We Cheered the Olympic Torch!

We weren't able to cheer the torch through our home city as we were celebrating my cousin's 40th Birthday that day so we planned it for the following day. After spending a wonderful afternoon exploring Kenilworth Castle, we set up our picnic rug on the grass outside and sat down to wait - it was really exciting just waiting, with police officers whizzing around on motor bikes and a local radio station roving reporter interviewing people - Eve and my Mum were interviewed about the torch relay as well and my Mum 'bigged up' home ed on the radio!!!!

Here you can see how excited Idris was about this momentous occasion in his little life - exhausted by an afternoon running around the castle chasing balls and frisbees, he slept through the whole thing - never mind!!

There was a whole cavalcade of vehicles that came through - one bus dropping off the next person in the relay, one picking them up, one with spare police officers in from the team escorting the torch, one blacked out bus with goodness knows who in, two cars going ahead and making sure everything was in order.... it went on and on!! Every bus and car had Wenlock the mascot in them and everyone was really friendly, waving at the children!

I was expecting the police to be a bit officious and make us move back but they weren't at all, we all crowded forwards to see the torch come in to the car park at the castle, disappear from view for 'the kiss' where the flame is swapped from runner to runner and then emerge again in the hands of this gentleman (have no idea who he is!). It was a great vantage point as instead of seeing the torch whizz by just once, we saw it twice, once running and once walking - hats off to my Dad who did the research on that one and found us the spec to watch from! In the bus at the back there is a 'torch rack' with all the spare torches in.

This is Eve making her own vantage point on my Dad's shoulders - please take note of the need for tights and fluffy jumpers in JULY - soooooo fed up of this RAIN!!!!!!

This is one of the outlying cars with Wenlock peeping out of the window!!

This was the first runner - don't know his name either!!!

 

It was a momentous occasion and although I'm not entirely sold ('scuse the pun!) on the national cost implications of 8000 torches and the kit and hangers on, I appreciated being able to bring the children to be a part of it - especially as we didn't get ANY of the tickets we asked for in the ballot - but don't get me started on that one........