Finding the gold..

Finding the gold: When old prospectors would look for gold they would take large pan and grab up huge loads of gravel and sand, shaking it backwards and forwards to encourage the heavier gold to the bottom of the pan, at the same time the lighter materials which are worthless are worked up to the surface and swept away. This process is repeated until all that is left is the heaviest most valuable material. 

My finding the gold project is inspired by this description, searching through the daily stuff of life that is ultimately worthless…the stress, the what ifs, the tantrums, the work nonsense,…and finding those valuable bits of my day, my week that are the moments i need to remember. The things that catch my eye and are just beautiful in their simplicity unbidden and untouched by the daily grind. Things that make me smile, even if sometimes that smile doesn’t linger and stay.

Some weeks it is harder to than others, sometimes the pan feels like it is only full of gravel and sand. There are weeks when its hard to keep going, searching through the detritus of this crazy, busy, frantic stage of life. Times when having time to catch you breathe seems impossible let alone stopping to look… but then you catch a glimpse, even in the darkest of darkness a small shard of gold can shine out and lift your spirits.  Even if it is just one piece.

Can you find the gold in your day…?

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The Paralympics. Bring on the Superhumans…

We travelled again to London on the 31st August, only a couple of days into the paralympic games. I have to say we didnt get as in to the opening ceremony as we did with the Olympics but going to the park the atmosphere was the same.  This time we all went, grandparents included and going into the park had the same magical feel.

We were thrilled to have tickets to the Velodrome, the best tickets in the park!! Despite being warned about the heat in there, nothing really prepared us for the humidity and heat when the doors opened. We had to wait to get in large groups at a time so that the environmental temperature wasn’t disrupted too much. The velodrome is SUCH an amazing building. I took my fish eye lens with me but to be honest the design of it with its curves and long continuous lines it almost does a fish eye without the lens.

The excitement was tangible. We had flags and we were ready to shout. We had great seats and looking down into the warm up area of the stalls we could see all the athletes going through their stretches, massage and slowly cycling their warm up bike round while keeping an eye on the action unfolding on the track. We knew that there was a lot of British interest and we also knew we would see a couple of finals and some medal ceremonies. The velodrome had this very cool system of getting people quiet which involved the faces of some very famous celebrities appearing and shhhhhhhing the crowd. The kids absolutely loved it.

The first event was the time trial…knowing that there was a British guy lying first in the qualifying rounds increased the excitement for everyone and we waited and waited to see the last rider to go.

But then disaster struck as Jody Cundy slipped coming out of the gate and stopped for a re-start but wasn’t given it and was disqualified. The downside of not watching on TV was that we had no commentators warning us what may happen and we suddenly realised he had been disqualified as the  loud speaker pronounced the athlete who had raced before Jody as the Gold medalist. A brief stunned silence followed by gasps and then the inevitable boos resonated around the capacity crowd.  Then the pressure cooker just blew for Cundy and in the athlete waiting area, things were thrown, shouts, swearing and we all watched, feeling a little bit like we shouldn’t. Such a powerful and poignant display of disappointment, the anger at years and years work thrown away. Fortunately we were up in the second balcony so could only hear shouting and not the exact language he used, one of the good things about not being camera close!. He did return at the end of the session and apologise to the crowd. Something which was met with warm applause and appreciation but i think most people understood anyhow.

The pursuit final we saw was exciting and inspirational. So many times i was staggered at how strong, able and bloody fast these disabled athletes could go. At one point my OH looked over the kids heads at me and mouthed ‘that guy has one leg? how is that fair?’ when the competitor seems to have two legs. I shrugged my shoulders as we watched the rider with one leg power past and win the pursuit and then ultimately the gold. It was remarkable.

We watched David Colbourne win his gold medal.  I can safely say im not sure all of us could have shouted any louder. At one point i found myself yelling ‘GO FASTER!” over the metal barrier in front of us. That moment i remembered an interview with one of paralympic team GB when they said they would love it if people would not see the disability but just get behind them as an athlete..job done. We were all behind him as he started to gain time on his competitor. The noise was awesome, the force of noise following him around the track like a tidal wave must have felt incredible. His lap of honour was met with banners, flags, flashes and him being chased by press photographers along the track. Superstars being made.

Singing the national anthem when he got his medal with the kids and the giant choir in the velodrome is a memory that will stay with me forever…

It truly was inspirational, the athletes, the atmosphere, the achievement.

We left, back through the park. Stopping to dance at  a brass band and watch the words in water fall from the bridge. Walking away from the stadium felt like closing a book after the most exciting story you have read for a long time. Now we knew the ending, we had walked it, experienced it, photographed it and written our own small part of history…

Its time to see what happens next.

