Kate Middleton, I knew you wouldn't let me down.

I know that you've all missed the mopping blog, so this is my Christmas present to you. You're welcome.

I returned home from university on Friday and, on Saturday morning, by complete and utter chance, I woke up and checked my phone at the exact moment that the BBC decided to release more seats for the Sports Personality of the Year Awards. To cut the long story short, less than 24 hours later I was in the car on the way to London, being the stereotypical Brit that I am and flailing at the prospect of seeing royalty.

Now, in true Daily Mail style, I will begin with the clothes (only hopefully I will do this with at least a half-decent grasp of the English language). My spontaneous-last-minute-ticket-getting had left me with a dilemma: Games Maker uniform or relatively-new-ish dress? I opted for the dress option, which was surprising really, as I do love a good opportunity to be a keen Games Maker and whack out the uniform. In hindsight, though, we will refer to me not doing so as 'Good Move Number 1'. You will need this knowledge later.

After a brief cheese-sandwich-stop at my dad's, we headed to the ExCel Arena, thus clocking up my first trip to an Olympic venue that wasn't Wembley Arena. We were pretty early even after the security checks and ticket checks and toilet trips, but we decided to go to our seats anyway. This will be known as 'Good Move Number 2'.

At the point of us getting into the arena/ studio, the only people there seemed to be members of the BBC Broadcasting Team, and the occasional few super-early-spectators. Our seats appeared to be the ones which hadn't been claimed by the press, and they were situated in the floor seating area, with only one block separating us from the athletes and various other big-wigs (admittedly, some of whom I'd never heard of, but a lot seemed to have 'Lord' before their names, so I'm assuming that they were at least vaguely exciting!). As we were so early (and we're talking over an hour early here, which is fairly unheard of for yours truly), we went for the casual explore option ('Good Move Number 3'), and I ended up on the stage. You know, as you do.

We also walked around the seating area for the VIPs, name spotting at who was going to be in attendance, where they were going to be sitting and who they were going to be sitting with ('Good Move Number 4'). This turned into a slight case of dad vs. daughter as to who could recognise the most names and who could find certain people the fastest...: Seb 'was in my mum's class at school' Coe (yes, I will spend most of the next decade getting mileage out of that fact), Bradley Wiggins, Jess Ennis, Tom Daley, Victoria Pendleton, Nicola Adams, Kelly Holmes, Drogba, Muamba, Michael Owen, Jonathon Edwards, Boris Becker (I went to school in Germany with his son by the way, just to drop that in there!), Sarah Storey, Mo Farah and Ken Livingstone were all my victories. Without any Games Maker training behind him, of the ones that I'd actually heard of, dad appeared to manage a mere Becky Adlington, Roger Bannister and Gail Emms. Totalling 46 Olympic medals to me and 5 to him. Booyah.

It was only after we'd spent a pretty considerable amount of time around the area near the stage that, upon turning around, we realised that the area that we had been in had since been shut off to the general public, and there were rows of people behind the barriers trying to get as close as they could to the stage... This was potentially the first time in my life that the saying 'the early bird catches the worm' has ever applied. Most of the time, I just wish that the poor early bird could go back to bed. Anyway, we stayed where we were for a while, before being let back through the barriers to where we were meant to be in in the first place...

We found our way back to our seats to discover that everyone had a golden goody bag sellotaped to the back of them (yey, for freebies), and then we sat down, ready for the pre-show. Frank Turner opened the non-televised part of the event, and, between him and Emeli Sandé singing, we were briefed on when/ when not to clap/ stand up/ sit down, as well as having various elements of the show which would require our participation explained to us: holding up glow sticks and torches during the memorial, and doing a turny-around-jumpy-thing in tribute to Man City winning the league.

 

I will not recount the show, as I do not want to put BBC iPlayer out of business, but, to put it very mildly, it was pretty exciting (and you should potentially even stop reading my blog now and go and watch it if you haven't already).






