Train trips have been useful of late to get a couple of weeks worth of posts drafted, but I've always got something at the back of my mind that I keep meaning to get round to.

My priority - with a few early morning hours to spare this weekend - was a new look for www.easyteas.co.uk.

For another blog project I'm involved in (more of which another time) I've been teaching myself wordpress.org but easyteas is still in .com so my choices are limited.

I wanted something cleaner and brighter and have gone for Chateau. I was looking for a more modern magazine feel and easier access to past posts from t home page.

Swapping over was pretty easy and I'm pleased with the results - although grateful for any feedback.

Running a separate @easyteas twitter wasn't really working for me either so I'm running the risk of combining work, blog and hobbies into one @mattappleby. Be interesting to see if I get a drop off in followers.

Managed to schedule about six weeks of posts so feel freer to give more time to the other blog project - hoping to launch in September...

Recipes coming soon include:

- smoked mackerel hash
- pigsty pie
- cottage and shepherd's pie
- and a cheat's version of the above
- my mum's cheese pie

On a bit of a pie theme - autumn approaches!

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Four intrepid souls gathered outside Penylan Library at 4am to wander off around Roath taking photos of what we saw. Which wasn't a great deal, to be honest - it's a very quiet time of day, obviously.

But I get now why it's 'magical'. It is that time between night and morning that so few people normally see. That said, there are still plenty of people about in Roath - from the inevitable Saturday night crowd in search of a kebab to a guy walking his dog in a yellow hi-vis jacket.

Here's some things I learnt about 4am:

• Four people for an event is a good turnout 
• Fried chicken is the snack of choice
• It's a great time to find a cab
• Cardiff's buildings aren't that well lit at night
• This feels like a safe city even in the middle of the night
• I should have taken a tripod with me

I'm relatively new to photography - recently bought an Olympus PEN - and the challenge of taking photos at night was quite difficult. It's not easy to find interesting things and setting up to get a good shot was beyond what I've learnt so far. Thank goodness for a 'night scene' setting on the camera which saved the day. It's fired me up to learn more though and I've dug out the dummies' guide again.

Overall it was a great experience. I've met some interesting new people, added a few more flickr contacts and got a great insight into how social media can take a simple (very good) idea global. It was also lots of fun - looking froward to next year already and signed up for the Cardiff Photomarathon to keep my eye in!

Check out the pics from Roath here; the whole 4am Project is here and here's a post about the event on the Guardian Cardiff blog.

Here's a selection of my pics: 

See the full gallery on Posterous

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I've just come back from doing an interview with BBC Wales Good Morning Wales about the 4am Project. My fellow interviewee was Karen Strunks, professional photographer, blogger and founder of the project - it was she who inspired me to get involved.

I saw her speak at the Talk About Local 2011 conference in Cardiff a few weeks ago. She told us how she started taking photographs at the 'magical hour of 4am'. The time between night and morning when you can pretty much have the streets to yourself.

I was drawn to the creative idea of looking as something so familiar in such and unfamiliar way. But also by the idea that you can do something individual and very local while taking part in a global event.

In more than 40 countries, thanks to the power of Karen's web and social networking efforts, people have been getting up at 4am to take pictures.

As Karen was giving her talk, I tweeted a few things and immediately had a response from New Zealand - they were looking forward to taking part on 24 April. Karen hadn't even got to that bit in her talk yet and here was someone on the other side of the world excited to see more people getting involved.

I tweeted that it would be good to do the project in/about Roath. Journalist and blogger Ed Walker agreed and set up Facebook and flickr groups. Fairly quickly there were 50 Facebook members.

Whether it'll just be me and Ed standing on Albany Road tomorrow morning looking a bit sheepish, I don't yet know. The radio presenter this morning thought it might all look a bit dodgy - groups of people roaming the streets taking photos! We have had a few people who've said they'll definitely be there. I'm intrigued to see what is going on a that time; how our busy shopping streets and parks look without the people in them.

But I've also been interested to see how the idea has spread through the various channels. Karen uses her blog, twitter, flickr and the website to run the project - but also goes to speak to groups that might be interested. I was at the conference because I saw it on twitter and it was tweeting that got me involved - showed me it was global and also that there were people interested locally.

Ed set up the Facebook group, we both tweeted about it and he blogged about it this weekend. The Guardian Cardiff blog gave it a mention and has integrated it into its own photo sharing project for the month. And I've just come back from a radio interview. How did the BBC know about it? People in the newsroom there had picked it up through twitter and thought it sounded interesting.

All the pictures we take in Roath will go into a 4am Project Roath group on flickr and on the main project site and flickr group to share with everyone else who's taken part and I daresay will be blogged about next week.

It's been interesting to see the combination of web, events, traditional media, social networks and blogs working together to make the project happen.

Must remember to set my alarm.

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Easter project 2011 - set up my posterous account.

I've been toying with this for a while but finally got round to it. After blogging with Wordpress for a few years I wanted to give a different platform a try. So I'll still be blogging my easy teas and adding my thoughts to the corporate blog. I'll be using this blog to share thoughts about the evolution of PR practice, social media issues and projects I'm involved with in Cardiff.

I'm @mattappleby on twitter if you'd like to get in touch.

Image: geronimo inns drip mat i picked up in London

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