Too many balls….and so little time

POD – Post Olympic Depression

elliesmummy ♦ August 18, 2012 ♦ Leave a comment

I am struggling to manage all aspects of my life at the moment, so blogging has slipped. It is the long school Summer Holidays here in the UK, so as a Mum with a full-time job and a partner who works in the farming industry, summer holidays are a nightmare to manage! I have been getting into the office at the crack of dawn, leaving the household snoring,  so I can get home early thus avoiding complaints of being “neglected”. Although, this is only appeasing my guilt because everyone is perfectly happy sorting themselves, particularly my daughter who has spent the summer building dens and playing in the stream with her mates. This pleases me as I have a feeling that by next Summer playing in the dirt and having “adventures” will be long behind her.

I am also suffering from POD – Post Olympic Depression. I was extremely cynical about the 2012 Olympic games as the run up to the games had been completed hijacked by the sponsors. There were major issues reported in the media in the preparation and I was more than a little bit peeved over the whole subject.

One example is the way the London Olympic Committee has handled the Woolsack project. Water under the bridge so I won’t bleat on about it but who knew it would be so hard to give away a few homemade cushions!

Woolsack volunteers have been making cushions from British Wool to give as a gift to every athlete who takes part in the Olympics 2012. I didn’t make a cushion as I suffer from performance anxiety when knitting for others! I did however take part in a “stuffing event” at my LYS –  LittlehoundalesKnits. The stuffing and labels were donated by Blacker Yarns and spent a few hours on a Sunday stitching little labels into the handmade cushions. There were messages from the makers attached to every cushion – “Welcome & Good Luck”  “We don’t know each other but I thought of you in every stitch”. One cushion I stuffed had been knitted with handspun from the ladie’s rescued sheep, never has there been a more ethical gift!

This project is just one example of how the Brits have embraced these games and tried to make them their own.

Therefore the actual event was amazing! It helped that the UK scooped lots of medals of course, but that must have helped by being in front of an enthusiastic home crowd. I have been in tears on an almost daily basis and got told off for talking at work on the day of the amazing triathlon, while receiving texts on the progress of the fabulous Brownlee Brothers. It has been so exciting especially for those lucky enough to have got tickets to the events.

The games have been made by two groups of people in my opinion. Our Armed Forces, who stepped into the breach when a private sector company failed to deliver its contract to supply security staff for the event. Members of all of the sectors volunteered and stepped in at the last-minute. Obviously “volunteered” in the services means they probably got time off in lieu but ultimately the services picked up the cost at a time when they are suffering from budget cuts. As our current government is busy telling is that public services should be delivered by the private sector the irony of this arrangement has not been completely lost on me, even if it has on everyone else!

But the real heroes of the event for me were the Games Makers who were real volunteers.

People from all backgrounds and areas who the UK who turned out to help run the Games for no reward other than being there. They were involved in all aspects of delivery from helping the athletes to building the medal podiums. The greeters met the spectators on arrival with smiling enthusiasm, high fives and a sense of humour. There is no doubt that without these people turning up before, after and during the events the budget for the event would have been enormous! So Thank you everyone!

So now it’s over I am bereft and lamenting just how rubbish the TV programming is in the UK. Oh well roll on the Paralympics!