Friday 31st August

Well we are up and packed, good to go, tickets sorted and ready for anoter hectic few days. Saffy realises we are off again as she sits in the case saying either "please don't go" or "can I come please". Although she loves people and fuss I don't think she will like the crowds. Eddy we haven't seen yet and Patsy just struts aroudn being the queen she is.

Wenlock has met Mandeville and they seem to be getting on well so its time for a home made fruit smoothie and toast and then off to the railway station to get the train.

Today is our travel day, we set off at 12.31 (to be exact) from Cheltenham and should get into Paddington about 14.40. We then have to nip round to our hotel near Hyde Park.

We then have time to chill and get back into the routine of getting to Olympic Park (who knows we could try a new route), the regular airport security with no plane to get on and then onward to the Olympic shuffle (as there is no way we have found to walk normally in the Olympic Park).

We have an evening of athletcis so a nice gentle start to proceedings.



Well we arrive and check in and make our way sedately to the Olympic Park, we are interested to see if the vibe is any different. We have a bite to eat (2 frankfurters) and get some goodies 1 bag of Crunchie bites and some vitamin water all for the bargain price of just over £20.

We take our place in the stadium,  a good view in fromt of the medal podiums, and although well back we get a good view of all of the stadium. The crowd is more predominantly GB that the Olympics but the atmosphere is just as electric and although partizan give support to all the athletics.

This is one of the first athletic sessions and we are once again lucky enought to witness some amazing action. There are world records broken left right and centre in the field events and I start building my knolwedge of classifications which although initially is quite complicated by viewing on C4 and reading the literature that comes with the tickets gradually falls into place. That means I can concentrate on that and Miss O on photography (yes I know we havent laoded much for a while but we should now begin to have some more time to do so). The other big thing I notice is the amount of youngsters in the crowd and this is a trend that continues through the weekend.

Well a Paralympic hero in  Dave Weir takes to the track and thrills the crowds with a storming last lap in the T54 secures him a place in the final. We then witness a young lady called Hannah Cockroft in the T34 200m, she blows the field out of the water to win by a handsome distance and is greeted by the know familiar GB roar. Her medal ceremony gives us another chance to get emotional and belt out the national anthem, a tune I have never sung so often in such a short space of time. David Bowies "Heroes" I am sure will re-surge back into the charts as it accomponies all GB and medal success and what and apt song it is.

The session seemed longer than the Olynpic sessions we saw here and there is so much going on at times we are not sure where to focus our eyes, the commentary however keeps us all up to date especially where multi classifciations are used as then a points system is used to calcualte scores.

We also observe our favourite medal ceremony to date in a shot put category, the Tunisian, Canadian, and Morrocon dance around the podium and hug and congratulate each other.

At the end  of the session we head back to the hotel in a kind of amazed state of what we have seen and are looking forward so much to tomorrow at the aquatic centre. This is for 2 reasons, firstly we did not see swimming at the Olympics (athough we did see the Tom Daley in the diving which is in the same venue) and secondly our luck with tickets has continued as we realise we have Ellie Simmonds the poster girl of the Paralympics racing in our sessions.

We arrive back at the hotel hoping to find the highlights action as we used to for the Olympics, alas we dont find this although Miss O does find a few more 4 channels that shows the action without adverts later on.

We therefore decide to have a glass of wind to wind down as the action always leaves you drained but ecastic at the same time so it takes time to relax.

We know we have an early start tomorrow but it is gone 2.30am by the time we rest our weary heads which will make tomorrow mornings get-up a difficult affair.