Cycling in the Olympic Park

It's the time of year where I think about pulling my bike out from under its covers and using it again.  I am strictly a fair weather cyclist, and I would never dream of combining lycra with a bike.  I know - with some sort of spooky sixth sense - that it would not be a good look for me.

Graham and I went for a gentle, pottering sort of ride around the Olympic Park last weekend; now formally known as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and fully open to the public once again.  It's a very big place, and we wanted to have a good explore and get to know our way around this new part of our local neighbourhood.  The aquatics centre opened a couple of months ago, and now hundreds of acres of parkland and the velopark are open too.  There are only a few more bits still to open (the Hockey and Tennis Centre next month, the Canal Park towards the end of this year and finally the stadium in 2016).

The velopark is the section closest to our house; it takes me just four and a half minutes to cycle there.  The indoor race track, the outdoor 'road' track and the BMX trails are all open at the velopark, and anybody can book a session and ride.  You can even hire a bike and take lessons if you want to.  There will be a massive network of mountain biking trails opening too later this year.  For now, I just wanted to stop off (there are plenty of bike racks outside, of course!) and have a look round.  We wandered into the velodrome and sat down for ten minutes to watch a local cycling club do some time trials.  I really want to have a go at track cycling, and I am totally going to book one of their taster sessions once I have settled into my new placement.

 

There is a very friendly branch of Cycle Surgery in the ground floor of the velodrome, and they didn't look even slightly fazed when I wheeled in my enormous sit-up-and-beg bike (with basket, obviously) to get a new tyre put on.  Admittedly my bike did look a little ordinary next to the shiny, sleek racers they had on display.

There's a cafe upstairs, where you can drink coffee and watch what's going on on the track below while the mechanics fit your new tyre.  Or you could walk round the corner to the Unity Kitchen Cafe and then sit outside under a tree for twenty minutes with a cup of coffee and a croissant, listening to the sound of birds in the trees and children enjoying one of the enormous new playgrounds, and just try and remember the polluted, industrial wasteland that was in the same place just ten years ago.  It's getting increasingly difficult to do.  Our part of East London was utterly transformed by the 2012 Olympics, and have to pinch myself sometimes when I think that all this splendour is now just four minutes away by bike.

 

Olympic ambitions

It's all Tom Daley's fault.  Really - it is.

I saw this picture on Instagram, and it reminded me that the Olympic aquatics centre opens to the public in just over a month's time.  For a split second I thought to myself 'it might be rather nice to have a swim in the Olympic pool', and then the thought faded as I remembered that I hate swimming.  Plus I can't really swim either.  I can float and tread water just enough to not drown, but I can't swim properly and the only 'stroke' I can do is basic doggy paddle for a few metres.  

The last time I did any amount of swimming was when I lived in Queensland, Australia for 9 months in 1995.  It was probably a condition of my visa that I had to swim while I was there; you can't be in Australia and not swim.  Any swimming I did was either snorkeling or splashing around in the sea though, so my 'not drowning' technique was perfectly adequate.  I can't actually remember the last time I went swimming in the UK.  It may have been as a child, with my parents.  I skived off every school swimming lesson at secondary school.  

I have never taken my own children swimming.  When they were toddlers I really wanted them to love swimming and be good at it, and I knew that the quickest way to ruin that would be for me to take them.  So Graham took them, and taught them both to swim at a very young age.  It is one of my greatest parenting achievements that they both swim like fish now, and love it, despite having me as a vehement, non-swimming, role model.  They are baffled at my dislike of it.  My parents have a pool in France, but I don't swim in it when we visit them.  Occasionally if it is really hot, I will sit in the shallow end sipping a cold glass of wine, or float for five minutes to cool down - but I'd rather be sitting in the shade reading a book and watching the others swim.

And yet...when I thought of the Olympic aquatics centre and how I would probably never swim there, I actually felt a little bit sad and regretful that I don't have a life skill that every other adult in the UK seems to have.  I remembered how I thought I hated running until I actually gave it a go.

"Right!  I'm going swimming tomorrow!" I announced to Olivia last night.
There was a long pause.
"You are?"
"Yes.  I'm going to give it a go."
"Wow."

