day and night

Thursday, 9th August, was swelteringly. I did not want to be standing outside in the sun all day with my delicate, pale, English skin, so negotiated hard to be inside an Information Point tent.  Seems everyone had by now realised this was the most interesting role and everyone wanted to be there, plus you got a seat and a PC to watch the events in any downtime.  However, some people had specially trained to do it, making it a harder bargain with the Deputy Head.  So she put me in the area called Greenway Gate (the green team - my least favourite colour) - better known as the back of beyond.  It leads to West Ham tube where the park managers have been trying to persuade all spectators to use rather than Stratford Gate but not  informing them that’s it’s a 30 minute walk.  So quite a number arrive disgruntled, sweaty and tired.

Walked into the park and picked up the baton from Alan and Helen Bancroft with Henry and Laura  who were just leaving through Stratford Gate in willful defiance of the park managers' attempts to direct traffic through Greenaway. Good to see British contrariness is alive and well and boosted by the Olympian spirit.

I handed on the baton to my cousin Amy, and her family, Paul, Joshua and Daniel Smith over a Macky D drink - cheapest in the park.  Amy deserved a gold medal for travelling from Nottingham on such a hot day with two young children and in her eighth month of pregnancy.  They justly deserved to see to see Usain Bolt and David Rudisha win their gold medals - what a night!  And they stayed to the end!

 

For the remainder of the day three of us Games Makers sat in the tent scrabbling around for things to do - chasing the shade at the edge of the tent, attracting punters of which there were about three an hour, getting pathetically excited over lost and found items that could be inserted into the PC.  The big plus was going home at 20.30.

Friday, 10th August

Greenway Gate

Another negotiation to get into an Information Point tent with success but again assigned to Greenway.  But what a contrast - a much better day!  The Information Point had been moved outside under an umbrella and there were many more spectators using the Gate.  My stalker found me in the briefing session on arrival and by coincidence (really!) was also on the Green Team.  He walked me along the pretty river bank to our station and actually turned out to be fun.  We returned to the canteen together about an hour later for the "party" for volunteers of cakes, ice cream and speeches -that was how it was sold to us.  Arrived with half an hour still to go, after a 15 minutes trek in the sweltering sun, to find that everything had gone!  Could they not at least have organised another Cadburys, purple (like the GM shirt) trolley of ice cream?  Still, gave me another opportunity to meet up with the very nice Jane again, the publicity lady from neighbouring Kew , who I hope to meet for coffee soon. 

Then for the unrivalled drama of the day - found that something had been stolen from our lost property site.  It took an hour of bureaucratic endeavour and four people in the hierarchy to deal with it, only to be told to write a report.  Still, managed to leave at 21.30, waving goodbye to Jane as she climbed up the Orbit.  The day had gone fast, I had actually enjoyed it, had some good conversations with a number of people, I had laughed! But home too late for a Friday night curry!  

Finally, the uniform!i