London 2012: Week 1

I've now been at home for just under a week, spending time with two of my brothers and my parents as well as hosting my Scottish family for a few days. 

It's been fun. 
On Monday we headed off to the Cross Country phase of the 3-day Eventing in Greenwich Park. 

As if the day wasn't exciting enough, I got to see Mary King, my childhood heroine, complete an immaculate round that eventually contributed towards the team's silver medal success the following day. 
I'm a little ashamed to say that, to begin with, I was one of the sceptics and wondered how on earth London was going to be able to pull off such an enormous feat as hosting the Olympic Games. From my experiences so far the city has pulled out all of the stops and are hosting a Games to be incredibly proud of. Beginning with the quirky opening ceremony - which had my whole family shrieking with laughter at one moment and then welling up the next - on to the fantastic volunteers and the army that are such a visible and welcome presence at every event, and the generally positive response from athletes and spectators, I think, ultimately, so far LOCOG has every right to feel things are going well. 
Even the police were friendly as we arrived in Blackheath at crack of dawn on Monday:

Little L making friends with the locals. 

The venue itself was fantastic with hardly any queueing for loos, food or drinks, despite the 50,000-strong crowd, and the course, like the opening ceremony, paid homage to all the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of the British character: 

Jump 5, complete with red squirrels on toadstools.

Riders quite literally had to jump the moon.

The view out towards the National Maritime Museum.

One of the water complexes was a scene from The Wind in the Willows
(you can just see Ratty and Moley fishing in the  water on the right of the picture).

Jump 13: Market Trader's Stall.

'My' jump: Vintage Massey Ferguson and Trailer.

The support for Team GB was incredible.

A toast to success.
Go Team GB!

The only downside of the day is that I am a total numpty and carted my camera bag and equipment all the way to Greenwich only to realise that I'd left the battery on charge at home. 

Idiot.

Driving Miss Daisy

A couple of weeks ago my landlord/ friend/ surrogate-father-figure/ sort-of-older-brother-type-person had an operation on his knee. [Sigh. It's no good, none of those labels really works or explains anything] 

This is not a good thing for anyone, but especially not good for someone like Mr C. 
Mr C. makes him sound like he is 90, when in fact he is very roughly half that. However, Mr C it is.

As a very active, busy person who runs his own construction company as well as being half of the duo that runs the smallholding I live on, it is tough for Mr C. to sit back and smell the roses. 
Mr C. does not do sitting back or smelling roses.

Anyway, as I am enjoying [cough] a period of 'funemployment' (goodness, I'm really beginning to hate that term with a passion), Mr C. decided that he would 'employ' me as a driver.

HA!!

Now, it is not that I am not a good driver.
I am, thanks.
It is just that I drive an ancient automatic Mazda hatchback.
Mr C. drives a Land Rover. 
It is a manual.
And the gearbox is weird.

Now, I can drive a tractor ish and I have driven Land Rovers and Range Rovers before.
I have even been employed to drive golfers in a luxury Mercedes people carrier thing. My CV is fascinating.
But for some reason, my confidence has plummeted when driving Mr C. around in his own car.

I think it has got to the point that Mr C. is regretting his decision to give me something to do, especially as it is taking approximately 3 times longer than normal for him to get anywhere because I do not like going over 50 miles an hour.
And I can't park (in his car. I am very good at parking in my car).

It was also quite amusing to turn up to pick up some supplies [something to do with roof panels? Oh I don't know, they were grey and heavy and came in pairs. And they are to be put on a roof somewhere] and be the 'muscles'.
I am actually much stronger than I look. 
The man at the yard did not believe me and insisted on carrying most of the things to the car.
Whatever.
I look like a runner bean. 
Except I'm not green. Or bumpy. Much.

There really is no point to this story, except to show you what was hiding in the shed at the roofing supplies yard:

A vintage Massey Ferguson tractor!
Whatdoyoumean you're not excited?
What a beauty.

Trying to be subtle when taking a picture = not very successful photography attempt.

And, as long as I kept throwing his wood block, this little chap did not care if I looked like a bumpy runner bean with string instead of arms and pipe cleaners for legs, or that I kept putting the car into third instead of first and once accidentally put it into reverse whilst driving at full-speed.

So that was fun.
I will probably not become a chauffeur when I grow up.