I rummaged in my cupboard and found a swimming costume I bought over five years ago for occasional floating in the pool in France.  Olivia stood next to me, wide-eyed, as if she couldn't really believe I was going to go through with it.   She claimed never to have seen me wearing that swimming costume.

"You'll need googles," she said.  "Do you even have goggles?"
"No.  Do I really have to wear goggles?"
"Durr.  You can't swim without goggles."
"Okay - can I borrow yours?"
"I use Dad's second-best pair...but I think he's got a third-best pair somewhere that you could borrow."

Being a spoilt Londoner, as well as the Olympic aquatics centre just a ten minute bus ride away I also have two pools within walking distance of my house.  I have never swum in either, despite having lived here for fifteen years, but this morning after I took Olivia to school ("are you seriously going through with this?" was her parting shot as she got out of the car) I walked to the closest one and paid my three pounds (I don't even know if this is good value?  Is it?  It seemed pretty good to me).

In the changing cubicle I discovered that my swimming costume didn't fit.  I have - entirely accidentally - lost over 9kg in weight in the last year through running and working shifts, and the costume was gaping horribly.  I suspected that it would gape even more once I got it wet.  Happily, I discovered I could use the bracelet from my locker to clip the straps of my swimming costume together at the back, and this made it fit much better (although admittedly it left me looking like even more of an amateur - as if I didn't even know how to wear my locker bracelet).

The lanes in the pool were marked slow, medium and fast.  I got into a slow one, which only had two other people in it, and set off - not entirely sure whether I could swim a whole 25 metres in one go.  It turned out that I could just about manage a length of doggy paddle - and I stood up at the far end, heart pounding, feeling extremely pleased with myself. 

I had not expected everybody else in the pool to be so friendly.  Everybody chatted during the pauses at the end of the lengths.  There was much consternation and interest at my (lack of) swimming technique, and one man said, after watching me thrash up and down as hard as I could, "how come you're going so fast, given that you can barely swim?".  Polish Paul, in my lane, tried to show me how I could swim with much less effort. 
"This way, you won't be tired!" he said.
"I kind of want to be tired though," I replied, "I'm here for the exercise"
"No, no no.  You want to just glide up and down.  Don't wear yourself out.  I am an expert at gliding!"
As well as meeting Polish Paul, I learnt that the elderly lady in the green costume is known to everyone as The Fish, and that Mustafa, who is sixty this year, learnt to swim for his fiftieth birthday.  I suspect that if I turn up regularly at this time, I might become known as Crazy Doggy Paddle Woman.

I managed twelve lengths in total (not in one go - I stopped between each one), and when I got out, my arms and legs were trembling with tiredness ("you see - you should be gliding, like me!" said Polish Paul, as I rather shakily said goodbye).  

Graham's third-best pair of goggles

I think I might go again.

Where I was - 2012

How can a year be so wonderful and so hard all at once?  That was 2012.

I started the year at home, going for walks in my usual favourite haunts - Epping Forest, Kew Gardens, Mum and Dad's house in France, the streets of London.

At Kew Gardens

 

In Epping Forest

 

Hiking in France

 

Life ticked along.

Waiting for the tube - reading my Kindle

Then in June I decided to see if I might be able to apply for a place at University in 2013 to do a post-graduate nursing degree, despite my lack of any science A-levels.  I took Olivia with me to the summer Open Day, and thought to myself there's no harm in finding out. 

By the end of the day I'd had a first interview (with Olivia sitting by my side - solemnly reading her Beano) and had been given a date for my second interview.  Two weeks later I had my offer - for 2012, not 2013.  What I thought might take a year to sort out, took just a fortnight.

Olivia reading her Beano , as we waited for a lecture on student finance at City University

In August the sportsmen came to town, and we all went to the Olympic Stadium.  Cam went as a performer too.

In the Olympic Park with flags - Cam and me

In September I started University for the second time and became a student nurse - the best, most overwhelming, most interesting thing I've done in my adult life.  So many injections, so much work, so many biology workbooks, so many flasks of coffee, so many hours referencing essays.

At West Smithfield - on my way home from the Health Sciences library

 

First day at university - lunch, a bottle of water and coffee

In December I left the comfort of the campus behind and started my first placement - working long shifts in a large London hospital.  On my first day, as I walked to the tube along dark, cold streets at 6am, I thought to myself 'this is the single most scary thing I've ever done in my life'.

