TBK Tours Palawan filming Chester's 2023 Calendar

 

For several of my 12 years in Bahrain I produced a calendar for my friends. It started in 2010 with an introduction to the Island and then in 2020 I did a look back on 10 years in Bahrain and finally for 2021 a comparison between my first and last year there. 

   I was so slim and gwapo in 2010 but by 2021 could not do up my dinner jacket!

The calendars were mainly printed in the UK and distributed for me by Mark Johns, a complex and expensive process. The calendars were all designed by Chester (the Hooman) who has done all my graphic design work since 2016.

So, in August 2022, having settled into the Blue House, my mind started wandering to projects to keep me occupied in 2023. As well as the vlogs and blogs, and diving, I decided to create an online calendar to go out on the first of each month on TBK Facebook page, and an online recipe book to go out on 15th of each month. I created a rough draft and sent it to Chester (the Hooman) to come up with something professional!

One of the aims of my Social Media presence in Palawan (Facebook, YouTube and Blogspot) has been to promote tourism in the island and I decided to continue that with the calendar by taking the photos each month in a different part of the Island. This included a mixture of tourist locations in Puerto Princesa ( Balayong Park and Baywalk) but also further afield like Sabang, El Nido, Lio, Port Barton and Nacpan. Chester added a couple of other ideas, like dressing up Chester (the Dawg) in line with the theme for the month (February = Love, October = Halloween). Originally, I asked Corleen to design the costumes in Bahrain, but he disappeared, so I got Elay to do it here in Puerto, and she did a great job. 

He also added the concept of Friend of the month - people who have looked after Chester so in January we feature Connie, a receptionist at the hotel we stayed in Sabang, and in February it will be Frythy and Noel who looked after Chester for me 3 hours a week before they went to school so I could get out and do my chores. Sadly, their school changed their lesson times and Chester, and I were both asleep by the new time they arrived (5- 8 pm!). So now they clean twice a week from 5- 7 pm. 

                        Noel and Frythy and an exhausted Chester

So, with our costumes made and our schedule fixed we set off for our first photo shoot at Sabang. Although it appears in January 2023, we actually took the photos in September 2022 when we stayed there for my 62nd Birthday (if you missed that blog click here Tatay @ 62). The Daluyon hotel where we stayed was very quiet and so they gave us permission to take our photos over by the pool bar which was not in use. 

                          Chester with the Christmas Crown that Elay made for him

Chester, the Hooman, over in Marikina even gave us artistic direction for each month (hopefully those of you that know me well will see why Chester and I get on so well with all our spreadsheets!)

Eventually all our photos were taken, and Chester (the Hooman) worked his creative magic to turn my initial idea for Chester's 2023 calendar into reality:

I am writing this blog in October when we took photos for the February edition of the Calendar (yes it does get very confusing working 4 months ahead all the time both for the calendar and the Recipe book). Luckily, I checked online for the venue and found that photography was not allowed without permission and so I emailed them. My dealings with Government bodies in the Philippines up to now (Philippine Retirement authority taking 2 years to process a visa and Dep Ed failing to reply to two emails (one in English and one in Tagalog a year apart for permission to publish a blog about one of their schools)) has not been good.  So, I was delighted to get an email THE NEXT DAY from the park with a link to a simple form to apply for a permit to take the phots on Wednesday evening.

How nice to deal with someone efficient! If you want to see the final calendar page showing how Frythy, Noel, Chester (the dawg) and I got on in the park you will have to wait until Feb 1st, 2023! However, I will just share one of the pictures the boys took which I love:

I will end by saying thanks to everyone who has helped me look after Chester (both of them, Charizz!), to all the places we took photos, to Elay for making all the Costumes and to Chester (the dawg) for being very photogenic. 

      Thanks to Frythy and Noel for their help with the "February photoshoot"

Finally, special thanks to Chester in Marikina for all the hard work behind the scenes to create what will be our 5th Calendar together.

All that remains is for me to wish you a Happy new Year or as they say in Tagalog:

Manigong Bagong Taon