London 2012: When Our Time Came, Britain, We Did It Right!

NB: Please click on the photos to view properly, this new layout is playing havoc with them!

 

Last weekend I went to the London 2012 Paralympics and it was hands-down one of the best experiences I've ever had. The atmosphere was amazing all through the Park and all of the Gamesmakers were so happy and helpful.

  We were seeing the Athletics so were in the Olympic Stadium and it was completely electric. Having seen it so much on telly, I thought I had a good idea of what it would be like, but I was wrong. I expected the view from our seats (the middle price category of 3) to be quite restricted and to only see the Athletes as little dots on a miles-away track, but the view was fantastic! We could see everything, track and field.

The best moments for me were; first, seeing Richard Whitehead win and receive his Gold medal. The place went insane when he won, and I have to admit to emitting noises and screeches I never expected I had in me! Singing the National Anthem as a crowd of 80,000 was just unreal!

We saw 6 GB medals in total!

 

The other stand out moment was seeing Houssien Omar Hassan, an Athlete from Djibouti running the 1500m. He's the one in blue on the above photos. When the pistol went, all of the runners set off and it quickly became clear that he wouldn't be in the running for the medals. He was lapped twice by the other competitors and was still on his first lap when the group had finished. But the most inspiring and humbling thing was that as he went round, barely faster than a stumble, the entire stadium stood up and cheered him on as if he was in the lead. A mexican wave-style round of applause greeted him from every stand as he went by. Even the commentators, whose speech was audible only to the TV Broadcast for all other events, came back through the speakers to will him on and all the screens you see on the photos lit up with "MAKE SOME NOISE!". It was a very emotional 11 minutes and as he crossed the line, the cheer went up as if he'd just won gold. He certainly won something.

I hope you all enjoyed the Olympics & Paralympics, tell me about your favourite moment in the comments below :)

Take Care, Lot of Love, Taz x

To Many People Holidays Are Not Voyages Of Discovery, But A Ritual Of Reassurance.

Afternoon all!

I got back from my little holiday last weekend so wanted to show you what I got up to.

However, after reading through some of my past posts, I've realised I do have a tendancy to 'waffle'. So for this post I'm going to try and summarise a bit more and let my photos do the talking.

We stayed in a little cottage quite near York, and it was small but really cosy. Bijou, if you like! And the view was beautiful.

Just down the road was Yorkshire Lavender which I didnt really expect to enjoy that much. But there was actually lots to see and do, including some cute little deer and an interesting cricket game sculpture.

We also had some amazing things to eat, like Lavender Ice Cream, Lavender Tea and (yes, you guessed it) Lavender Shortbread!

We also visited Malton, Hovingham and Gilling, which are all beautifully picturesque villages, and the gorgeous Benningbrough Hall where we had tea and lunch before looking around the house. 

The weather was great all week and the most spectacular thing was the clear nights. Because of being out in the countryside there was absolutely no light pollution. I took a few photos just on the off-chance of them picking something up. After filtering and HDR-ing the hell out of them, this was one of the results;

Finally, on the day that we left, we decided to take a trip over to Castle Howard for lunch. We were seated by a family who were all laughing and chatting, when an older gentleman turned and smiled at my mum, greeting her with a happy "hello there!" and then we realised it was Michael Parkinson!

He was visiting on his way to do a show at Scarborough theatre, and had stopped for lunch with his family. He was a lovely man and chatted with us throughout lunch.

It was a lovely relaxing week. Hope you're all having wonderful trips this summer. Tell me about them below!

Lots of Love, Taz x