Sunday 5th August

Day 9 – Today is a rest day for us, boy do we need a lie in.
We have a buffet lunch booked which was
part of a ticket package we got from Italy for the tennis semi finals so we are
looking forward to a proper meal after eating too much junk and fizzy pop!!!

We head off the restaurant and have some nice soup to start
with, it is all rather grim and wet in London today, followed by a lovely rib
eye steak with salad, followed by tiramisu for Miss O and panacotta for me. We
also have some fruit and tea /coffee to finish.

After this we head off to the Strawberry Moon bar to watch
some more Olympic action, we are finding it hard to keep up with who is winning
what as we are at so many event and even though we watch the highlights we are
often so shattered we crash with the TV on. The tennis is on so we ask the
girls behind the bar to put the sound on and turn the music off which they do,
they say the atmosphere in the bar the night before was amazing as the athletic
gold’s came rolling in and they did well with tips and drinks. We chat to a
couple of guys who are also glued to the screen and we sit somewhat astounded
as Andy Murray almost wipes the floor with Roger Federer. Filled with emotion
once again Andy wins the gold and his elation is as clear to see as it was on
semi final day.

Our friend Louise comes to meet us, another friend Sue is
too tired and has gone back to base, a base where they are not allowed the TV
on to watch the highlights, poor choice of accommodation me thinks. Anyway we
chat and drink about our various experiences, Louise has been at the woman’s
marathon today and got rather soggy as it has been a drab London day. She also
watched the woman’s triathlon and shows us a rather un-flattering picture of
one of the competitors who had ripped her all in one suit, let’s say in the
place you wouldn’t want it to as a lady (picture to follow), if there was a
gold medal for exposing yourself, we think should would win.

We watch some more athletics and the bar begins to fill and
the music pumps around, there is such a fabulous friendly air about London that
we have not experienced before. We have
bit of a how are we going to do in the 400m and Julie guesses correctly with
silver. We then have a think about the final count of gold medals, Louise goes
for 22, Jane goes for 21, and Julie for 25.

After probably a beer or two too many we head off as Louise
is off home back to Manchester and we are up early for athletics tomorrow
morning and then the semi final of the woman’s football in the evening.