London 2012 Part 1

London was a blast!

We arrived on Thursday night, my brother picked us up at Gatwick and brought us to the apartment where we were staying. We were originally supposed to stay in his caravan at a site near Gatwick, which he assures us is really good, but then we realised we'd be travelling all across London each day. So, with 2 days to go, I searched every website I could find, and picked the scrapings of the pot.
It was grand, very central, clean and plenty of space.
Friday morning we walked 20 minutes from the apartment to Lords Cricket ground for Archery.

The concentration of these guys was amazing.
I couldn't believe how disrespectful people could be- announcements were made at least 10 times asking people to stop taking flash photos, and still it went on. Each time, it was explained that these athletes have trained for 4 years for this moment, and a flash in their eyes could ruin everything. Arrgh!
The Cricket Ground is a fabulous place!

 What really astonished me was the distance these arrows travelled, and the accuracy with which the athletes could hit, even though sometimes a wind would start up just after they took their shot. I'd have no sense of that from watching it on tv.

After the Archery, we went off and had brunch, then went to Hyde Park, where there were big screens with events, and a stage with bands, and magically, although there were clouds, most of the time the sun shone. And we had no rain!!

There also was no trouble of any kind, I saw nobody drunk or showing signs of drugs. A great security job.
There were lots of interesting things for kiddies too.

We listened to the Clemson College Symphonic Band from the US.

 and then we watched that very long tennis match between Federer and Del Potro.

And we got some cute Cadbury Gold Medals! More on that later!

My family are completely nuts, and we also had many laughs, including in this picture of us pretending we had won!  Ireland didn't even have ANY medals at this stage, but we had 4 Gold ones!
 The rest of London 2012 follows tomorrow. Before the Katie Taylor boxing match Final (fingers crossed for her!)