Saturday 8th Septmeber

Well whose bright idea was this up at 4.00am on a saturday!!!!! Obviously watch the Paralympics till late last night so only a couple of hours sleep. We have to change at Swindon where we meet Lara and manage to all find seats together.

Lara nags me to take a snap of her Wenlock and Manderville and I agree as long as she writes a piece for the blog about her day at Excel. She agrees and we wonder which students would be good at seated fencing!!! The mind boggles.

The journey takes about an hour and we start planning a get together for an evening of remembering the summer we have had. We think keeping it Olympic themed is great and once the end arrives we need to pencil this into the calender asap. Anyone interested in getting into a post olympic mode of slide show and highlights please register your interest in the guest book.

Well we arrive at Paddington, say our goodbyes to and head off to leave our bags at the hotel before heading off to the Olympic Park. Much to our delight we can check in and dump our bags in our room. We then head off to the Park and the aquatic centre for the swimming.

Little Ellie is swimming in the 100m heats and we cheer her on to a win to qualify, her work will be cut out in the final though as she faces the world record holder, Vicky from the USA.  Jack Bridges qualifies for the breast stroke final and is part of the 4x100m relay team that storm to vicotry in their heat screamed on by the home crowd. As with all events everyone is cheered home but those decibals are raised considerably for a GB athlete.

Once again after a swimming session I am afflicted with clappy hands and "whoop whoop" thoat, something I have become accustomed to. Miss O tends to be a more teary emotional state.

We head off to the wheelchair tennis, those of you that have been reading will know that Trudy has been a games maker there so we have a feel of whats been going on but this is our first visit to the Manor which is quite along walk onto the other side of the park.

It is the last but one day of events and the park is both busy and very very hot. We stock up with water and ice -cream and head to our centre court seats for some finals action. There is bit of a breeze which helps a little but the heat is so much during the afternoons play that one ball boy feints due to the heat.

The end of a bronze medal match is on and two dutch guys are playing, it is a very close affair and we take in our first experience of this event.

We see a mens single gold medal match which pits a USA athlete against one from Israel. As usual we are the kiss of death to anyone we support and the guy from Israel totally outplays the American to win in straight sets.

We then see the victory ceremony for this event and this is followed buy the womans doubles, again two dutch pairs are up against each other, one of the players has not been beaten in years and she and her partner maintain this record and romp to a straight sets win.

We have a cross over of events and also want to watch Ellie in the 100m final so we head over to Park Live and find a top spot to watch it from. I have a feeling it may be silver and despite my best screaming at the screen for Ellie to swim faster she cannot get to grips with the American and comes in second. A great medal haul for the young lady and a well deserved gold at last for the American.

Food next, I cannot decide so Miss O goes for Thai, we find a deserted bench and sit and chill for a while and reflect on the fact that this is all drawing to a close and we feel quite empty and sad at this thought. However we have no time to waste, wheelchair rugby or murder ball as it is calls beckons so we head over the the baskerball arena as this is where it is being played. I pick up a hot dog as I am now starving and we top up the water supplies and take our seats.

WOW what a game this is, fast, skillfull and a touch brutal. We actually manage not to be the kiss of death to the teams we pick this evening, Belgium beating France and the its Team GB versus Sweden. We cheer our boys on and they romp home to win. This is a game everyone we speak to wants to have a go at.

Its gone 22.30 now so its back to the tube and that familiar journey to the hotel. The bar is very busy and I send Miss O to get a bottle of wine. The Proms have been on in Hyde Park hence how busy it is and this adds to the real patriotic feeling. The poor barmen (well boys really) struggle to cope with the wave of customers but eventually Miss O returns with bottle and glasses in hand and we sit back and reflect on what we have seen and the fact that tomorrow is our last trip. 

We finally head to bed about 2.30am after being up almost 24hrs but happy in the knowledge we have a lie in tomorrow.

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OMG.....OMG.......OMG

Whose bright idea was this.

Train leaving Cheltenham at 05.30 and getting to Paddington about 08.00.

Back to same hotel as last week and drop off bags, check-in later.

And on the scheduel today is

09.30-12.15  Swimming

12.00-20.00  Wheelchair Tennis

17.00-22.15  Wheelchair Rugby

Bit of cross over today but think we can squeeze it all in.