I can now say that I have seen live Olympic action. I am not on duty at Excel until tomorrow (early shift) so I have been on a reconnaissance of the shady cloisters of Twickenham and Richmond this morning, which exercise put me in the way of the women's cycling road race as it blasted through Richmond. The atmosphere was lovely, streets lined with people, motorcycle outriders waving cheerily at the children as they cleared the way for the peloton. Then whoosh and they were gone and the flag waving children were taken away for ice cream as parents assured them that yes that was it and no the ladies on the bikes were not coming back.
Nobody was available to buy me a consolatory ice cream so I continued into Richmond centre to buy some toiletries (I did the usual gash job of packing yesterday) and to do some essential tee shirt shopping. I have an unfeasibly large collection of tee shirts, pictorial and otherwise but you can never actually have enough. I had in mind the the surprisingly tasteful Team GB shirt but there are a lot of those on the mean streets I tread so my eye turned to the 'Olympic Museum' collection and the retro Moscva 80 design. How appropriate for a notorious fellow traveller such as The Overgraduate you will doubtless think. You can't beat a bit of gulag chic.
As I have been writing (and re-buffering in the corner of the health club cafe) the said cycle road race has finished and GB has its first medal - Lizzie Armistead splashing up the rain-soaked Mall (yes it's back) to a thrilling silver. Just at the moment cycling is my favourite sport to watch, fresh from the gourmet feast that was the Tour de France.
One amusing moment in Richmond High Street today. I was matching steps with a couple of youthful police officers when a festive balloon in a shop doorway went pop. The rozzers turned round just briefly terrified/thrilled (who knows) that this was the real thing and that they might have to spring into action. Glad to report no one was shot nor anyone arrested not even for careless use of a balloon.
Iron Dave now heading for the pool to do some synchronised drowning.
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