So I booked us into a hotel in East London (The Premier Inn in Beckton was way too expensive so I booked us into the much, much cheaper Travelodge by the City Airport) and arranged to have the afternoon off work to allow us time to get down to London in an unhurried manner. We stopped at a supermarket on the way to pick up picnic supplies, checked into the hotel and took ourselves off to Stratford on the DLR.
The Olympic Park is just as beautiful as it was at the end of July - only vastly more crowded! The Builder was a bit worried, when we first went in, that the wild flower gardens might be well past their best - the first bed we came to was more or less a bed of seed heads. But the gardeners have done an excellent job of making sure that there are still flowers out in all their glory all over the park and it was all looking beautiful. We went for a wander around and admired the sunken gardens and the riverside walks. We couldn't climb The Orbit - all the tickets were sold by the time I realised that we were going. Oh well. It's due to re-open towards the end of next year as a tourist attraction. We'll climb it then.
And so into the stadium, where we had to climb all the way up there, that's right - up there rightattheverytop. Most fortuitously, our seats were by a gap in the seating in front of us, so The Builder has lots of space for his knees. Most unfortunately, another couple who climbed allthewayrightotheverytop - only to find that their seat numbers were where the gap in the seats was in front of us. So they climed allthewaybackdownagain. We never saw them again so I assume someone sorted them out. In the meantime we ate our picnic or cold chicken, ham, salad and crisps and waited for it all to start.
And we saw discus and long jump and shot put. The discuses were picked up and put onto little remote controlled cars which delivered them back to the athletes. The shot puts came back along a channel similar to the ones that return bowling balls in ten pin bowling alleys. We saw sight impaired running, and blind running, where the athletes are accompanied by a sighted guide. The guides have to be every bit as fit as the athletes because they run just as far and just as fast. Not something I could do as my evening job! We also saw wheelchair racing, and those long, bicycle-style wheelchairs racing around. We saw medal presentations (everyone sang lustily for the British National Anthem) and an Australian won the shot put (the crowd hummed lustily for the Australian National Anthem; as it happens, I do know the words so I sang instead of humming). It was all really rather exciting and I enjoyed it very much more than you would expect me to enjoy an evening out at the athletics.
And my librarian's raised eyebrow of disapproval is evidently still in fine working order. There was a teenage boy sat a couple of rows in front of us who was disinclined to stand for the Chinese National Anthem. As he was looking around in a "Look at me I'm not standing for the foreign anthem" sort of a way, he looked backwards and saw me. I raised my librarian's eyebrow of disapproval. And he leaped to his feet as though he had been bitten :-D He stood for all the other foreign anthems!!
Then we left and made our way to the Westfield eateries where we met Freyja who had been working in the athletes' village for a pasta and pizza supper. Sat alongside us was an American couple whose daughter had been swimming in the aquatic centre. She had garnered two gold medals and a bronze during the tournament - so they were very happy and excited too. It was a really lovely evening. Warm and convivial and exciting and happy.
There's a parade for the British medal winners from both the Olympics and the Paralympics in London today. Some of the volunteers and the participants in the various opening and closing ceremonies get to go to a seating area to watch it. Freyja is amongst those going!
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| Click on the photo to reach the Paralympic album |
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