Olympic Velodome

Today we get the train down to London but as usual the barmy ticketing website has done something barmy and issued us with tickets that aren’t together. Luckily there are loads of unreserved seats so we just sit elsewhere, which just makes you wonder even more what planet their system resides on.

We flash our new sparkly Oyster cards at the Underground and head over to Stratford, where we seek out our shady hotel, which is called Lodge 51.

From there we find a real ale bar called Tap East, in Westfield of all places, before we head off in search of the now named Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Tap East brew their own beer and craft ales too. Often a byword for expensive and one of them is £9 a pint. I have a half.

Then we thread out way through the building site and the new apartments that current lie empty Marie Celeste like and eventually stumble across the wide (ish) open spaces of the centre of the park.

A lot has gone but still there lay the Olympics Stadium itself, the Aquatics Centre, Copper Box and of course the Velodrome or the Lee Valley VeloPark as it’s now known. 

Which is mightily impressive up close. Externally, at least, it certainly puts our new velodrome in Derby in the shade because that just looks like a tin of beans.

We are here, along with six thousand others, to pay homage as it opens its doors for the first time since the Olympics as the Revolution Series comes to London for the first time.

I’ve never been to the Revolution Series before, despite it being homed in Manchester, because, well, it’s not the real thing. It’s the cycling equivalent of a football friendly and that is reflected in the racing tonight. Obviously everyone wants to win but it’s not the end of the world if they don’t.

Unless you’re Laura Trott of course, who wins everything she enters but there’s a sneaking suspicion that her Wiggle Honda teammates were looking out for her rather than trying to win themselves.

Afterwards we hop back on the tube and try out a recommended pub in Leytonstone, The Red Lion, which serves a decent pint of porter. I have thirds. 

(Friday 14^th March) 

Dogs On CCTV

I ring up the insurers and order L’s new bike. They tell me it’ll be delivered on Wednesday, blimey they don’t mess about. I must saying I’m impressed by the whole thing.

A while ago I bought a CCTV camera to see what the dogs are up to whilst we are out at work and especially to see how Doggo gets over the stair gate, although he hasn’t done this for a while. This is probably why I’ve not rushed to set it up but it’s working now. Although for convenience it’s currently trained on the kitchen, where there is no sign of either dog. So I assume they’re both in the hall, trying to work out how to open the stair gate.

Allocations for tickets for the Commonwealth Games are announced and we get some athletics tickets. That’s a 50% success rate, much better than the initial 0% success rate for London 2012.

Apparently Steve McClaren, or should I say Dutch legend Schteve McClaren, will be the new Derby manager. I don’t really mind who we get but would be very happy with McClaren. He has unfinished business at Derby. He’s not only a former player but was also assistant to Jim Smith back in the day and was being groomed as his successor before Manchester United poached him off us.

Dog training tonight, where it’s a bit cold up on the hill tonight. Winter approaches I guess.

(Monday 30^th September)

Olympics Tickets

Wow. I have secured Olympics tickets. A bit late you say? Ah but not if you’re talking next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia .

I entered the ticket ballot and unlike London 2012 where I originally got zilch, I was offered tickets for two Bobsleigh sessions and three Skeleton sessions.

I part with the cash, although they are quite a bit cheaper than those for London. So Sochi here we come, if we can get a hotel and a flight. Most of which, don’t seem to be built yet. 

I suppose we’ll get there somehow, even if we have to go there via somewhere boring like St Petersburg or Moscow. I wonder if we can camp... It’s not that cold in Russia in February is it?

I buy tickets for the two Bobsleigh sessions covering all four runs of the two-man bob and one of the Skeleton sessions covering men’s qualifying and the finals of the women’s event. It’ll all be a bit zoomy and fast but L will love that.

Of course GB’s Amy Williams is the reigning Olympic Skeleton champion. She's since retired but Shelley Rudman, who got silver back in 2006, is the current World Cup champion and now World Champion after winning gold a few weeks ago in St Moritz.

Tickets go on general sale on Monday, so I’ll see if I can get any others then.

In what is a busy day, the Kendal house purchase also goes through. I arrange for a letting agent to collect the keys, so we don’t need to hot foot it up there just yet but will need to drop in and see him at some point.

Squash ends in a close 2-3 defeat and a heated debate about ‘lets’. I was pleased with my game. I always target games 1 and 4. Game 1 before he’s warmed up and Game 4 when he’s knackered but I don’t usually get them both though. Result.

L walks the dogs from the leisure centre to her work, from where I collect them all along with a load of old computer gear that if we don’t want will go to the tip.

Basically it amounts to a couple of dead printers, a third one that works and a pre-historic computer which turns out to be a Tandon which is the first PC I ever had at work. Oh the memories.

(Thursday 7^th February)

Only 1452 days To Rio

No medals today, what's going on? Oh yes, it's finished hasn't it. Damn. Still, it's only 1452 days to Rio.

It all went very well though, didn't it, apart from the Korean flags thing. The best two weeks this country has seen for many years, which caught the imagination of practically everybody. Even people who I thought were sport-phobic fell in love with the Games. London did itself, and the country, proud. It’s such a shame it’s all over. Even though, for me at least, the closing ceremony was best forgotten.

With no Olympic commentary on Radio 5 to brighten up the work day I go to Sainsbury’s to buy a shower curtain. Oh the excitement of it. It’s the second one this month. The first one was ‘hookless’ which sounds great in principal but in reality you might as well nail it to the shower rail as without hooks it won’t slide. So in the bin it goes and welcome back hooks.

