Penarth Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations in a feature called 'Up Close in Penarth'.

Today, a story of adaptability from Shan Eastwood of Shan's Wales Tours.

Since ending her career as an art teacher, Penarthian Shan Eastwood spent seven years building her (and indeed my) dream business. Shan's Wales Tours provided luxury driving trips across Wales' most beautiful destinations, from Cardiff Castle to Snowdon's summit.

"London, Ireland and Scotland receive the most tourists," Shan tells Nub News. "But Wales is so undersold. To me it's the most beautiful place on earth.

"I would drive people to the most beautiful sports, take them to the nicest restaurants and hotels, tell them all about the history – it was great. I love meeting new people and showing them all this country has to offer."

But then, COVID-19.

"So I work with high-end oversees tourism companies, which meant most of my groups were American. Obviously when March came around, all that totally stopped almost overnight. I thought to myself, 'what on earth am I going to do?'"

Scratch the surface and Penarth teems with stories of businesses displaying levels of resilience and adaptability unthinkable in a pre-COVID world. Of these, Shan's is among the most remarkable.

She has adapted to survive, totally reshaping her business while always maintaining customer wellbeing at this scary time. Her resilient spirit is tangible during our socially-distanced conversation.

"But then straight away I thought to myself: 'I built a business up once. I can do it again'," she says triumphantly.

And that's exactly what she has done. Shan's Wales Tours has metamorphised into a long-distance taxi service. Though she will still take households to places within the Vale (in line with social distancing guidelines), she now predominantly takes passengers on essential trips to places like Heathrow.

"It's all looking quite good. I put a lot into Facebook, trying to build up a local client group and it's going really well."

At the beginning of the pandemic, the outlook was far grimmer. She had only a very small local client base and very few people were venturing outdoors. But instead of resigning herself to a miserable fate, Shan found ways to support the community while adapting her business.

"It was always going to take time to reinvent myself, so I spent the meantime helping the community, doing shopping for clients and that sort of thing," she says. "I've also been picking up COVID tests.

"You realise people are in desperate straits. So you can sit there and wallow in your own misery or you can… actually I wasn't all that miserable," she continues with a chuckle.

"I'm that person who just thinks: Right, what am I going to do? I can't sit down and mope. You have to have get up and go and adapt to survive."

Adapting has entailed retrofitting her car with shields and implementing various other social distancing measures.

"Competing with big taxi companies that are locally well-known isn't easy. But that's just driven me to provide the best service possible.

"My car's one of the few that has a screen in it. I can also move seats around meaning people can sit two metres away from me, and I've got a cleaning station.

"Because I don't have the footfall of some taxi companies, between every service I spend an hour and a half cleaning the car with industrial strength cleaner and then air it out."

That Shan's is a story of remarkable adaptability is undeniable. But I wonder whether her reinvented self is as satisfied in her work as the swashbuckling tour guide she once was (and hopefully will one day be again).

"Oh it's just as fun. I'm still meeting people and seeing places. In some ways it's more satisfying because you're helping people do what they can do within lockdown regulations. And it's nice to serve local clients because I love Penarth."