Regent’s Park

Me and the kids went out for one last gasp summer holidays trip out yesterday, we went to Regent’s Park, first to go on the Mascot trail there and then to go onto the zoo. The Mascots will be going soon (they’re currently in the process of being auctioned off, oh if only I had £6k spare and a bit of a bigger garden!) but they’re around I think to the end of the Paralympic Games. So if you’re thinking of doing a Mascot trail do it now, the trails are on the Olympic app but to be honest they’re just a bunch of clues (no maps) and the clues are pretty useless as you would think for example that the Sherlock Wenlock would be in Baker Street, nope, just as the Rose Garden Mascot, Midsummer’s Night Dream Mascot and Safari Mascot aren’t immediately close to the Rose Garden, theatre and zoo respectively. But having said that they were fairly easy to find, although we were slightly thwarted by one of the bridges across the boating lake being out for repair, so although we could see the first two mascots of the trail across the water in the distance, we couldn’t get to them, it took ages to walk round the water to find another bridge, but at least on the way we found the other mascots, we sort of ended up doing it back to front.

And then it was off to the zoo. Now we haven’t been to London Zoo for so long I’m not even sure Boy Lacer was born (I think he may have been but not 100% sure), we did used to go quite a bit but when the kids got past the age of 3 and we started to have to pay for them to get in, suddenly a not exactly cheap day out turned into something eye wateringly expensive. So consequently we didn’t go (we did go to Chester Zoo a few times in the intervening years, the kids weren’t totally zoo deprived) but I was aware that they were building all these new amazing enclosures at London Zoo and we just weren’t seeing them, so I thought I’d change that yesterday.

And yes it was eye wateringly expensive but (I used to volunteer at London Zoo a long time ago), I do know that there is a reason behind the ticket price, the zoo gets no government subsidy and they do a lot of amazing preservation work and well they’ve got to pay for it some how. Plus those new enclosures aren’t going to build themselves (although I suspect at least with Penguin Beach they’ve been sponsored by a certain other well known Penguin, as the logo outside looked a bit familiar).

And it was lovely to see the new enclosures, now obviously it’d be fantastic if zoos weren’t necessary, if every animal was safe in its natural environment and there was some sort of teleport machine that could beam people in to see the animals in the wild in a completely unobtrusive manner, but obviously it’s the real world and we need zoos, good zoos (I hate zoos where the animals look so bored and unhappy in their sparse cages, pacing up and down). And I think London Zoo have done wonderfully in the last ten years or so, updating and renewing their site, when they’ve been so constrained by the size of their site (the whole zoo is relatively small).

The gorilla walk through was lovely.

And the aforementioned Penguin Beach really, really makes me to reincarnate as a London Zoo penguin, it looked that blissful.

(The kids loved Penguin Beach, particularly the underwater glass bubble you could go into to see the penguins swimming around).

They’d also updated the rainforest building, with a large open display area inside, which was literally as if they’d transplanted a bit of rainforest, with glimpses of large birds strutting through the undergrowth and monkeys nestled in the trees or occasionally climbing over your head (as the branches from the enclosure extended over your head). I really liked that bit (I’d always thought the rainforest building was a bit boring before), I like how it’s a bit of a challenge to spot the animals sometimes because after all if you were to go the actual rainforest the animals wouldn’t be strutting around on display for you and it’s always so much more rewarding when you do spot something.

Plus is was lovely to see some old favourites ….

What I learned from the Olympic Games

• I loved that in a country where the ruling political party seems intent on dismantling our NHS and their members seem to be loosing more and more grip on what it’s like to live in this country without a trust fund, Danny Boyle could still put on an opening ceremony that could stick two fingers up at them in front of billions of viewers (now that wouldn’t have happened in China!)
• I love that the games do inspire a generation but not just in sport (although the Games have been excellent in showcasing to Girl and Boy Lacer sports that they didn’t even know existed) but in life in general; that with hard work, passion, a level head and maybe a bit of luck on the day, you can succeed and that’s not necessarily coming first either, just making it round the track sometimes is a success and if you don’t make it round the track (or the equivalent) you learn from what went wrong and you accept defeat gracefully and make plans to come back.
• I liked in particular some of the athlete interviews (although I felt a little sorry for some of the breathless athletes getting pounced on so soon after their events); for example the interview with Jessica Ennis just after her sixth event in the Heptathalon, when gold looked an almost dead cert and the interviewer asks her how she felt about that and she goes (I’m paraphrasing badly here), “I’m not even thinking about that, I’m focusing on the 800m and then I can think about that”, how’s that for a lesson in mindfulness and living in the moment?
• Or when Bolt is interviewed after his 100m win and he says (again paraphrasing badly) that his coach had told him not to worry about his starts and to concentrate on what he’s good at and that’s finishing, how’s that for a lesson in playing to your strengths?
• Or how about when Murray came back from recent defeat at Wimbledon to this time, and against the same player win, how’s that for a lesson in perseverance?
• And finally I loved how (despite what all the whingers still said, despite being drowned out by a more vocal majority) this country came together and we did it, we held a fantastic games and we should be very proud and none of the “oh the transport system won’t hold up” blah blah blah, actually happened. (And it was such a great advert for this country to, the scenery during the road events / sailing looked terrific, if you could tear your eyes away from the action that is).

