Pure gold....

For the last two weeks I have cycled, run, jumped and swum.........  Now I must get off the settee and do some exercise.The Olympics are over.

  What a fortnight. From the spectacular Opening Ceremony

until the moment the flame went out.  We shouted in excitment and dashed away tears of joy. We marvelled at unbelievable stamina, strength and grace. We were amazed how quickly we became experts on sports we had never seen before. Medals apart, we won on every level.

One of the fascinations was watching the different reactions to winning and losing. A bronze medal produced sulks in some and smiles of pure joy in others.  A gold was celebrated with theatrical display or quiet pride.

One disappointment was that no one thought to make the Torch Relay Team part of the ceremonies, they did such a good job in all weathers in the ten weeks before the Games started. I hope they receive some form of recognition.

Well done London (and the rest of the country)

 Yeah!!!

Right three weeks to tackle the ironing before the Paralympics begin.

Journals online......

We are used to seeing pictures of people "journals", the modern painted kind but today they have announced that Queen Victoria's Journals are now on line.   Here .  I have read excerpts in the past and am now looking forward to being able to dip in and out at will.  I thought is would be interesting to link it with some of the dates on my family tree.
As a blog post isn't complete without a photo, this was in Regent Street, London yesterday. (I intend to play with this some, feel free to do same)

Still addicted to the Olympic Relay coverage. Here  Love listening to the snippets of conversation that are caught, from delighted "Here it is" to one bored male voice "Is that it?". So many happy, smiling people, lovely.

That's it......

I am addicted.... to the Olympic Flame Relay.  I never have the TV on in a morning but realised this morning they were showing the start of the relay.  Two hours later I'm still there.  Watching the mixture of nervousness, pride and happiness  in the faces as each bearer takes the flame.  Magic. I have found that the whole thing is on the old analogue channel, no annoyingly,  banal commentators, just watching it all happen. You can follow it's progress here.

I am loving the guy who unlocks the torches, the super fit discreet police escort but most of all the happy cheering crowds.  The politicians and the press tell us the future is grim and I feel it may very well be but for the moment let us revel in our British way of doing things and enjoy the Jubilee and the Olympics when it comes.  We can go back to being gloomy afterwards...