aliholli: Olympics! LONDON 2012 Day 1

We were all soooooo excited for our Jolly Hollie Olympic adventure but I don't think any of us realised just how magical, fabulous, amazing, fantastic and wonderful it would be.

LONDON 2012.....A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY to witness the Olympics in our own country. and it has to go down as one of the best events we have been to.

We stickered ourselves up, Union Jacked our nails, transferred our hands, even stickered our pumps

and after a hearty breakfast at Joe's at the Junction (Clapham), we took the tube to Stratford.

There were Gamesmakers everywhere and they totally,, utterly completely, and undoubtedly MADE it such a good day. They were so enthusiastic, happy, noisy, helpful, fun and jolly...FANTASTIC!

The stadium looked magnificent! As did the Orbit, the largest art sculpture in England which was designed by Anish Kapoor and reflects the 5 Olympic rings. It stands 115 metres high, offering visitors great view over the Olympic Park.

It IS big! It overlooks the stadium, in fact if you timed it right you could have a great view of the men's 100m final! We had proof of this as we sat with "Ian" who had worked on the Olympic flame's gas pipe. He showed us a photo of him at the top of the Orbit with his hard hat on and the view into the stadium was superb.

Mini-Katy (Gamesmaker-extraordinaire) at the top of the Orbit

The designers really thought about this park. We were really impressed with it, it was so colourful with large areas of beautiful wild flowers.

None were harmed in the making of this next photograph.

I found the gap

("You are now in London so Mind the gap! Mind the gap")

As you can see I never doubted Usain Bolt.

We were lucky to have had a sunny day to see the Queen's boat glistening in the sun.

GLORIANA was built for the Queen's Jubilee and was the lead boat in the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. There were 18 rowers that day including Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent.

The flowers in the Park are so pretty. I can't tell you enough how colourful and magical the Park is. The designers of London 2012 have done an amazing job.

Our first event was WATERPOLO in the WATERPOLO ARENA.

We watched Spain beat China 6-4 which surprised Husb and I because when we saw them all lined up ready for handshakes the Chinese looked like men from behind, they had such big shoulders and solid bodies.

It was fascinating to watch but I'm not sure how much fun it would be to play, it is SOOOOO rough. There is so much underwater tackling. No wonder they all had costume wedgies, the less the opposition can get their hands on the better.

Australia won the second match. They beat Italy 10-8.

We regrouped , meeting Drake who had been watching Tom Daley diving on the big screen,

and had a Team JollieHollie photo before we went our separate ways again.

My gold medal was so much fun. I had eaten the chocolate disc and was only wearing the foil circle but it was enough to set off the security buzzers 3 times, YES I was searched 3 times hahaha

Husb and I had to leave the Olympic Park for our next session as we had tickets for BADMINTON at the WEMBLEY ARENA. Pixen and Drakey stayed for more waterpolo. Cub came with us as he had Borussia Bouverie 5-a-side duties.

The tube was packed. We didn't know where to sit.

Walking up Wembley Way....

...past Bobby Moore...

...to the Wembley Arena to the Badminton.

More bright colours! And so much HEAT! It was so hot in the Arena I had to nip out to the Ladies to change into my shorts.

The legend that is Chris Hollindale won us our tickets from a Twitter competition and the National Lottery, WOW WOW WOW the seats were so good we were 3 rows from the front of Court One and we were ON TELE whoop whoop (hahaha)

We saw Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei, ranked number ONE in the world , here in yellow.

(He ended up with the Silver medal in the final)

The doubles matches were great to watch, the shuttlecocks sometimes only lasted 2 points, they were being hit really hard and so fast.