Blog in the Blizzard

Dachshund through the Snow

It's snowing in the UK therefore it will start snowing on my blog too! Stay tuned over this week for plenty of snowcapped photographs.

 

For now enjoy Oscar attempting to navigate his way through his first snow

 

 

Follow me Home

Olympic Conclusions

I, like everyone else in Britain, am suffering from a break-up. We had a long, beautiful summer together the Olympics and us; we laughed, we cried and more than once we begged her not to leave. We felt like a better people with the Olympics by our side.

But now she has left us for a more exotic country. Apparently she moves on a lot.

Before she arrived it was safe to say we all had our doubts, safety being the main one. The day after we were bestowed the vast victory of securing the games, London was changed. Timetabled and quiet London was left scarred and scared following those acts of evil that cracked London’s veins. A question swarmed around our silent lands after 7/7: “who are we now?”. The Olympics has helped many people get over that day, especially Martine Wright.

Wright was running late on the morning of 7 July because she had stayed out the previous night with marketing colleagues celebrating the Olympic win. Her journey that day caused her to lose not only both legs and 80% of her blood but, her life as she knew it when Shehzad Tanweer’s suicide bomb detonated 3ft from her on a Circle line tube train at Aldgate. She competed in the Paralympic GB team from volleyball and, despite not winning any medals, she did something so much greater; she showed that we as a nation can not be terrorised.

I was lucky enough to get tickets to two events (one in the Paralympics and the other the Olympics) as well as a ticket to wander around the Olympic park. I can’t put into writing all that I felt and all that I still feel for those fleeting weeks. I’ve tried for so long and failed every time in every sentence.

One thing I will say is that it has re-instilled British pride.

We have a swagger about us now, so many doubters now left dumbstruck. We were told we could not match the money explosion that was Beijing. We didn’t match it, we conquered it. We showed ourselves as a proud nation, a funny nation, a successful nation and a nation with great heart.

Our Prime Minister once called our country ‘Broken Britain’ and the Olympics went a great way to glue it back again. It was perhaps a remedy rather than a cure though, for our nation divided. Our flag, the Union Flag, flew for exactly that; union. While the united elation was strong then, in the eye of the storm, even now it starts to weaken. The question that fills me with trepidation is: how do we keep this feeling rolling? You can only ride a wave for so long before it comes crashing against the shore of everyday life.

We were separate people from countries worlds apart. Yet we hugged and cheered together, strangers embracing strangers for another stranger whose name we will soon forget.

So she has moved on and we are left with photos of us together; they adorn our mantlepieces as a reminder of our summer love. Though she may be gone we will always have London.

My Olympics – Cauldron

To me the cauldron symbolised the Olympic spirit and all that is good about the world.

The cauldron consisted of 204 copper petals, each representing one of the competing nations. They were brought into the stadium by each team as part of the athletes’ procession and each was taken back home by the countries. A piece of London in every country. Why it showed what London was all about was because it wasn’t all about the pomp and show of us Brits but how each country was key to the wonder of the games.

This is my last photograph from the games but I will do a wordy post soon. So for now enjoy…

My Olympics – Pride

The Olympics brings out every country’s national pride and also the face paint. Here is a collection of some of the best from all over London.

 

 

 

My Olympics – Court-Side

My Olympics – Knitted Bolt

Knitted Usain on his visit to the Olympic stadium.

My Olympics – The Torch

So the curtain has finally closed on London 2012 but fear not!

All this week I will be showing all you lovely people photographs from my Olympics (I didn’t compete but you know what I mean!). I will end the week with a blog post that has been many months in the making about what the whole Olympics has meant to me.

The first photograph is of the Olympic torch. It was the instrument that sparked (hardy ha ha) the British publics unequal-able enthusiasm for the Olympics. We came out in the wind, rain, hail and on the rare occasions sunshine to wave at celebrities and strangers alike. We cheered not because they had a fire ball on a stick in their hands but because they were symbolising us, the brilliant British.

But I’ll save the rest of my words for the end of the week and without further a do……. Let the games begin!

Never Park in Camden

This sad looking car can be found next to my previous blog photograph, tucked around a corner in Camden, London. I used to walk past it when I worked in Camden and it was always changing, new stickers and new graffiti, and yet seemed so lost and forgotten.

With the cracked concrete, bent bonnet and airless tires the decrepit car remains.