An early morning walk for me and Graham - late November

And before I knew it, it was Christmas.  Two people in the family were very poorly and I was reeling with exhaustion.  I've spent the last few days feeling thankful:

• for lovely, long-limbed children, who are kind and who make me laugh
• for my own health - I've learnt this autumn and winter that you can't take health for granted
• for friends who let me doze on their sofa, and forgive me when I don't write and forget to post their Christmas presents
• for corner shops that sell Green and Blacks and decent cheap wine
• for the doctors and nurses who looked after my own loved ones so well - I hope other people might think the same of me one day.

Dad and Graham - in France, Easter 2012

Me and Nigel Slater - New Year's Eve 2012

Along the way there were also two new nieces, a second hip replacement operation for my Mum, the arrival of a slow cooker and the departure of the bread machine, a bit of journalism, plenty of sewing, quite a bit of knitting and numerous cakes.  Olivia took up the French Horn and Cam became a teenager.  I don't think there'll ever be another year like it for testing me, challenging me and rewarding me.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Where I was in previous years:
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

10 things

• I was going to make a mixed berry cake. The children said they would do it for me. They separated the bowl of mixed blueberries and redcurrants into two piles and turned it into a Union Jack cake.

• Yesterday we celebrated our first wedding anniversary.  First anniversaries have the theme of paper, so Graham gave me an anatomy colouring book, which I have been longing for ever since I first applied for my nursing course.

• I start three weeks today.  THREE WEEKS!
• Tess has fueled the excitement further still, by sending me this wonderful Ladybird book as a Good Luck present.  I adore all the 70s and 80s uniforms in it, and desperately wish that an old-fashioned nurse's cape with red sashes was part of my uniform.

 

• I have four litres of homemade chicken stock sitting in the fridge, after roasting a chicken on Saturday - two litres of giblet stock, and a further two litres from the carcass of the bird. I am compiling a list of favourite soups, which is getting longer by the minute.
• Although, actually, I think really good chicken stock is best used in risottos, where its flavour can shine through.
• I have a long list of favourite risottos too.
• I finally found the pink aircell blanket that Olivia had as a baby, and bound it like the blue ones I did last winter.

• I am reading Almost French, by Sarah Turnbull and enjoying it enormously.  She writes with both love and honesty about living in Paris.  I'd love to live in Paris.
• London is pretty wonderful though.  There is a growing sense of expectation about The Paralympics, which start in just two days' time.  Olivia is the only one in our family who has tickets this time (she is going with school) - and the rest of us are all rather envious.

Here and now

The last two Olympic weeks were extraordinary, and glorious. Cam had a wonderful time at the Closing Ceremony, and although the BBC didn't show much of his bit on their coverage of the ceremony, he didn't care.  He had seen Usain Bolt and The Pet Shop Boys, had his photo taken with loads of soldiers, high-fived an armed police officer (he found this even more exciting than seeing Usain Bolt, I think) and, best of all, had his name and photo in the official programme. 

Olympic cast member

Here is a clip of his section from YouTube - if you pay very close attention you will glimpse a few seconds of the children in blue between about 3 mins 30 and 4 mins!

I went to school to collect him at 11pm on Sunday evening.  All the parents applauded the children as they came off the bus, still in full costume and make up, and all as high as kites. We thanked the teachers too, who had given up so much of their own time to chaperone the children these past few months.

Home from the Closing Ceremony - demonstrating his moves

The next day, he wore the sparkly blue tracksuit to walk round to our friends' house to feed their hens.  I think this was done purely to embarass Olivia.  Now he knows how much she dislikes the outfit, I'm sure he'll be wearing it more often (or perhaps threatening to...it is very bright...).

Sparkletastic

The Olympics are now over - but our summer still continues.

Right now I am drinking coffee and listening to the children potter about upstairs.  Olivia is lying on her bed, reading new library books and a new copy of The Beano, whilst smoothing down her new fringe.  Cam is lounging on some cushions on his bedroom floor, reading his Kindle and starting conversations with anyone who walks past about Minecraft.  I am wearying of discussions about Minecraft.

