Olympic Torch

Today the Olympic torch came right through the village, by Beth's school and past the end of our road.  Very exciting stuff.  Steve took the day off work and grandma and grandpa came for the festivities.  The roads were closed earlier this morning and school opened early so people could drop off before getting 'locked out' of the village.  


Lots of buses came through dropping school kids off from other villages - ours was the only school in the county that the torch comes directly by.  I think the population of the village tripled this morning - there are only around 460 houses in total and today it was busy!


The atmosphere was really nice, lots of flags and old ladies in deckchairs (!) and both pubs on the route through the village opened early though amazingly we abstained (well, at least until lunch)!


A few minutes before the torch passed there was a convoy of loads of police motorcycles and the three sponsors came by giving out stuff and playing music.  Not sure that Coca Cola is an appropriate sponsor - giving out nice sugary drinks and promoting chubb for a sporting event but who am I to say!  The other two were Samsung and Lloyds TSB; very disappointing that they didn't follow suit and hand out free TV's and money. :(




When the torch arrived it was a little bit of an anti-climax.  A couple of people I spoke to later actually turned to talk to friends and missed it completely!  We did see it and also had the chance to look/hold a torch as one of the dad's at school was a runner on Tuesday.


As soon as that was finished with it was Beth's sports day.  This year they did team sports rather than competitive sports.  The children move round activities and spend five minutes on each.  The idea is good but five minutes is a long time for each and by half way, Beth was disinterested and really couldn't be bothered.  It didn't help that the rain (and thunder and lightening) started but everyone carried on until the bitter end.


At this point we sneaked away for lunch at a new microbrewery that has opened just down the road.  It was very acceptable and after a lovely meal we returned to school for the summer faire.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't great so it was inside and we only stopped long enough to get some temporary tattoos, faces painted and cakes.


It was a very nice day and very nice to have the family all around for this 'historic' occasion.