London Living: Paralympic Blues

 

With the closing ceremony tonight, it's hard to think of what we'll be doing without the Paralympics & Olympics. When initially announced that London had won the Olympics, there was a great deal of  cringing in London, imagining all of the chaos caused transport and facilities-wise, but actually it's been ok. It's be more than ok really - after the main Security problems, and our Army boys stepped up, the trains have been busier (Ok, I'm not in East London where it's based, but I do live near one of the main stadiums) but there hasn't been much armpits smooshing, the traffic seems to have been managed quite well, and the Games volunteers were in a league of their own. This is the largest Paralympics in history, with 4,200 athletes from 164 countries — 2.5 million tickets were sold before the Games began, and the Olympic Stadium is sold out for every session.

The last 5 weeks have been so Games-centric it's going to leave a void in our lives, for awhile at least. We have watched the Games (live and continuously on TV), discussed results being broadcast to us continuously, laughed over the water cooler and cried at the defeats.

Congratulations to the amazing Olympians and Paralympians, without you the Games would be rather pointless. You've given everyone a kick up the butt, and shown the amazing things that the human body can achieve - with commitment, determination and passion. The Paralympians especially have won everyones hearts - from Oscar Pretorious' wins and competing in the Olympics, to Mary Sayer, a Lower Hutt girl winning Gold. Maybe because we are in the centre of the maelstrom, but I think that these have been the biggest Paralympics coverage that I've seen, and the support is phenomenal. Even the negative coverage; overseas News networks not showing or highlighting the full achievements garnered by their Paralympians has sparked outrage, but with today's social media outlets, people power is changing the face of the world and the outrage had pulled even more positive reaction.

We didn't manage to get Paralympics tickets, but have been avidly watching the coverage, and it's great (in some non-selfish ways) to see that the tickets have been selling out. It can only get better from here on in, and the legacy the whole Games are leaving is so important - Tourism, development and recognising the superhuman efforts that these guys have made - overall I think it's been great. Hopefully the legacy of the buidlings and development in the East end is also positive. London is such a vibrant city and will continue to develop and morph.

Cheers & see you all again in Rio!

Todays workout: Rest day, couch potato-ing for the closing ceremony!

What has been your favourite event of the Games? We loved the Diving, and the sheer ferociousness of the Paralympic Basketball. Wow.

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Cat Diving

Our pussy cat has been up to highjinks this week. Case in point, this morning, we were woken at 6am by a woeful mewling.

She had decided in her infinite wisdom, to clamber to the top of our cupboards, and my lovely hubby panicked thinking she wasn't able to get down. He rescued her, placed on the ground and went off to work, safe in the knowledge that she had all four paws securely at ground level.

Well, until I prepared to leave for work and noticed a pair of green eyes peeping over the cupboard edge, about 7inches from the ceiling. I'm a bit meaner, and more used to cats, so instead of pulling out a chair to grab her; popped some cat biscuits in her bowl, at which she managed to get down. I personally think she was holding a Sit-In protest at the lack of treats lately.

The real reason for her high adventures became apparent when I came home from work and she was up there, again: she was practising her 10m fixed board dives - must be at least a 3 1/2 forward pike?

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The Olympics - Diving!

Intially, we were wary about the Olympics coming to the London; the cost, the hassle, winning hardly any medals....

The Magnificent Athletics Stadium

But as time inched closer, a hubbub began about the Oympics. Signposts went up, flags were hung down Oxford Street, PR campaigns began, and a buzz began. We decided that we'd like to at least sample the atmosphere, and registered for tickets (about the time the 3rd round of balloting began). As for sports, as neither of us are hugely sporty, we were pretty easygoing as to what we would see, but after chatting about it, we decided we'd like to see the Olympic Park (after our disasterous attempt earlier) and hubby would like to experience the Swimming or the Diving. Hearing that more tickets were being released gradually, I kept an eye out, and managed to snag a couple of cheapie tickets to the Men's 3m Springboard Preliminaries. The session was even an evening one, so no disruption or time off - bonus!

So after work last night, off we trotted. What a place.

C'mon GB!!!

The Aquatics Centre:

Zahar Hadid's beautifully undulating roof inside the aquatics centre... though it did block the viewing for anyone watching the high-diving 10m board. Fail.

Not seats for the height-wary, but armed with binoculars and the kindly provided big screens with updates and slow motion re-takes, we probably had better seats than the judges.

I love my 'baby' Camera - a EXR550. LOOK at that ZOOM!

The Muscles on these lads is incredible.

The athletes are incredible. The sheer elegance of the twists and turns they force their bodies into so sharply is amazing. The atmosphere, which is really what we went for, was something else. The roar of the crowd as their divers lined up for their dives was simply electric, then utter silence - not a cough not a sniffle, then the excited applause was awe inspiring. Especially when the GB boys took the platform.

 Once we saw the Diving, we wandered around the Straford end of the Park:

 

Homeward bound :(

Todays Workout: 45 minutes moderate walking around the Park, 10 minutes up the 10 or so flights of stairs up to our seats, Jaw-dropping watching the Divers.

