Click here to watch the 1st episode on iplayer.
Early. Cold. All made that little bit more comfortable by the car sent to pick me up and take me to London Bridge for the first day of filming. SE1 Club, under the station. Glamorous it was not. Cold and damp and a bit more cold it was. The Green room was quiet and big with one mirror in front of several suitcases of make up laid out on tables and the floor (very neatly).

I didn’t’ recognise myself when the lovely Charlie and Jo had finished make up and hair. Camilla and I sat chatting and shivering as they worked their magic and took away the tiredness with their gentle patting of brushes and general pampering feeling.

We were all excited about seeing the skaters and we were to watch 7 teams compete and loose 2 teams by the end of the day. The set was clever in its use of a few fluoro light bars and some boarding and the back stage technical areas was a mass of screens, computers, big boxes and tonnes of cables. I spent my first day on set marvelling at the lever operation of the giant jib (camera on a big stick that swings around). So clever! I watched the teams skate, to get an idea of their technical skill and difficulty levels. I was looking for agility, ability to stop well, use of backwards and forwards and general smoothness and confidence, as well as musicality and ability to entertain.

Naomi Grigg (official homepage) was there in the morning with her slalom crew to give the kids some encouragement and inspiration. They looked fantastic with the music and lights and spotting some of it backstage on a monitor, it looked even better!

It was interesting to note the different teams and their backgrounds within skating. All had wheels in common but such a diverse mixture of skaters, artistic figure skaters (like my own skating past), hockey players with their cool turns, slalom skaters with their straight lines, speed skaters with their fast circles, and agro skaters with their jumps. I noticed a huge range of different skates being used, inline slalom skates, inline hockey skates inline speed skates (without heel brakes of course), artistic quads skates, dance\freestyle quads, and recreational inline skates. All competing in the same competition. Such a great way to show the diversity of skating out there. There really is something for everyone in the form of fun on wheels. Each team was comprised of 3 children and one adult (who had to be related or connected to at least one of the children).

Lunchtime was spent outside on the Blackberry (there was no reception indoors unless you had Kevin’s phone) sorting out a work double booking with 2 councils for the Easter holiday. Tedious and urgent. But got sorted during the cab right home. The addition of SkateNation to my weekly workload meant that 1-2 days filming a week for 3 months was simply added to my usual work load. For quite some time my work load has been excessive so this additional work was to send the rest of my life into stasis. From the end of March to mid June I did not have a day off and did not sleep more than 6 hours in any night.

Asha with straight hair? Keep following the blog to hear and see pics of this and more transformations…