What an amazing weekend at the
Paralympics!! Well in fact it was a
weekend in London for the sport plus some sightseeing and with the 80 plus
degree temperatures thrown in for good measure, two brilliant days were
had. First port of call was the Cutty
Sark now that the burned bits have been scraped off and repainted. I had been as a child but with the addition
of a visitor exhibition it is a real crowd puller now. However, the high entry fee was off-putting
so we admired it from the outside and took a few photos. From there we walked to the Greenwich
Observatory (the hill was very long in the hot weather............) and stood
either side of the Meridian Line (had to pay for the privilege of course). After a reviving cake and bottle of pop we
skipped down the hill and climbed aboard the driverless Docklands Light Railway
to head to Stratford for the night. I
was really looking forward to a long hot bath to relax my
muscles............however, we had been allocated a room with disabled
facilities – no bath, just a floor level shower with no tray. Hmmmm okay then, it was functional and obviously
saves the maid a little time as the water flows across the floor thereby
washing it, but I wanted to have a bath!!!
Anyhow, onto the main event, the Paralympics
7 a side football. We were lucky enough
to see Team GB beat the USA in the first game of the morning, followed by the
Netherlands thrashing Argentina in the next game with a hat trick in the first
18 minutes. Watching these guys playing quality
football put the overpaid prima donnas of the Premier League to shame. Each of the team members yesterday had some
degree of impaired mobility but they played as a team; when they fell over they
were straight back on their feet; they could actually do stuff with the ball
like dribbling not just passing it from one to the other........the FA would do
well to look at the high priced rubbish that is fielded every weekend and make
some serious changes. Sign up some of
these chaps instead and the fans will see proper skills.
When wandering around the vast
shopping complex by the Olympic Park we kept running into athletes from many of
the international teams buying souvenirs, having dinner or simply soaking up
the atmosphere. Everyone involved with
running the event from the volunteers up to the armed services integrated with
the public, little kids high fived the soldiers, people were smiling and
joking...............what a great public relations display this was. I wonder if the spirit of being nice will
continue?
We took the Javelin train back to
St Pancras on the high speed six minute trip from Stratford then made our way
to Regent’s Park to visit London Zoo. Having
grown up in the London area, this was a favourite place to visit in the school
holidays to see all the animals, have a picnic and learn about wildlife. What a disappointment this visit turned out to
be. After being ripped off for the
entrance fee (well it is Britain after all), in we went to see the usual main
attractions at such a place. However,
there are now no elephants there (a zoo without elephants, what is that all
about??), the many gorillas advertised as being on show were invisible either
inside their area or in their outdoor enclosure (I am guessing they may have
paddled across the moat surrounding their island and escaped over the fencing)
and the camels were not being displayed as their current area is being
remodelled to house the tigers. That should
be interesting if they forget to relocate the camels to an alternative place prior
to moving the large stripy cats in. An
email has been sent to the zoo but I doubt anything very useful will come from
it.
Good news though as I got home to
find a letter from Silverstone with a refund for the parking fiasco at the
grand prix this year plus a goodwill gesture for 10% off the price of tickets for next
year. As these have already been booked,
the admin crew are arranging a refund cheque.
What a result..........perhaps I will be able to afford to head out to
another London attraction now?
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