After months of hard-work, b-side multimedia arts festival finally came around last week. Keen to see our work in action, I hopped on the No. 1 Bus to Portland and had a nose around.

Firstly, I learnt that I am the proud owner of (perhaps) the most famous hand in Weymouth and Portland:

I followed my hand and the first piece that I found was Melissa Bliss’ ‘Birdsong’ in the beautiful walled garden:

A short walk away was Hywel Davies’ beautiful sound installation wind chimes:

The wind was very low so unfortunately I didn’t get to hear the wind chimes very much… not that I was complaining about the weather:

Ivon Oates’ piece ‘Portland Rock’ had haunting recordings appearing from “within” fishing boats and other familiar Portland sights along the shore:

Charlie Henry’s Beachcomber’s Museum:

Then I found Victoria Gardens and met up with artist Melanie Thompson who explained her work to me, which was based around the bowling green, the ex-Mortuary (now used as a shed by the gardeners) and the Strangers Cemetery. She let me go inside the Mortuary and locked the door behind me… (yes, I was locked inside a Victorian Mortuary)

…which wasn’t actually anywhere near as traumatic as I thought it would be. In fact it was quite lovely, once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

In the cemetery, Melanie and her assistant Claire had organised a group of local volunteers who were cutting away the ivy and rubbish from the long-forgotten gravestones. This was one of my favourite parts of the day!

After tea and cake in the Bowling Club with some of the locals and artists, I headed back to Weymouth and spotted Andy Whale’s bus stop photographs of local people:

By the time I got back to Nothe Fort in Weymouth it was getting dark – just right for the spooky lantern-lit atmosphere:

Matt and Rob Vale’s giant projection piece within the fort was incredible and magical but unfortunately I didn’t really get any good photos, so here is a video of their last performance to give you an idea of how amazing it was:

Finally it was time to head home to Poole. All in all a great little festival – roll on 2012!

Click here to see the whole set on flickr.

I made a time lapse video of Martin setting up his camera which you can see here:

Amazing Weather, (20 degrees) Amazing Food and Amazing Company. Go now!

It’s easy to get to on the Eurostar, but wasn’t so easy to get back…

What are the chances that in the 15 years it’s been running, the day we travelled on it everything broke down?

Anyway here are some of the more arty shots: (please remember it was -4 degrees)

Just got back from our holiday to Vietnam. Jet Lag is almost over, washing machine running overtime, tan fading, email inbox clear, photos sorted…

Vietnam is a beautiful and slightly bonkers place.