End of the Olympics

August 11th to 12th

I see I am catching up fast!

I had been disappointed not to be able to get any Olympics tickets. My sister said she had even stayed up all one night in an attempt to get any ticket at all, but had no joy, so we were determined to be able to see something on a big screen with a crowd of other people, even if we couldn't get any tickets and get in to see an event. She went to Hyde Park, to the big screen there, but she said it was very crowded indeed. I had been to the big screen in the Quad at UCL, but that wasn't huge and we wanted to be in a bigger crowd. So we decided to try the big screen on Blackheath on Saturday afternoon and evening, principally to see the final of the men's 5000 metres race. Blackheath is not far from where my sister lives, so it seemed a suitable place to her - it was a somewhat longer journey for me, but there was nothing nearer. This is when I really miss living in central London. I love the countryside where we live now, but how I miss London!

It was very crowded when we got to Blackheath and there was a fair as well, which I walked round. It was very busy with excited children, in spite of the weather being quite windy and not all that warm. There were some stilt walkers in some quite amazing looking costumes, slightly like dinosaurs and quite frightening I thought.



Watching the race was an experience in itself. I think every single person in the huge crowd must have been supporting Mo Farah, and they all jumped to their feet and screamed in support as he came from the back to the very front and won the race. My sister's friend screamed so much she was quite hoarse the next day.

We so enjoyed the experience that we decided to watch the men's marathon the next day - that's one event you could go and see without tickets. My sister and friends had decided to travel to Cannon Street Station and find a spot there, and we were really lucky because it wasn't too crowded and we were able to lean on the barriers and see all the runners.



It helped that they went past us three times so we got a real opportunity to see how the race was developing.



The three of us yelled loudly in support of Kenya, where we all grew up, though we could see by the second and third time the runners went past us that Uganda was well ahead. Still, Kenya took silver and bronze.

We stayed until we had cheered on all the runners, even those at the very back, then went off to Greenwich where my sister's friend hoped to see some of the sailing boats which were taking excursions down the Thames. Many of the houses were decorated with bunting, since the route from the station is taken by people lucky enough to have tickets.



We paused to admire the newly re-opened Cutty Sark as we went past,



before sauntering along the river and stopping to have a nice lunch beside the river. Watching people sailing along the Thames in a real sailing ship proved, as I had suspected, to be something of a disappointment, since the ships were all rather small, and not running under sail - though some of them did have a small sail up. We went off to wander round the Royal Naval College, which is quite close to one of the Olympic venues. We were able to watch another big screen here for a while, and saw Anthony Joshua win Britain's last gold medal.

We wandered all round the buildings, which were designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and are very beautiful, though it is hard to find the right place to take a photograph. One of the Olympic stands can just be seen right at the back in the middle of my picture, between the two buildings. It was full of spectators lucky enough to get a ticket.



A notice told us the Painted Hall was open, so we rushed off to see it, but it had closed by the time we got there. We were able to get into the Chapel though. It is described as a wonderful example of a complete neoclassical interior, and I fear my photograph - of the organ - cannot do it justice. I need a better camera - and a better eye!



After a long day, I was glad to go home to watch the closing ceremony from the comfort of my own sofa, though I didn't enjoy it as much as the opening ceremony - but then, I really don't appreciate pop music.



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Manchester back to Oxted

July 22nd to August 10th

Dear me, I see I have got very behind again. This has been due to some very tedious periods when I have been working and have had my nose to the grindstone all day, and some very busy periods - like the Olympics, when I found it hard to tear myself away from the TV long enough to work.

The Olympics began while we were still up in Manchester, and only had a tiny TV about the same size as as a laptop screen. Fortunately, we were babysitting for my grandson the night of the opening ceremony, so we managed to see it on a normal sized TV screen at their house. Our grandson saw part of it as well, since he didn't want to go to bed, and we didn't want to be upstairs lying on the floor beside his cot singing nursery songs and lullabies when we could be watching the opening ceremony. So the little mite just watched it with us and eventually fell asleep - he can't have been terribly impressed, though we were - especially with the Queen parachuting in to the stadium! I found I had a lump in my throat quite often, particularly with the lighting of the cauldron, the design of which I found wonderful - what a very creative and uplifting idea.

I was desperate to get down to London and see some of the many events but Paul was up a ladder filling cracks or painting so I had to wait until that was finished before we could leave.



We had hoped to leave at the weekend, so missing only one week of the Olympics, but our son asked us to stay on to let in the Estate Agent for a valuation. The valuer came on Monday August 6th, so we didn't leave until Tuesday 7th.

Once we were back in Oxted, we found the weather was rather warmer and were able to have our breakfasts out on the terrace.



After breakfast, I went up to London to do some work in my old office, as I needed some on-site access so I could use some services controlled by an access control list. I didn't think I'd have much hope of succeeding if I asked for my home broadband's Internet address to be included in the access control list!

At least this meant I could go and watch the Olympics after work on the big screen in the Quad, which I enjoyed. It's always more exciting to watch events in a crowd, especially when there are British contestants, which there were. There was space to sit on a nice bench, which was a lot better than trying to get comfy on the grass at my age. I watched Taekwondo, some Boxing and some BMX biking, which was quite amazing. I was fortunate to be sitting in a crowd who were interested in and informed about Taekwondo, and of course there was a British contestant - though with such an international collection of students and staff, not everybody was supporting Jade Jones. However, I watched her win her semi-final, and was interested to find she won the gold medal later in the day. Watching Nicola Adams win the first ever gold medal for women's Boxing was even more exciting, because it soon became obvious she was going to win - boxing is slightly easier to understand! The crowd I was in were behind her and cheering her on, just as though they thought she would be able to hear!