Seb 'was in my mum's class at
school' Coe (I told you that I'd be
getting mileage out of it!) begins
his walk-on to accept his award
from directly in front of our block

Rather than the usual 10 nominations for the main award, they had extended it to 12 for 2012, and most of the show centred around introducing these athletes. Each athlete took to the stage in turn to be interviewed and, each time that this happened, we would have to stand up and clap to 'cover their walk on'. We would then sit down whenever the athlete had reached the stage and the presenter had begun to speak. This clapping-and-standing-arrangement was all well and good, but I was sat on my coat to give me some added height and, every time that we played this glorified version of musical chairs, the coat would fall off the back of my chair... The very nice man behind did keep picking it up for me, but, by the 12th time, I was feeling rather like a baby throwing their toys out of a pram!

As the night went on, the spontaneous standing ovations became more frequent and longer. Not being the tallest person, this became fairly problematic for me and, for the last hour or so, I adopted the standing-on-chair-technique and let the poor man behind do something other than pick up my coat (please note: due to the staggered seating, no one behind me was visually impaired by my sudden growth spurt). Luckily, health and safety didn't appear to care that I had suddenly become about a foot taller than the rest of the audience, and this was very much a relief, because in the quick mental weigh-up that I had done between fractured limbs and seeing the mother of the future monarch, I'd gone for the latter.

With it being in London and all, as soon as the transmission finished, there was a massive rush for the doors to get to the last trains. It was at this point that I realised that I'd far rather be stranded at the ExCel, than not attempt to crash the VIP section whilst it was still occupied with the VIPs...

And so the mission began. (Dear MI5/ MI6, please take this as my application for future employment).

Being on the short side and, in that moment, resembling more of a ninja than a human, I somehow managed to go against the flow of the crowd to get to the front-ish of the arena by ducking under a series of elbows. Upon reaching the front, I discovered that there was actually security positioned to block people from accessing the VIP area, and that there was a crowd of uniformed Games Makers, who had been sitting relatively nearby, all being prevented from getting any closer.

Please note: If you are currently on a computer which involves internet/ iTunes, please turn on dramatic music now.

Mission SPOTY Stage

In a truly James Bond/ secret agent inspired moment, I realised that this security set-up was fundamentally flawed: on my side of the arena, it was only positioned at the front...
Meaning that if I entered the press seating area slightly further back, I could simply walk through the seating aisles and arrive at the target destination. And, being an undercover Games Maker disguised as a civilian (see 'Good Move Number 1'), once I made it in, it hopefully wouldn't be too blatantly obvious that I wasn't technically allowed in there. (Unless anyone had an encyclopedic knowledge of New Look's selection of dresses... or checked my wrist for an accreditation band).

Obviously (and much to my Grandma's amusement when I recollected this to her yesterday), this wasn't exactly an opportunity that I was going to pass up on...



My lack of photo with Zara is,
sadly, as a result
of my lack of knowledge 
as to 
when curtsying is/ is not required...!

A blurry Kate on her way out...

Finishing the year in true style, I made it in without even being questioned, and soon found myself stood casually stood next to the Queen's granddaughter (aka Zara Phillips), and directly in front of the stage. I here use the word 'casually', because I realised that flailing around in mad excitement would probably have blown my supposed VIP cover just a tad. I do, however, have to admit that being 'casual' at this point wasn't exactly the easiest thing to pretend to do, as Zara seemed to be waiting for KATE MIDDLETON, who was posing for photographs about a metre away, along with David Beckham, Jess Ennis and Bradley Wiggins. This was obviously a HUGE DEAL and, after going an entire Olympics with only Princess Anne for Royal company, my Royal count is currently at an undetermined amount until someone decides to release how many future monarchs we are to actually expect from Ms. Middleton. This is obviously massively exciting for a cringingly enthusiastic Brit like myself who has a picture of the Royal family on the door of their university room...


Followed by Zara, Kate left pretty soonish, and I decided that my best plan-of-action was to head towards the block of seating that I had previously established as containing the most interesting people (see 'Good Move Number 4'). This plan will be known as 'Good Move Number 5', and it resulted in me finding myself stood with Victoria Pendleton and her fiancé. Slightly devastatingly, I also remembered that she had been sat with Tom Daley, but he was nowhere in sight. Although, admittedly, when I say 'nowhere in sight', my shortness and flat-shoe-wearing, when combined with being surrounded by women in heels and the likes of the 6 foot 5 Sir Steve Redgrave, actually meant that my sight was fairly restricted to shoulders. In defence of my height, though, from looking at the picture that we took, Victoria Pendleton probably normally joins me in the people-who-are-at-least-a-foot-shorter-than-Steve-Redgrave-club, but she was in heels... We also appear to be wearing extremely similar dresses (let the Stella McCartney vs. New Look battle commence)... In fact, Vic, if you're reading, why don't we just cut to the chase and be twinzies? One gold medal each? (I'll even settle for the one from Beijing). Sound fair enough to you?

