Thursday 6th September

The alarm goes off at 4.30am, only to be snoozed until 4.45am. OMG I am looking forward to this but could do without the early start.

We have to drive over to Swindon to meet and then we baord the 7.01 train to Paddington, once there its on a tube for the hot journey round to Stratford.

We arrive and head through security, smooth, efficient and friendly as ever.

We then re-fill water bottles, and head off to find our seats. We are positioned in front of the podiums and are not too far back. There are lots of schools in, several from abroad and Miss O rues the fact she couldn't bring the whole school (what an experience it would have been).

The lads gradually get into the whole atmosphere with flag waving and whooping and cheering. However we have to be quiet for the blind triple jump which is a feat to behold. The Chinese jumper is quite a showman who likes the usual clapping build up before silence and then he whips off his tracky bottoms in Full Monty style.  Quite the character and just so happy; so pleased he got a silver although he was  leading it for quite awhile! (And he was so happy and still such a character at his medal ceremony)!!! Again they have a guide who they use as a focul point and are told when to take off. Again a few mishaps as they sometimes veer off the runway or land out of the sand pit.

We see Hannah Cockrfot blow the 200m T34 field away in the heats and also see Bev Jones secure Bronze in the F37 discus. Another highlight is the medal ceremony for last nights 4x100m T44 and South Africa with Oscar Pistorius the rest of the team getting their gold medals.

This must be one of the hottest days we have attended the Olympic Park so after the morning session we head to Park Live to eat our lunch and take in some of the live events being shown on the big screens.

The lads being teenagers all doze off in the sun so we take the chance to have an ice-cream while they snnoze. Eventually the groggy group awaken we wander up the hill and have our photo taken with the Para Symbols, very friendly BA reps and free stickers collected.

After this we wander round the park taking pictures of the various venues and are impressed at the questions and the interest the youngsters ask. We pop into the megastore which has an unusually short queue and those that wish to buy souveniers do so. We reflect on the fact that we couldn't have done a whistle stop tour of London (what were we thinking of).

We head out of the park, catch the tube, get another McDonalds (think I have had my quota for the year now) and take our seats (glad we reserved them) and head for home.

A wonderful day which was made more enjoyable by the fantastic youngsters we were able to take. They were a pleasure to spend time with and they became absorbed in the experience.

Once back in Cheltenham we are at home in time to realise its going to be what friends of mine have called "THRILLING THURSDAY" , we just miss Hannah in the 200m but I never thought that result was in doubt, David then adds more gold in the F54 800m, what an athlete he is, Sarah Storey takes more cycling gold and the evening ends with young T44 athlete Jonnie Peacock with yet another gold, how must he have been feeling with the crowd chanting his name.

More victory ceremonies, I have never seen Miss O blub so much. She also scared Saffy (one of the cats) by shouting yesssssss and Saffy thought she was hissing at her so ran and hid in a corner.

Well its time to re-charge as we are back down again on Saturday. Miss O has work tomorrow but luckily I don't work Fridays but I do have lots of blog updating to do so think it will be a busy day.

Good night all

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today we have a day trip with a few students from Miss O's school, they are doing a sport BTEC so I am sure they will have an amazing day. We have athletics tickets, and we are also planning to do a mini tour of London and a trip up St Pauls Cathedral.

Train out from Swindon is 07.01 so getting to London about 08.00. Coming back at 18.30 from London so back into Swindon about 19.30.

Add another hour or so back to Cheltenham.

Fun but tiring first week back to work.