My Life: Pure Olympic Magic....

      ....We met Selina and Pete in London and caught the train in to the Olympic Park. We hadn't any tickets, but planned to go to Victoria Park, just because we could, we won't be able to say that again in our life-time. The train was surprisingly easy, people were very excited to be on their way to the park, it wasn't just us, you could feel excitement rising....
     As we came out of the station it was just getting dark, and 12-15 police vans and a block of Police cyclists came rushing past with sirens blazing. Flags, banners, face paints, noise....it was amazing...to use Charlotte's favourite words.
       We walked up to the park, and loads of people were leaving, we were worried they were turned away as the park was too full. But it turns out they just didn't fancy the 11/2 to 2 hour queue just to get in the gates. We decided to give it a go, even though we were warned we would only manage see about 30 mins of the ceremony. Amazingly Selina and I couldn't get to the back of the queue it was growing faster than we could walk!
      We stood there for a about 10 mins deciding our next move, after all we were in the middle of a field and could see nothing, but the enormous roar coming from the Stadium told us that the queen had arrived-we just didn't know how...
     That queue suddenly started to move, and we were through security, in the park and in front of the big screen in less than 30mins. The music, atmosphere, crowd...it was like nothing I've ever seen before.....

             .....and my photos are rubbish, but I really don't care...I was there....and thats all that matters.
I have a good video of the fireworks,but I'm not even going to start on that one...I meant to ask John for help there but I forgot last time he was here.
     As the teams paraded into the stadium, the screaming and flag waving rose higher and higher as people from each country roared their support for their home teams. And as team GB arrived...well...
and those fireworks......
     Everyone was singing, as we all...20,000....of us, walked back to the station, Paul McCartney saw to that.   The queue for the tube was growing faster than we could walk, again, but we caught one of the last trains.
    You remember the part of the ceremony where all the previous athletes were up taking part? Well as the train door opened, an elderly stately gentleman stepped down. His blazer pocket told me he had won an Olympic Medal in the 1960s. That was pure magic to see him walking past, but try as I might I can't find out who he was and what he had won.
      We finally  "ran out of trains" at Northfield, as they stopped running just short of our stop at Hounslow, even though they had originally said they were going right through to Heathrow. So we had to get a taxi for the last few miles to Jagjit's house and they were all in bed-it was only 3.45am after all.

Saturday morning was spent catching up with the bits of the ceremony we hadn't seen in the field and listening to the commentary that obviously wasn't there last night. It was quieter and previous night's buzz was missing, making us all realise just how lucky we had been to actually be there.

      Back to the train station and back into London once again, we made our way to the Mall hoping to catch the end men's road race. Once again we felt really lucky and caught the riders coming in. We weren't in the ticketed area, but stood by the track, stunned by the speed of the riders, the silence of no traffic, the delight of the Columbian supporters when their team won silver, and the friendliness and delight of everyone around us.

..... Walking through Green Park towards the Mall in the beautiful afternoon sunshine, we weren't the only ones with the same idea.....

....Peering through the gates outside Buckingham Palace, I don't know why the Queen put up with them all standing on her beautiful gates....

....people and flags everywhere, you wouldn't believe how far up this guy was and how thin his branch was, but he definately had a good view....

....waiting, waiting....for the last few bikes. 2kms to go we were told and they were past in seconds. We were stood under the 1km flag.

.....Selina's beautiful ear!.....but those bright purple boards were brilliant, as soon as a bike or support team appeared everyone leant forward and banged on them and there was a mad scuffle to see who was coming.....and if they were British....whoooo.