The boys have missed us and despite Son’s occasional ball kicking skills are rampant. After work I take them on the park and knock a few edges off them both.

(Monday 13th August)

Back To The Gold Rush

So as we started the gold rush when we went down to London last Wednesday, I thought we best finish it by going again this weekend.

So we take the train and then travel across the Smoke to a hotel I’ve booked, rather cheaply in Charlton. Perhaps this is because the hotel looks cheap and sort of dangerous. Well at least the bar does. You wouldn't feel safe in there and that’s before you attempt to find something worth drinking. No wonder you have to go through two security doors, with different security numbers, to reach the hotel part. Which may be to keep their own customers out, as the hotel itself was actually ok. Basic but ok.

Then we head to Stratford and the hugely impressive Olympic Park. It’s also impressively big and the whole thing actually reminds me of Alton Towers... just nicer. Perhaps it’s the food prices... the lack of generic ‘ale’, which has sold out... and the queues for the merchandise. Although actually what I want, Team GB kit, has been sold out for weeks and they don’t appear to be intending to produce any more. Why is odd because such has been the kit’s popularity and judging by the resale prices on ebay they could have practically paid for the Olympics on kit sales alone if they’d produced more of it.

The atmosphere around the park, as it is all over London, is infectious. Contrary to predictions, the nation has, by and large, totally embraced the Olympic Games. Everywhere is awash with colour, from painted faces to the flags of many nations. There are so many union flags that you wish the flag manufacturers had done the kit because they seemed to have managed to meet demand.

The ticketing ‘fiasco’ meant that hardly anybody got tickets for what they wanted and the big event seats went to those with the deepest pockets. This was perhaps a sneaky masterstroke from Locog, meaning that sports fans, not wanting to miss out, have packed out the stadia for the so called ‘minority’ sports instead and turned every venue into a cauldron of noise.

Tonight we’re at the Women’s Handball Bronze Medal match between Spain and South Korea (they have the correct flag up this time).

Spain are better looking so I’ll root for them, well they would be better looking if they weren’t all strapped up in bandages. It seems the risk of injury in handball is quite high.

The medal games have been switched to the Basketball Arena from the cosy Copper Box which had become notorious for its riotous atmosphere.

That’s a shame but the atmosphere here is still good even if the person behind us has a cow bell, from which we can ascertain that you cannot play Bohemian Rhapsody on a cow bell but they give it a go.

It’s a close game and they cannot split the teams in normal time or in extra time, so we go into sometime called double overtime, that does the trick, just and it's a good job too as both sides were running out of uninjured players. Well done Spain.

As we come out, we pass the Olympic Stadium just as the place erupts.

Mo Farah has just taken to the track before the start of the 5,000m. So along with everyone else we pretend to join a queue for one of the bars just outside the park, so that we can watch their big screen. Afterwards the queue quickly dissipates, joyously, as Farah impressively adds a second gold to the one he won in last week’s 10,000m.

Of course, as we’re in London today, it’s just one of many golds. Luke Campbell takes one in the Men’s Bantamweight Boxing and Ed McKeever kayaks his way to Gold in the K1 200m Canoe Sprint.

Later we’re in a Fuller’s pub called ‘The Pilot’, just a stone’s throw from the North Greenwich Arena, sipping pints of ESB to watch Tom Daley get his bronze medal in the Men’s 10m Platform. A good day.

(Saturday 11th August)

Olympic Time Trial

It’s been a steady start from Team GB in the Olympics but the natives are restless because we haven’t landed a gold yet. So L and I go down to London to sort things out. Where we find London well decked out for the games.

Almost as soon as I arrive in the capital the first gold arrives courtesy of Helen Glover and Heather Stanning in the rowing. We’re off and running.

That’s sort of taken the pressure off Wiggo I suppose. I navigate my way across London to Kingston where I get in position to watch the Individual Time Trial. L has preferred something less cultural and has headed off to the Imperial War Museum.

I’m in position, about 3k from the finish of the women’s and around 10k for the men’s. It’s busy but I have the front row and the biggest flag. All set.

Now it’s raining... but it doesn’t last long. First up the women.

Both Emma Pooley and Lizzie Armitstead put in good rides for 6th and 10th but no medals there. Too flat for Pooley, too individual for Armitstead, in fact she probably has no idea why they entered her in this. Not her discipline at all.

Now it’s the men and it’s rocking here in Kingston. Go Wiggo go.

Then deflation as he’s only '2nd' at the first check. Get a grip man. Seems he’s pacing himself and by half way he’s in front and thereafter in a different race to everyone else. Chris Froome is up to third.

Then they blaze past us. First Froome and then Wiggins, a wall of noise for both of them but not just them. The crowd dish out only slightly lower decibels for everyone else.

Then it’s time to be glued to the radios for coverage of the finish. Not that it was ever in doubt.

A mere ten days after winning the biggest race on the planet, Bradley Wiggins is an Olympic champion and with Chris Froome third, it’s job done. Gold and Bronze.

Everybody is disappearing inside the local pubs to catch the end of the TV coverage, I join them.

Then I head back to central London to find a girl to wine and dine. L is actually waiting in Waterstones. Where else, even though she’s barred. She’s actually in the bar there, who’s ever heard of Waterstones with a bar.

From there we find we find the Euston Tap, a craft beer house. Good beer but no food. Oh dear, a case of gritting ones teeth and having a sandwich on the train.

(Wednesday 1st August)