# Go Team GB

The London 2012 Olympics have completely overtaken TV viewing in our house as I'm sure it has done in many houses across the world.  The hubby is a complete sports fanatic and wanted to create Olympic memories for our kiddies and to inspire them by the achievements of others in a whole raft of competitive sport.

We'd had a number of discussions about how we would go about achieving this, given that like so many, we missed out on tickets to ANY events in the first and second rounds of ticket releases.  He had wanted to take littlies in to London to just enjoy the atmosphere.  I had felt that whilst the idea was nice, the reality would be bustling busy streets with kiddies at handbag height not enjoying an awful lot...  We were at a place of indecision.

Then, fate threw us a wild card.  Through a friend who was no longer able to attend, we acquired some tickets to see the semi-final football match at the Millenium Stadium, Cardiff.  Cardiff is only an hour journey from our home - much closer than a 4 hour trip to London.  Even better, later that week it was revealed that Great Britain had got through to the semi's so would be playing South Korea.  It was meant to be....

R was sooo excited and counted down the sleeps each night.  We arrived at our reserved blue badge space to a fantastically organised system of stewarding.  The volunteers were proactive in speaking to passers by - asking who they were supporting, where we'd travelled from - it was a fantastically friendly atmosphere.

Once we were inside the stadium (in our front row seats!) we all enjoyed the stadium, the kids were fascinated that the "roof" was on, and that they could appear automatically on the big screen, then directly onto the TV.   Then we enjoyed the football - flag waving, mexican waving and shouting galore!

It was FANTASTIC.  I was proud to be British.  Proud to be part of the crowd, completely family friendly; no violence, no swearing - just enjoyable memories in the making.  We could learn a lot from these matches.  It begs the question why this atmosphere can't be normal at pro football events rather than hostile or aggressive?

We left after full time as the children were shattered at a 1:1 score...  The match went on to extra time and GB lost on penalties. So we didn't miss a winning end - and we beat the mass traffic home.  The journey is just over an hour from our home and all but Ben (who was driving) were soundly asleep within minutes.  We've enjoyed many moments over the days on the TV but my favourite by far were in real life.

We saw the Olympic Flame in St. Stephens when it arrived in Cornwall, whilst staying with my mum way back in May.  Then joined in the spirit by cheering Great Britain on at the Semi's in August.

Happy Olympic times.  Well done Team GB and all that have collaborated to put on such an amazing spectacle.  Well done - and thank you!

J9 x