THIS WAS FILMED IN MAY 2021 AND FIRST SHOWN ON UK TV IN DECEMBER 2023.

This is our experience and what happened when the cameras went home…

We have filmed with both ‘A place in the sun’ and ‘A new life in the sun’. ‘A new life’ was on TV first (for some reason), so in TV world our mid-life-changing move will be shown in reverse! This is our story of filming with ‘A place in the sun’.

This journey started in September 2020, when having cycled around a fair amount of the world, I cycled around the corner on a Greek (Peloponnese) coastline road and saw what I genuinely thought was paradise - the bluest water, filled with little islands and greenest hills wrapped around a little coastal town.

(I literally stopped cycling and posted about the view on social media at the time) - the same view I'm looking at now.

I came back to London, told Helen, we both came to see it and fell in love with the place. The COVID pause prompted a bit of a life-changing decision to see if we could buy a place here to establish Helen’s Greek connection for our family and to open a place for friends, family, cyclists and outdoor living fans to come and stay with us.

I applied for 'A Place In The Sun', without telling Helen!, I thought it would be good publicity for the cycling holiday business. We went through a screen test and some questions and then suddenly we were in and then suddenly we are back in Greece, staring at the same view of paradise and the first to be filming a new series.

I didn't have any 'ins' with the programme, it was just a coincidence that with a certain house budget, you now can get a Greek ‘Golden visa’ and the programme wanted to tell that story.

It’s a programme that appears to be many people's guilty pleasure and we went into it with complete irony, not expecting a lot at all - but you could soon tell there is far more to it than meets the simple viewing eye.

From the office in London, they did a full week of research based on our remit and kept coming back to us to make sure they were looking at the right places and then the producer/director and assistant came over for a week before filming and spent the whole time seeing numerous places, driving everywhere, every day, struggling to get estate agents out - putting in a hell of a lot of work - before settling on five properties they thought fitted our remit.

And then there we were - outside property number one, with our backs to it, with cameras and mics on, ready to capture our first honest reaction as we turned around to see it. All the initial reactions are real, you don’t see the property or even know where you are going until you are right there and they have the camera and mics turned on - it's hard to fake reactions in that situation!

They are very long days for everyone. The crew of four and Lee, the presenter were genuinely amazing – helpful and supportive and off camera we all had a lot of laughs. At each property, we filmed six scenes, four times each, from different angles. We did two houses each day, plus the bits in between, so we all had to get about 60 takes right each day.

It has been a real experience, so much fun and laughter while we actually trusted the director (who was perfect for us), that they actually had found the best properties – the difficulty was that all were more amazing than we thought possible for the budget. If they edit it a certain way – you may just end up watching Helen say ‘wow’ for 45 minutes.

It's also been a mad week - an enforced visit to a police station, a gardener who refused to move because he wanted a nap and the final scene that needed a sudden 2-hour break and the involvement of Russian neighbours and Greek lawyers.

....Our reaction at the end is going to appear way over the top for what you actually see on the programme - two hours and a lot went on between our offer and Lee getting the return call from the estate agent.

We’ve had a laugh, it's led to so much more than we thought ( through the programme we have got to meet so many local people here) and hope some of that comes across on screen - it's all down to the editor whether we are paying for this with our reputation and any last sense of credibility!

What happened when the cameras went home? See below…