Here come the girls!

London 2012

The Olympics is a wonderful showcase for women in sports, and so many sports are represented too.
Team GB's first medal was won by Lizzie Armitstead in the Cycling Road Race. She took silver behind Marianne Vos of the Netherlands.
The first medal for swimming was won by Becky Adlington in the 400m freestyle. She won Bronze. The amazing Camille Muffat (France) won the gold.
The first Gold medal was won by Helen Glover and Heather Stanning (Rowing) in the women's pair.
These are all tremendous inspiring women, they work hard, they train hard, they are so dedicated, and I'm so proud of them.
They've been joined on the podia by the Equestrian Eventing team (silver). This is one of the few sports where men and women compete against each other. Zara Philips (HMQ's eldest granddaughter) is a valued member of the team as is Mary King, who is a classy lady in her 50's competing in her 5th Olympics.Tina Cook, Nicola Wilson  and William Fox-Pitt make up the rest of the team (We'll let him be an honorary woman!!)

We have more succesful women rowers (Kat Copeland, Sophie Hosking, Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger), cyclists (Victoria Pendleton, Dani King, Jo Rowsell and Laura Trott).
In Judo Gemma Gibbons won silver (78kg) and Karina Bryant won bronze (78kg+).
The women's football team won their group undefeated (beating Brazil!) and were knocked out by Canada in the QFs.
And the most golden girl of all : Jessica Ennis, who won the Women's Heptathlon on sat 4th. I cannot imagine how anyone trains for 7 different disciplines, but she does. A foot injury kept her out of competing at Beijing, but she has fought back and worked hard on improving her field events.
Anyone who has a daughter will be pleased to see these wonderful women, they are fabulous role models for our daughters ( and for us). Hardworking, dedicated, focused, classy women.

Brilliant and totally bonkers!



London 2012The opening ceremony in London on Fri 27th was amazing: a quirky, moving, funny exciting look at Britain. I was moved to tears, I laughed out loud, I pogo-ed around the living room.
After Beijing 2008's wonderful elegant ceremonies we wondered how we could compete with the stylish precision that dazzled the world. So Danny Boyle decided not to, he decided to play to our strengths and created a different show.

We had children's choirs singing Jerusalem (England) Danny Boy (Northern Ireland), O Flower of Scotland (Scotland, obvs) and Cwm Rhondda (Wales), there was the pastoral idyll of a time gone by transformed into the Victorian industrial age which then forged the olympic rings in iron and suspended them above the stadium.



HMQ- raising the bar for all pensioners

To a collective gasp of joy and disbelief we had HMQ as the best ever Bond girl "appearing" to skydive into the stadium with Daniel Craig.

 

We had a wonderful moving tribute to the victims of the London bombings (7/7/05) when 52 people were killed by terrorist bombs in London the day after London won the Olympic bid.
No one else would have pure comedy on display, but we did when Mr Bean joined in playing the Chariots of Fire theme with the LSO conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
And then the Olympic cauldron was  lit. There had been much speculation about who would do this, but no one could have predicted what we saw. Each of 204 countries represented at the Games carried in a large bronze petal, which were then put into the shape of a large chrysanthemum flower ( a nod to Beijing perhaps?). Sir Steve Redgrave carried the flame into the stadium but then passed it to a team of very young athletes, teenagers who compete at a junior level who then carried it around the stadium and they lit the petals. The torch was symbolically passed onto the next generation and they united the world. It was beautifully moving.
I couldn't get to sleep afterwards it was so much to take in, and I couldn't knit either while watching it.
It was wonderful. Thank you Danny Boyle for such a fabulous show.