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Cat Longjump

Critters. Fur babies. They call them many names, but at the heart of it, pets are essentially your children, especially couples who havent got real children or whose kids have flown the coop. We have a wee pussie cat. She is from the mean streets of London, and experienced it all, abuse as a kitten resulting in a crooked tail, a pregnancy in her teens and a drinking habit. No wait, she doesnt have a drinking habit but prefers drinking her water out of brimming pint glasses (or ponds, yeech). I wonder who and where she picked that up from, or maybe the pint is such an ingrained English thing, there was no way to escape it!?

She is pretty cute, despite being fairly brown coloured, a mackrel Tabby - the absoloute standard colouring for cats, but we love her in spite of this, or may be because of it!

She is now fixed, living the life of Riley, with her double (human-sized) bed (that she occasionally allows visitors to borrow a side of, but only on the understanding that it's hers whenever she wants it back, and no, the brown fur on the pillows certainly isn't hers, and if you don't like it, you shouldn't leave them there for just anyone to happen to lay on.)

Even puss is getting into the Olympic spirit, getting up to all sorts of gymnastics in the night since the flame was lit, culminating last night in the long jump. You know, to cover the distance from me to hubby sleeping. Any mere mortal would stroll it, but not our beast, giving it her 110% in true English Football hooligan fashion. All I saw was her shadow and felt her push with those mightily sprung back legs, before with the strength of a kangaroo she bounded onto hubbys chest, all of about 2 feet away. Well played puss, well played. Except it was more like the high jump. Her excuse for the poor performance will no doubt be something along the lines of 'It was only the preliminaries, I'm conserving my energy for the finals'



It's a Cat's Life.

Uh oh...

Today's Workout: Rest day, interrupted by a bout of cat gymnastics...

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A tribe of Olympic Kiwis

After a lovely Friday, we decided to nip up to Kiwi House near Kings Cross, the 'base' for Kiwis to celebrate during the Olympics.

The queue was immense (which should have been no surprise to us, considering it was a Friday after work, and New Zealand had won 3 Gold medals that day(!!!), but the wait was definately worth it.

This evening's menu:

 

Todays workout: 30 minutes looking for the elusive Kiwi House, 15 minutes arm curls with weight (beer) and 3 minutes frenzied cheering.

Ps. fact of the day - several Kiwis is called a Tribe of Kiwi's apparently!

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Nelson's Olympic Hat

We wandered through Central London today, enjoying all of the sights and sounds of the Olympic spirit, permeating the city. With events all over the capital, from Beach Volleyball in Horseguards Parade, to the Olympic Park, London is humming with the sights and sounds of Olympic shennanigans.

How they got that hat on him, I'm note sure. Enlarge this pic for full effect.

Sorry, an Emma pic!

A giant Birdcage, complete with swing!

To give you an idea of the crowds.

Todays Workout: A hour wander through London.

Who are you supporting, and what is your favourite sport?

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London Kiwi Spotting

Psst look what I found in Regent's Street..

Today's workout: 40 minute steady easy walk through Central London from work to Picadilly.

Are you as excited as I am for the Olympics? London Ex-Pats, have you seen your flag?

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Olympic Village Wandering – Fail.

So after months of discussing it, we finally got ourselves over to East London, to check out the Olympic Village. We were up early, settled into our Tube seats for the cross-London journey, and came out of Stratford station armed with a wanders map.

I love the random industrial pieces of art that are dotted around the site, including the below. Irreverant and gleaming they are beacons for lost travellers hoping to see Olympic glory. Or something like that. They are awesome.

Trouble is, the Olympic Park went into lock-down mode about 3 weeks ago. D’oh! We did however manage to check-out the shopping centres before pit-stopping for fro-yo. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Todays workout: Rest day, but we wandered for a couple oh hours.

What do you think about the Olympics?

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I think the sky is falling. It's certainly raining poetry...

Tonight I learned, as part of my ex-pat experience, that it's really hard to catch twirling poems falling from the sky. As part of the cultural events around the Olympics, a friend of a friend who is part of the Chilean collective Casagrande has organised to drop 10,000 bookmarks over Waterloo, containing an piece poetry from poets selected from each of the countries participating in the Olympic Games.

We nipped out for a wee bite of Dinner then wandered down to the Southbank.

It's a bit blurry, sorry.

It was so much fun seeing everyone dancing, running and diving for the bookmarks as they floated down. It transformed some very serious people into little kids again as they scooped bookmarks from the air. The look on everyone’s faces – including my friends was priceless as we caught them.

The helicopter had problems to start with, but managed to adjust to the wind & direction. We managed to catch a few and my favourite is below. I have a confession to make, I lost the actual poem & who it was by, but it is beautiful.

Todays workout; 30 minute walk from work to our meeting place for dinner, 20 minutes twisting, jumping, laughing = toning?

Have you ever written poetry? I have, and it was terrible - I was an angsty teenager, with no real trouble.

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