 

 

 

 

 

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Olympic Story part 4..

i realise some of my readers (if there are any out there??!) may be starting to get a bit sick of my olympic updates. Well im happy for you to pass this one by. I am, truthfully, documenting it for us and our family, which to be honest is why i write this blog when it comes down to it. 🙂

So….coming out of the Aquatic centre was a bit like leaving wembley after a concert…not the sort of thing you would generally see as a ‘must do’  experience with three small kids. So i took hold of my 3 year olds hand and made sure the older girls walked in front of me.  We made it out, found the water fountains and met up with the boys.

It was a busy day in the park, im sure there weren’t too many quite ones tbh but this was a big ticket day. Chris Hoy, Usain Bolt, just to name a few and so the numbers thronging round the park never seemed to die down. While we were in the Aquatic centre we kept hearing a noise that i had thought was thunder or a plane going over..when we came out we realised that it was in fact the noise from the athletic stadium. Mr. Bolt was in ‘da house’ 🙂

At the end of the morning session of athletics it became very congested. i guess a sudden influx of 80,000 people will do that. We had an idea of going to sit on the hill and eat our lunch where the big screen shows the events unfolding and to be honest i was a bit surprised to see a queue to get in. We decided against the queue and sat on an available bench near the incredible Velodrome and listened to the roars and shouts from the various venues that were near us.

We strode round the park, which is MASSIVE. It was lovely seeing people in amazing outfits…there to support their country. It was a big scandinavian day obviously and i loved how supporters dressed in their national dress would stop and pose for photographs. We walked along pathways lined with wild flowers in a wonderfully typical english summer type way. My girls oo’h and ahh’d at the exceptionally well trained police horses. The kids took a while jumping across the coloured spots area on the way out of the park. But lingering seemed to be encouraged. There was little presentations and buskers dotted around the park. This was, after all, for most of us a once in a lifetime and it was good to be able to soak up the atmosphere.

We left the park, passing by the fountain which displayed words of inspiration and hope that were spelled out by the droplets of water as they fell.  Tired but still smiling it was the end of our Olympic Story for now.

But we would be back.

This is part of my somewhat lame attempt to link up with my friend older single mum..you can find out about her challenge by clicking the lovely little link box below….

one week

 

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Olympic story – part 3

Ticketing was a bit of a nightmare with the Olympics…

wait…really?? 😉

So we were unable to get tickets for all of us to go to the same event. Up till the night before we actually were unsure if all of us were going to be able to get in. We had four tickets, there were 3 kids and 2 adults who really wanted to go. So we had a bit of a sticky issue and it was looking like one of us adults would miss out. But thanks to the heroic efforts by my mum on the *@!***ing olympic tickets site we managed to get not 1 but 2 other tickets to get in..meaning that a certain little toddler could come along too.

The girls went to the Aquatic Centre and the boys went to watch a quarter final in the Women’s handball. Going into the aquatic centre was a bit strange. I dont think ive ever been to ‘watch’ such a big swimming event and having all the stall signs and seat numbers felt like we were going to get our seats in a theatre. A heads up from a games maker at the bottom of a set of stairs gave me a bit of an idea of how high we were going to have to climb to get to our seats. Needless to say 8 flights of stairs with a 3 year old on my hip left me a bit out of breath.

Interestingly we got to witness the limitations of the unusual shape to the roof of the aquatic centre. If one of those divers jumped really high on their take off they disappeared into the ceiling….wondering if they thought it through at design stage? hmmm…

There was a great atmosphere in the aquatic centre though and everytime the British diver stepped up the whole place became a sea of flags and bunting. On thing that really struck me in there was how completely bizarre it was that 17,000 people fell silent all at the same time when the diver was poised to jump..it was totally silent..you could hear the schusssing sound from the water jets breaking the surface of the pool.  I shusshed the kids a couple of times before i realised how ridiculous it was to think that their chatter was going to be heard all 200 odd rows of seats down.

The girls did really well, being as diving is actually quite hard for kids to follow. Its all scoreboard and a difficulty factor thingy. It was hard for me to follow let alone them. I did miss the commentary you get on the TV telling you what is going on. I think one of the most memorable moments for the kids was when a diver from the USA just sort of ‘belly flopped’ into the pool during his dive and the gasp from the crowd was just about as loud as the slap of his back hitting the water..ouch..

Meanwhile over at the Copper box..they had slightly closer seats to the action. My OH said ‘i think the only person closer to the goal was the press photographer!” They saw Norway V Brazil. Norway went on to win the Gold medal. They came away from it full of excitement and buzzing on the energy and thrill of the game. My son was thrilled to have been given a team Norway pin by a member of their squad who had been watching the game on their row. Something he treasures now. He was also pretty chuffed that he had spotted a Chris Evans interviewing gold medal winning athletes for his show on the way to the Copperbox.

that was the events done…now to explore the park……….

This is part of my somewhat lame attempt to link up with my friend older single mum..you can find out about her challenge by clicking the lovely little link box below….

 

one week

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