But anyway... I digress.

The time that followed featured athlete after athlete: Louis Smith, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Steve Redgrave, Colin Jackson, Hannah Cockroft, Katherine Grainger, Kelly Holmes... the list goes on.  

I was reluctant to flail around with the camera too madly for fear of my mopper-in-disguise-cover being blown, but I managed to get a few photos...



My programme, confetti, and some
name-stickers. (Google tells me
Scott is V.Pendleton's boyfriend)
(I also have one belonging to
Tom Daley's mum somewhere,
but it's currently gone awol)

I survived my VIP-section-crash completely undetected (despite having 'gained' a few of the name-stickers from the chairs on my way out), and made it home without any dramatic James-Bond-resemblant-car-chases. In fact, the only thing vaguely out of the ordinary was a singing train conductor on the platform on the way back, but I hope that he becomes a permanent post-Olympic fixture... His rendition of the Jubilee-line-stations to a tune of his own composition was truly one to keep. 

The following morning it was back to reality, and I took the morning train back up north at a time which I normally hope to sleep through. I couldn't face the prospect of a complete non-Olympic-related-normality, though, and so I made the journey back via the Jess Ennis post-box.









What do you get if you put Usain Bolt in an ice bath?

 

Luckily, and much to my relief, Lufthansa didn't strike on Sunday 9th, so I was able to fly back home. Although, when I say 'home', I actually spent all of about 3 hours there before driving down to London. According to Google Maps and my calculations, this totalled 774 miles in 6 hours worth of travelling, and I am considering this to be a new personal best.

When I got to the flat I watched the Closing ceremony of the Paralympics, before heading to bed an hour later than originally planned, due to accidently having reached the point of no return by tuning in to Channel 4+1 instead of Channel 4...

The morning was an early one, but, after a dramatic run for the train in a style that if it hadn’t been for my Games Maker uniform, I’m sure could have been mistaken for that of Usain Bolt, I was well and truly woken up.

I headed to Trafalgar Square to buy some breakfast and, after having made a Games Maker friend along the way and had John Inverdale come up to me to say thank you for my Games Maker-ing (one of my stronger starts to a day!), I went to Horse Guard's Parade to eat my Meal Deal fit for a Games Maker. (I would here mention the name of the Supermarket where said Meal Deal was purchased, but it is the major rival of the Supermarket which sponsored the Paralympics, so I'll be a responsible Games Maker and miss it out for LOCOG's sake...)

I spent the morning in the area around The Mall, before the police did a security sweep and we all had to wait outside the gates of 'Area 5' (the beach volleyball Games Makers were well acquainted with these areas, but the Wembley mopper experienced some minor orientation difficulties along the way). We were then joined by the rain and also by the Games Maker Legacy Choir, who sang Land of Hope and Glory on repeat for a while, before switching to lots of songs about loving London.

 

It was the first time after the Olympics that I'd been around lots of Games Makers, and, in true Games Maker style, the stories were flowing. I met a 'Brunel' from the Opening Ceremony and spoke with a woman who had given up 3 days of every week since February to help to organise the Ceremonies. The story of the day, however, came from someone who had worked on Events Services at one of the training venues which had been used before the Olympics.

This Games Maker had been working in the ice bath room during the Jamaican team pre-Olympics ice bath session. Usain Bolt and Blake had been in opposite ice baths and, after a few minutes, the two of them had decided to start to have a water fight. Said Games Maker was alone in the room with the two of them as they began to throw the water from the ice baths across the room and at each other. Doubting his authority to make any comment, said Games Maker went outside to find the Jamaican team coach who had brought the athletes into the room. Upon finding the coach and telling her what was happening, said Games Maker was pretty shocked by her distinct lack of shock. Instead, the coach rolled her eyes, looking entirely unsurprised at the ice bath adventures of Bolt and Blake, walked calmly into the ice bath room and ordered them to ''stop or stay in the ice for 40 minutes''. Her response to their protests that they would freeze was simply, ‘’ I do not care’’. And so the Bolt and Blake ice bath adventures ceased.


