This weekend just gone we celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary with a weekend in London (with many thanks to my parents for having Abi and Jessica to stay for the weekend. Originally we’d decided to go up to London for a short break and I booked tickets for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the ThreeSixty Theatre in Kensington Park as a surprise for Laura for the Saturday evening.Later on we managed to get Paralympics tickets so adjusted our plans so that we could visit the Olympic Park and see some of the athletics on the Saturday morning.
We set off on Friday after work and drove up to stay in Woolwich for the night so that we could then drive in a little further and park, then get the DLR to Stratford for when the park opened. Fortunately when trying to find the Travelodge in Woolwich we took a wrong turning and found that there was a DLR station there as well and it turned out that we could leave the car in the car park there until Sunday, so we saved a lot of hassle by doing that. On Saturday morning we just checked out, walk down the road and hop on the train to Stratford – much simpler! We made it to the park entrance just before it opened and were first in the line for security so we got the park to ourselves for a short time before the crowds gathered. We made use of the time to get some breakfast (mmm waffles) and tickets to go up the Orbit after the athletics. We then had time to explore a bit more before heading into the stadium. The Olympic Park is really nicely set out with beautiful banks of wild flowers, canal-side walks and lots of space between the venues.
After time for exploring and buying a few gifts from the shop we headed to the Stadium to find our seats. Despite going in across the wrong bridge we got round to the stairs to our block easily and started the climb up to the top. At the top of the first flight of stairs we had a fantastic view through to the flame and when we entered the main seating area we saw how amazing a venue it was and the size of the place. The helpful and friendly games maker by the top of the stairs offered to take a photo of us together before we went up to our seats which was great. We made our way up more stairs to our seats, which were in a fantastic spot with a great view of the finish line and the podiums, and enjoyed watching the stadium being set up by more of the games makers.
The athletics session was fantastic and we really enjoyed watching the different events going on. I hadn’t appreciated before just how much was going on at any time from the TV as you only see one thing, but being there we could see racing on the track, the blind triple-jump final, javelin and shot put all at the same time!