The hens in the garden are stretched out, sunbathing, and ignoring next door's cat who is lying on top of the fence, glaring at them.

I've just hung out a load of washing, and my fingers smell of tomato leaves because I always run my hands through the leaves as I walk past the plants.

When I've written this blog post I will spend a couple of hours in the kitchen - making a batch of yogurt, baking some biscuits and making a chicken salad for the children to eat for lunch tomorrow while I spend a couple of hours at the hospital helping out with other people's lunchtime.

We are having an ordinary sort of week - quietly productive and very satisfying.  I know that come September when the children are back at school and I am at University full-time there won't be any more weeks like this for a long time.

New haircut for Olivia

10 things

There's so much fizzing about my head at the moment.

• Cam came back from yesterday's Closing Ceremony rehearsal covered in blue body paint.
• He has been rehearsing with some Very Famous People and is not remotely star-struck.  I am though.
• I have finished my first crochet project.  What started off as a blanket, morphed into a shawl, and then eventually ended up as a scarf - because I had become so bored with making Granny Squares.  I love the final article though.  Full details on Ravelry.

• Becoming a nurse means that I have to have a whole range of vaccinations.  Most of these vaccinations require blood tests first, to see what levels of antibodies I have for those particular diseases.
• This means that I have been stuck full of needles today, and have loads more to come over the next month.  I have a sore, bruised arm and am now very sympathetic towards patients who require endless blood tests and injections.
• I've made a rhubarb and orange cake today.  It smells very good indeed.
• I've downloaded the Isles of Wonder soundtrack, and it is much better than the grumpy review in The Guardian would have you believe.  It is quite wonderful in fact, and takes me back to the euphoria of the Opening Ceremony in an instant.
• I have been doing anatomy homework before I start University.  Did you know that the proper, anatomical name for your big toe is hallux?
• We're off to the Olympic Park again tomorrow - this time to see a whole morning of athletics.  Absolutely cannot wait.  We will be seeing Mo Farah in the 5,000 m heats.
• I never saw Downton Abbey when it was on the tele.  I have now got Series 1 from LoveFilm and can see what all the fuss was about.  The costumes and the hair are quite as wonderful as Maggie Smith.

Idleness

We all have different ways of assuaging the guilt that comes with watching hour after hour of television.  The Olympics has been so entertaining and exciting that we have probably watched more television in the last week than we have in the whole year so far.

• Graham does his pilates exercises on the floor in front of the television
• Olivia makes cardboard medals to put up in the window - one for each medal that Team GB wins.  Some days it has been very hard for her to keep up.





Medals in the window



• I am studying anatomy.  I have holiday homework to do before I start at University in September.

 




• Cam is watching the least television of any of us, because every few days he has day-long rehearsals for the Closing Ceremony.  In tomorrow's rehearsal he has to wear make-up.  He's rather alarmed about that.

Moving from our front room to the pub to watch Bradley Wiggins win GOLD in the men's time trial

Flowers and flags

Olympic Park over there -->

We've had two incredible days in the Olympic Park so far this week, watching inspiring sport in person and on the big screens, soaking up the festival-like atmosphere and pinching ourselves that this day has finally come.

But from two days of amazing memories, what I shall remember most are the flowers and the flags.

 

The Park is full of flowers - great banks of them rising up from all the waterways that wind around the stadium.  Olivia and I spent hours taking photos, trying each time to get that perfect shot.

So many other visitors were taking photos too.  I chatted to people with cameras who had come from Australia, the Netherlands and the USA to be at the Olympics.  Everyone exclaimed over the beauty of the flowers before they discussed the sport.

Many of these people were wrapped in flags, or dressed in national colours.  We had come with our giant Union Jack, and Cam also bought a Brazilian flag when he discovered that Brazil was one of the teams playing in the handball session we had tickets for.

Olivia, Cam and Graham with our enormous Union Jack

Cam turns Brazilian for the day

Olivia and I spotted a great many sweet, fat babies in patriotic babygros and one charming toddler wearing stars-and-stripes tights.  We learnt what Montenegro's flag looks like (red, with a magnificent double-headed eagle and shield in the centre), we admired the Dutch people's wholly enthusiastic approach to wearing bright orange curly wigs, and we argued over which flag was which for France, Russia, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Olympic flags and flowers. A riot of colour and a feast for the senses.