After quite an extensive wait outside, we were let in to the infamous ‘Area 5’ of The Mall, where we were entertained until the Parade began by grannies in drag on scooters and a piano-playing nun. We were able to watch the start of the Parade on the big screen nearby and, in the pre-Parade wait, what shocked us all the most (other than the appearance of a swoosh of floppy blonde hair (aka Boris Johnson) right next to us and Eddie Izzard’s mission to shake every single one of our hands) was just how packed the streets of London were. Even the side streets, where you would probably be lucky to see the busses, let alone the athletes, were packed as far as you could see!



Jess 'Bus 3' Ennis

Anyway, our time came and the gates to The Mall opened and the athletes were greeted by lots of very excited Games Makers, who had all had a good two hours of TV coverage and Google-ing time behind them to work out who was on which bus. And, after having had slightly better phone internet than those around me, I am now left to wonder whether I will ever not remember ‘’Mo Farah- Bus 1, Jess Ennis- Bus 3, Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Sarah Storey- Bus 7, Tom Daley- Bus 8’’, after having repeated it so many times...



It was great to see so many signs thanking the Games Makers

The only way that I can describe the experience that followed was that it was a total sensory overload (obviously in the best possible way). It was just (probably to state the obvious) athlete, after athlete, after athlete and, to Team GB and Paralympics GB’s credit, medal, after medal, after medal. The woman next to me stood there, not knowing really what to say, and just repeating ‘well done, well done, well done’, to every single passing athlete, which summed it all up really, I think.


Chris 'Bus 7' Hoy and Sarah 'Bus 7' Storey

When the athletes reached Buckingham Palace, they were all brought up onto a stage on the Memorial and the concert began. According to my dad (who was watching on TV), it was started by Amy Macdonald, but I think there may have been technical difficulties as far as the speakers were concerned if this is the case... I did, however, see The Pet Shop Boys, The Noisettes and Katherine Jenkins, before David Cameron, Princess Anne, and Boris Johnson spoke.

Victoria 'Bus 7' Pendleton

Now, although I do greatly enjoy a bit of royalty, I have to admit that our Boris did steal the show in a pretty epic style (on the epic Boris moments scale, it surpassed the awkward Olympic handover flag wave in Beijing and was equalled only by the Boris-stuck-on-a-zip-wire-in-Victoria-Park-holding-two-Union-Jacks-live-internet-stream) with the most patriotically hilarious speech of the century, which left the entire Mall (and probably the surrounding areas of London) chanting his name.

After the chants had died down, the photographic challenge that was the fly-by began. I love watching planes (as my housemates will back me up on!) and, even if my photos do not do it any justice whatsoever (there’s a reason that the Mopper does a languages degree!), there was something pretty special/ British about getting bruised hips from leaning on railings on The Mall whilst watching the Red Arrows fly over Buckingham Palace...

I stayed around after the Parade until the athletes disappeared and the devastating line ‘’ we don’t want to, but we’re now going to have to end the Olympic TV coverage’’, was heard on TV sets across Great Britain. And, yes, I did see a tear from Seb Coe.

I then headed to Trafalgar Square, where the last thing I saw before heading to the train station was a couple of Games Makers spontaneously Irish dancing with Chinese tourists in front of the National Gallery. Olympic London, I love you.

I had a 1^st Class ticket for the way home because, for some reason, it had worked out cheaper than standard class, so, after using the Games Maker muscles to help an elderly couple with their bags, I went and sat in the lounge for a bit and watched the breaking news of Seb Coe running for BOA Head with lots of Games Makers, London Ambassadors and Team GB coaches.

Heartbreakingly, I then had to get on a train to go home and actually leave Olympic London. However, on the way back, I did something that would make our Boris swell with pride: I had a three hour long spontaneous conversation on public transport.