Legacy

And so the end has come, the Olympic stadium is being dismantled, probably even at this very moment. What a summer! I had the very great privilege of attending the Paralympics, and watching, amongst other things, blind long jump, and wheelchair racing. The crowd roared for everyone, and the victory ceremonies made me cry! I loved our day at the Olympic stadium. The sun shone, everyone was happy and friendly, the transport was fantastically well organised, and when it went a bit wrong, well that was ok too.

So what of the legacy? Well I can only tell you what that is for me. A newly discovered love of sport for a start. I have never been all that keen on team sports. Not as a spectator, and definitely not as a participant. So no one was more surprised than me when I decided to have a go at playing hockey a few weeks ago. I went along to a summer taster session and had great fun, and planned on joining that club, starting from this week ( as I had to shuffle my shifts at work to make it happen). Of course a gap of some weeks meant I lost some of the momentum that drove me there in the first place, so it was with a huge element of trepidation that I drove myself there this Tuesday. I sat in the car for a while, bracing myself to smile, look confident and join in. Sitting there was a mistake in many ways, because it allowed me to notice that all I could see was large numbers of fit young women. Very young. I was plenty old enough to be their mother as far as I could tell. And my courage ebbed away, and I never got out of the car. I am such a wimp!

But there is a happy ending to this story. My lovely neighbour plays hockey at a different club, and she had mentioned to me that they were looking for new members, so I went and knocked on her door. And so tonight I went with her, and I got out of the car and joined in, worked hard, got breathless and sweaty, and found that I do like team sports, after all.