COUNTRY FOLK

Well, we had a fabulous day at the Olympics yesterday.  The atmosphere was just incredible.  I also revise my view of fast food - apart from the largest MacDonald's in the world, there were kiosks selling everything British from oysters and champagne to pie and mash.  We arrived early, although our hockey match didn't start until the evening, just so that we could wander around and soak it all up. 

 

 

 

 

If I have one criticism, it is only that there are no scoreboards or screens anywhere (except for the one big screen in the park showing live performances), so that, although yesterday was the most successful Olympic day in British history, we knew nothing of the scale of it and nor did anyone we asked.

 

We watched Jess Ennis win the javelin and the high jump on the big screen, but the broadcast switched to another event before we saw her spectacular finish.  Whew, you can see why she's my hero - as vicious as a springbok and not much bigger, but wow, see her go!  Anyway, we knew nothing more of the goldrush until we saw it on catch-up later. 

 

The Olympic Park is really impressive though.  Everywhere is planted with wild flowers, like the live screen park.  Here's the outside of the main arena. 



And this is a view of the Orbit from the entrance walkway.

 

 

Maybe they're supposed to be red white and blue?



And just one more at the periphery.


And remember, this was a brownfield wasteland before the park was built.  It took 2 years just to clean the soil.
I loved all the venue buildings; they were as pretty in real life as I had seen in the press.  Here's a view towards the basketball arena with the Royal Barge Gloriana on the canal.

And the Orbit looked even more insectiform, and just as wonderful, at night.


Anyway, the striking feature of this Games is the extraordinarily enthusiastic crowd.  It's almost as though they're going over the top in their wish to prove the media wrong.  It doesn't matter who's competing (unless they're Brits involved of course), but everyone gets a roar and resounding applause.  There were Americans at the hockey and New Zealanders too.  But the crowd was 99% British and waving all the Union Flags they could, even though there were no Brits playing.  It's the party everyone hoped for!
 I tried to take pics of supporters of all the countries represented by my friends.  Sorry, couldn't find them all.  But with everyone dressed in red, white and blue, it was tricky to find French or Thai or even Icelandic supporters.

 

 I didn't only take pics of young ladies either, although there were plenty of attractive girls around.

I don't know, there's something about this lady, don't you think.

And, after all the fuss, security was provided with a light touch.



And here are the army bringing in the Olympic torch.