Cam and Graham, with flag cloaks



Olivia and her macro button

Lazing about in front of the TV

The Olympic rings come together in the Opening Ceremony dress rehearsal

I stayed awake until the very last minute of the Opening Ceremony coverage last night.  At the dress rehearsal Cam and I went to on Wednesday, we were shown everything up to the start of the athletes' parade. However, two crucial elements had been hidden from us: the Queen's scene with James Bond, and the Mr Bean scene with Rowan Atkinson.  We knew that something big was planned at these points because the screens around the stadium went blank, and we were reminded to #savethesurprise.  The helicopter that the parachutists jumped from in the actual ceremony hovered low over the stadium for about a minute during the rehearsal, and then buzzed off.  Cam and I speculated for hours about what was going to happen at that point.  We didn't even come close to guessing right!

Danny Boyle addresses the stadium, as a cloud floats by

Danny Boyle spoke to the stadium before the show, thanking all the volunteers for their immense hard work in putting the show together and asking us all to reveal nothing about the ceremony until after Friday evening.  It was a clever move, because the thrill of feeling like we were all in on a big secret was more appealing than telling everyone what to expect.

My favourite part of the whole show was the NHS section, which was just awesome.  All the children on the beds were doing incredible acrobatics, and the dancing was fantastic.  Cam and I had spent most of the show exclaiming, gasping and clutching at each other in excitement.

After staying up until well past 1am last night, I have been lolling on the sofa for most of the day today, watching the OIympic coverage on the TV.  It feels outrageously lazy to spend so much time watching TV, but I have been productive in my laziness.  I have discovered that when you're weaving in the ends on 40 crocheted granny squares you really need something exciting on TV to stop you from losing your mind.  The mens' road race did it for me today - I was willing team GB to speed up and get Mark Cavendish to the Mall at the front of the peloton, but it just didn't happen.

The ends are now weaved, and I am off to settle down in front of the TV again to seam all the squares together while I watch this evening's swimming finals.  All this lazing on the sofa is going to be very good for my knitting and crochet.

The London 2012 Olympics are here

Although there's another day to go until the London 2012 Olympics is officially declared open, for us and many others living so close to the Olympic Park it has already begun. 

Inside the Olympic Stadium last night

• Living in a big city, we are used to the Metropolitan Police helicopter hovering above us from time to time, but since last week there have been helicopters circling the skies each afternoon and evening.
• The purple-and-orange clad volunteers for the Games can be seen everywhere - at bus stops, on the tube, in local shops, in the park and walking down the street.  There are tens of thousands of them - all volunteers and all enthusiastic about the Games.  It is heartwarming to see.
• They know their stuff too - they've all been able to answer my questions so far.
• Not that I'm testing them or anything.
• For years there has been endless discussion and speculation locally about just how bad the traffic would be during the Games.
• On Monday - the first day of restrictions - I drove five and a half miles to Tottenham, to buy a sack of hen feed, with no problems whatsoever.
• Yesterday, emboldened by my success, I attempted to drive a mile and a half to Wanstead.
• I made it 600 metres and then had to abandon my car in a residents' parking bay because the roads were gridlocked and we weren't going anywhere.
• Luckily I was only 600 metres from home, so my own Olympic residents' parking permit was still valid.
• I have learnt my lesson.  I shall not be taking the car out again until 9th September, when the Paralympics finishes.
• A favourite local pub is opening a festival style Pop Up Pub in Leyton town hall for the duration of the summer.  Seeing as I can't drive, I reason that I might as well make the most of it.
• Olivia and I are festooning the house with bunting and flags today.
• Last night Cam and I went to the penultimate dress rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony.  It was utterly amazing and magical.  But I can't tell you any more than that because Danny Boyle swore us to secrecy.
• When Danny Boyle came on stage, Cam piped up "Oh look! It's the really strict choreographer who kept us back late on our last rehearsal."
• It turns out that Danny Boyle has been rehearsing the children for the Closing Ceremony in person.  I thought he would have delegated that job.  Cam and the other teenagers from his school just shrugged when I exclaimed "But he's not a 'strict choreographer', he's an iconic Oscar winning film director!".  There's nothing like a world-weary teenager for keeping it real.
• They were all still very excited to be in the stadium and to get an idea of what the atmosphere will be like when they perform at the Closing Ceremony in just over two weeks' time.
• Athletes and coaches from all over the world are here.  Yesterday I saw a pack of Australian coaches waiting at Leytonstone station, smiling and chatting in the sunshine.  Then today, on his run to work, Graham saw a flock of Kenyan runners enjoying a leisurely jog through Victoria Park at an eyewateringly fast pace.
• The USA judo, volleyball and boxing teams are training at the Score sports complex next to Leyton Orient stadium, just around the corner from us.
• I don't think you could live here and not be excited about all this.  East London feels like the centre of the world at the moment.

