In reality it took us almost six. The traffic was really slow in quite a few places.
Then after picking up a key from the Bromley Council offices Oliver and I went to have a quick recce of the Biggin Hill recreation ground, our location for the morning.
The rain was torrential when we got there.
If the weather was good it would be a great location.
There was one potentially large problem. The satellite truck would have to drive through the bollards we had the keys for and go over the grass to where we were going to do the broadcasts.
The amount of water that had been tipped on to the field in the last few hours made us worry that the ground could be waterlogged and there was potential for the the heavy truck to sink into the ground.
On balance and given the none too favourable weather forecast we thought it might be wise to use the bad weather alternative, the nearby Youth Club.
A decision would have to be made in the morning depending on how much rain fell or did not fall overnight.
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