And you know what? I also learned that I really like watching sport on TV and I will definitely do my best to make sure I keep following certain sports more often, although that isn’t always made easy as most of the time (despite the BBC’s excellent coverage for the Olympics), it’s just football, football, football, with maybe a bit of cricket and rugby thrown in, which to be honest are still sports that leave me a bit cold (actually, having spent some time living in Wales I do like watching a bit of rugby, but yeugh my god, cricket *shudder*). But it’s the 21st century and now thanks to the Olympics (and to a certain extent my real life job), I know follow four more athletes on Twitter than I was following before (i.e. it’s gone from total number of athletes followed 0 to 4) and I guess I can probably find ways to carry on following athletics and diving* online, if that’s the only way to do it.

*Ahem

Great British Bird

I was going to stitch this for the Jubilee but then my wrist op happened, so I didn’t do it but with Team GB doing so well in the Olympics, what better excuse than to stitch it now?  The pattern is by Bumpkin Bears.

Olympics!

It’s not every day you can say that you’ve seen the Olympics, let alone in your own city . . .

We went to see the morning athletics; heats for women’s hurdles, men’s discus, women’s shot put, men’s 800m and women’s 1500m, to be honest considering the recent Olympic excitement, particularly for Team GB, this morning’s output wasn’t particularly exciting and to be honest *whispers* watching athletics on TV versus watching it in the cheap seats where they’re little mini stick figures, well . . . But you can’t beat the atmosphere, particularly when anyone wearing the Team GB kit even stepped into the stadium. There was something weirdly timeless about it.

After the athletics we went up the Orbit, a giant sculpture where you get the lift up and then walk the 400 or so steps down, which was quite fun (and there’s some great views and really cool curved mirrors at the top). We then had lunch in the biggest McDonalds ever (or something) and then had an explore around the rest of what turned out to be a surprisingly gigantic park. I was really impressed with everything about the park, most of the architecture was fantastic (and the temporary stuff could be forgiven in looking a little less appealing), the planting with its sea of flowers was amazing (and reasonably mature, they must of started work on that a while ago) and I loved the random art work dotted round the place. Even got to see the Gloriana again! Oh and all the volunteers were incredibly cheerful and enthusiastic, I think my kids must have high fived half of them! So a lovely day out to remember, although if I were to see the Olympics again (and I might you know, next time it comes to Western Europe, I think I’ve caught the bug), I think I would probably invest in slightly more expensive seats . . .

Oh and the transport was fine

BT London Live

Now for the extremely corporate side of the Olympics; I took the kids to BT London Live in Hyde Park today. It’s there for a good while (till 12 August), so if you’re desperate to queue for a long time to see a fairly well constructed advert for Cadburys and then eat some extremely over priced food, you still can (and it’s free). Actually not being completely sour puss, I did like some of the opportunities to try some different sports (who knew Girl Lacer was, for someone who had never picked up a volleyball in her life, actually not that bad at doing one of those serve things they do) and the kids did so like the chocolate thing.

(Plus the multiple big screens showing the sport were good and if we’d been prepared to stay later we would have got to see The Levellers – ooooooh)

Seeing the torch again

How lucky am I? Seeing the torch twice! As it happened it came through my home town for a second time today, as it journeyed by river from Hampton Court to Tower Bridge before heading on land for the stadium. This time it was on the Queen’s barge, the Gloriana, which we missed seeing in the Jubilee, so that was an extra treat. It was really impressive seeing at first three of the tourist boats that go up and down the river near me, side by side, leading the procession, followed by some police boats and then Gloriana herself, with the torch flame in a special beacon at the front of the boat. Following behind was a whole, long flotilla of more boats, it was pretty special. Unfortunately though all the camera gods were against me, first my memory card was full on my ‘proper’ camera, so I had to hurriedly delete some photos and then I got the battery warning light (which is always as frustrating as hell because you see it literally about a minute or two before the camera is about to die, so not much advance warning), so I switched to my iPhone and then the memory space for that filled up after just a couple of snaps! Still I managed to get something.

PS Whilst we were waiting we also heard the 8.12am bell ringing, to be honest probably nowhere near as impressive as it would have been to be near Big Ben or St. Paul’s, as it was just a few hand held bells in the crowd and a hell of a lot of that bell ring tone on the iPhone but hey, all in the community spirit!

The Torch!

The Olympic Torch came through my part of London today (only a couple of roads away from where we live). I had booked the kids in to the local craft work shop to make their own Olympic Torches beforehand and then we went out and watched.

The atmosphere was lovely, even watching the support crew and the police patrolling the roads ahead was fun (the number of police motor cycles we saw with either an inflatable torch and/or a Wenlock, Mandeville or GB Mascot stuffed behind their windshields. There was even this character (sorry took photo hurriedly not realising it was set on the wrong setting, had to run it through some photo editing software and it still doesn’t look that good).

I hadn’t realised until we finally saw the long line of Torch relay vehicles, exactly how many vehicles there would be (on the TV you really just see the big coach that drives slowly behind the runner)  but there are many more than just that. In fact when we first saw a little torch relay mini bus with torch bearers inside, one of whom was standing up holding his torch and waving, I thought that was it and that maybe the torchbearer for our bit wasn’t running (or walking), he did look a little elderly). Specially as this mini bus was followed by three giant corporate vehicles for the three sponsors.

But then there was a little lull and then people started craning their necks to the left, to a junction just down the road where I think most people knew there’d be a scheduled torch kiss (where one torchbearer exchanges the flame with another) and then there was that big coach from the telly in the distance and then there was the torchbearer. It was a little bit all over in the blink of an eye and the photo I got of the torch kind of looks like it’s just an arm protruding out of one of the burly police officers that guard the torch and its bearer, but still, we saw it (and we did get to see the actual torchbearer to, just didn’t get a good photo).