Stuck in Westfield at Stratford for an hour last night, waiting for tube platofrms to clear.

Anish Kapoor's Orbit sculpture in the Olympic Park

Olympic questions

Red, white and blue bunting - up for the jubilee, and coming back very soon for the Olympics.

I was tagged by my dear friend Janine, who blogs at Chouxchouxbedoo, to carry on this Olympic meme. We don't have very long to go now - just 50 days until the Opening Ceremony. We live so close to the Olympic Park - just about 1 mile away - that the excitement around here is palpable.

1. If every day tasks were Olympic events what would you get a gold medal in?

Gold for coffee making, tidying up and writing lists. A silver currently for my bread-making, but I'm hopeful that will be gold too by this summer.

2. As a child (or now even) did you excel at a particular sport and if so which one?

Erm...no. At my secondary school we were put into ability sets for PE and I was always in the bottom one. This did nothing to improve my sporting skills because it meant I was always playing with or against other girls as hopeless and unenthusiastic as me.  My exercise of choice these days is walking or cycling.

3. Michael Phelps (swimmer) or Michael Johnson (runner) – which sport appeals to you more?

Running appeals much more.  Swimming is the absolute pits - water up your nose, the stench of chlorine, the nasty wet floors of the changing rooms. Gah!  I used to run when I was at University, but I was never very good.  I still love watching running though - especially long-distance running and the very upright Kenyans.  I am constantly tempted to take it up again and do Parkrun regularly, but I am intimidated by the extraordinarily good running skills of my husband.  There's probably enough lycra in our house already.

4. How fast can you get out of bed and ready to go out the door if miss the alarm and sleep in?

I don't think I've ever missed an alarm in my life.  I'm pretty good at getting up in the morning; I can be up and out in about 10 minutes if I have to.

5. What fantasy sport would you like to see made into an Olympic event?

Cross country or trail running would be good to see in the Olympics; but they're real sports already.  My fantasty Olympic sport would be eyebombing.

6. Claim to fame time – Have you ever met an Olympian and who was it?

I interviewed Jonathan Edwards last year - he was charming and friendly, and had very long elegant legs.  I once queued behind Colin Jackson in the Vauxhall branch of Sainsbury's.  He smiled at me and I swooned.

7. What event in past Olympics can you remember most vividly?

I vaguely remember the Steve Ovett and Seb Coe rivalry in the 1980 Olympics.  I was only eight.  More recently I remember Cathy Freeman's win from the Sydney Olympics and Kelly Holmes's incredible double at the Athens Olympics.  All runners again - I really do like (watching) running.

8. Tuning in at home, not for me or tickets clamped ready in sweaty palms?

Just you try keeping me away!  We were lucky enough to get Athletics tickets in the very first round of ticket allocation, and since then we've also bough tickets for Handball and day tickets to the Olympic Park.  Cam is going to be performing in the Closing Ceremony, but we don't have tickets for that so we'll be watching him on the TV.  Along with 4 billion other people - oh my.  Must remember to get his hair cut in good time.

9. Who do you think most deserves a gold medal (any walk of life not just Olympians)?

Oh, so many people actually.  But right up there at the top for me are nurses - very under appreciated generally.



Olympic rings greeting Eurostar arrivals at St Pancras Station

I'm going to tag Clair at Kids, Crafts and Chaos to keep this going, because I know how excited she is about the Olympics (and eyebombing!). But feel free to join in as well, and let me know if you do.