After all that excitement, I went down to the South Bank to see what was happening there. The entertainments there have been added to with the London Wonderground, which includes the Spiegeltent for cabaret, lots of bars and food outlets, and plenty of circus and sideshow things. There are also some new rides - a rather tame looking roller coaster



and a terrifying huge pole thing which takes you up incredibly high on a chair, and then whizzes you round and round so that centrifugal forces send you and the chair horizontally outwards instead of dangling quietly. I didn't fancy it at all!



It goes right up to the top of the pole - it's only about half way up in my photo.

Instead of that, I went along to the National Theatre where there were free shows, and I watched a wonderful group of young men who juggled, did acrobatics and conjuring, and mixed cocktails - all great fun. I was too far away to take pictures though - or, unfortunately, to get one of the cocktails they handed out at the end.





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Oxted and Norfolk

July 10th to July 21st

I had hoped that my daughter-in-law and grandson would arrive on 9th, but then it turned out she had to be at the hospital for another check-up on the morning of 10th. The steroids she has been prescribed have given her cataracts, and she needs to have them removed. She had the first cataract operation at the end of June, and has been attending hospital once or twice a week for check-ups since then. She booked a train down to London for early afternoon on 10th but missed it because they kept her at the hospital from 9 until after 2. So she only caught the 4.30. It was at this point that I realised that the dinner party I had organised for that night was just not possible, and had to ring the friends I had invited and cancel everything.

Paul had chosen to make my day complete by arranging for our handyman and his helper to visit in the morning. New hall carpet and underlay had been purchased, and when it was laid the previous week, we discovered that a number of doors were now shaving off the top of the carpet pile. So Tuesday was the day Paul appointed for 6 doors to be taken off their hinges and shortened a fraction. Previous tenants had also replaced some of my carefully chosen light fittings, so Paul decided the work of restoring them could be done as well. This took, contrary to his predictions, most of the day.

At around 4.45, Paul decided they might as well also check that the underfloor area was also still dry; a couple of years ago we had been obliged to have all the floor joists replaced when they rotted after an inefficient repair following a flood. So around 5pm, just when I was thinking we needed to get ready to leave so as to meet our visitors at Euston just after 6.30, the carpets were all up in the hall and bedroom and men were crawling around in the underfloor area. The result of this was that I needed to go up to Euston on my own, and left in rather a rush, unfortunately leaving my phone behind.

At least I managed to catch the 5.23 (by the skin of my teeth), and was not too worried when I realised I had no phone, because I was not then aware that public phone boxes no longer exist! I managed to reach Euston in just over an hour, so was in time to meet my daughter-in-law. Unfortunately, we missed each other in the crowds; I didn't see her, and the hospital had filled her eyes with drugs, so she couldn't see anything at all. As it was hot and airless, she went outside the station and looked for me there, while I was inside looking for her.

There are no public phones in Euston station! A very kind lady lent me her phone and I phoned my phone (the only number I could remember) and got Paul to answer and call our daughter-in-law to tell her to go to the Information kiosk - she hadn't told Paul she was waiting outside the station! I didn't realise how hard it would be for her to find the Information kiosk, as she couldn't see at all, so she couldn't find it! To cut a long story short, I finally found her at about 7.30, by which time my poor grandson was starving to death! So we had to buy food and feed him first, before setting off for Victoria station. As luck would have it, we missed a train to Oxted by less than 5 minutes, and had to wait half an hour until the next, so we were not back at home until after 9.30.

Next day, we left Oxted and set off for Norfolk where we were spending a few days near our friends from Belfast. It was a long journey for our grandson, who had had to be entertained by his mother in the back of the car for hours. We were all hoarse from singing silly songs by the time we arrived!

Our grandson liked the barn where we were staying as there was plenty of room to run up and down, and there were some interesting toys as well. There were some goats in a field just outside and he found them really interesting. I am not sure just how hygienic it is to be kissed by a goat!



On Thursday he discovered he liked the barn where our friends were staying even better than ours, it was much bigger and there were some outdoor toys. Moreover, there were lots more people to play with him, and he exhausted 5 or 6 other adults making them run around the lawn as well as helping him up and down the slide. Everybody slept rather well on Thursday night!

On Friday it poured with rain all day. We went to visit Blickling Hall



On Saturday it also poured all day. It was a real shame there was so much rain on our short holiday, so we didn't manage much in the way of walks and sightseeing, but we enjoyed seeing our friends again. We returned to Oxted on Sunday night, Paul with such a sore throat he had stopped speaking. On Monday, which was a day of horrible pouring rain, we dropped our daught-in-law and grandson at an indoor play place, which helped to keep our grandson away from Paul whom he adores and will hardly let go. We didn't want the poor child to get Paul's cold and sore throat. He was able to run about to his heart's content, make as much noise as he liked, and there were lots of new things to play with - as well as other children. On Tuesday, we drove them both to stay with her cousin, and Paul retired to bed to nurse the cold and sore throat.

He didn't get up again until Friday, by which time the weather was a bit better. We were even able to have breakfast on our own terrace.



On Saturday we drove up to Manchester so he could make a start could be made on cleaning and painting our son's apartment so that it can be let (he can't sell it, it's in negative equity).

I don't know how long we'll be up in Manchester - not long I hope as London seems very exciting just now and I can hardly bear to be stuck up here in dull old Manchester. Also I have started work for a couple of months and although it is mostly preparing documents and communicating by email, it would be convenient to be able to go and see people. I hope be be back by the end of July or the beginning of August, so I should be back in London while the Olympics are on.


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