modelleroo9

Post Olympic and Paralympics Depression!!!

Well, its all over.  What many people call the greatest show on Earth has come to an end once again until it reappears in Rio in 2016.  For the Olympics Mrs M and I were merely spectators, usually at home, sometimes in our caravan and best of all on Kingston-on-Thames bridge to watch the Cycle Road Time Trials and for 3 magical hours in the Velodrome, even if we did only see Ed Clancy win bronze. (tears).

Whilst we were up in London we travelled during the Games to just outside the complex to collect our Games Makers uniforms.  Good job Mrs M is good with a sewing needle, she had to take 5ins off the bottom of my trousers.  Otherwise the uniform was quite good.  Just had a look on EBay.  It's amazing what people are willing to bid for a games maker Watch.  My hasn't been off my wrist since our first day on duty, other than when  I shower!, although it is meant to be shower proof.

Mrs M and I were part of the 'meeters and greaters' team at Eton Manor, the wheel chair tennis venue.  The six days we spent there were (showing my age) absolutely FAB.  Tiring, hot, aching feet, but ggggrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttttttttttt. We wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Yes there were hitches both within the Park and on the buses and Underground getting there.  I think I should contact Boris to discuss how he should be getting TFL to improve the trains and stations fro wheelchair users.

But all things consdered, it is clear that the Para' games has come a long way.  Pity the folk in the good old US of A weren't able to have the same TV coverage that Channel 4 put out. Considering you had so little to base your coverage on WELL DONE CHANNEL 4.  It was good to see Russian paralympians doing so well, especially as according to the old Soviet Union, there were no disabled people in the Union when the Games should have been held there in 1980 - it was held in Holland instead.

A further interesting point is that Papa G' thought that amputees and the blind and such like had no place in the Games.  Can't work that one out myself, so even the great can and do get it wrong sometimes.  I always wondering what Joseph Kennedy (JF' s father) thought in may 1945 when Britain ended up on the winning side.  In 1940, when he was US Ambassador to the UK, he told Roosevelt that the UK was about to go under.  Perhaps it was the Irish blood in him.