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.









A casual bit o' self-publicity.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was interviewed about my mopping adventures by my local newspaper in September. The article came out in October and is to be held entirely responsible for my new nickname...: 'Mrs Mop'. Anyway, if you're interested in finding out how I managed to be ''living the dream while mopping the floor'', the link is here:
http://www.lep.co.uk/sport/other-sports/meet-mrs-mop-1-4985851


Also, the Games Maker Choir, who I first saw at the Athletes' Parade, are releasing a single tomorrow and are attempting to get it to Christmas number 1. The song, featuring Alistair Griffin, is called 'I Wish For You The World', and is b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. Obviously, I am not the slightest bit biased (although, in all seriousness, I was at James Arthur's first audition in Newcastle, so I am technically qualified to make the judgement call), but it would be the perfect end to 2012 to see it top the charts (at the moment it's 2nd in the odds behind the X Factor winner). All proceeds go towards Olympian/ Paralympian charities, so go and download it tomorrow!
For now, you can like their Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/iwishforyoutheworld


















And now... if you've stayed with this post until the end, I would like to break the news to you that this morning I got tickets to go and see the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards live in London tomorrow. It goes without saying that this probably calls for a comeback of the mopping blog. So, for now, watch this space and please excuse me while I go and try to find a dress.

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.

A photo finish

This morning was another early one, but I went for the tactical sleep on the train option because sleeping through Olympic finals didn't really seem too acceptable.

The which seating block can we sit in issue continued today but, luckily, the woman on the door this morning mistook me for an athlete when I told her 'my team are up there' and so I made in fine. Although I would potentially suggest that she needs to brush up on her Team GB recognition skills slightly...











This morning I saw:
Men's singles bronze medal match: Chen Long (China) vs. Lee Hyun Il (Korea)
Men's doubles bronze medal match: Koo. KK & Tan. BH (Malaysia) vs. Chung. JS & Lee. YD (Korea)


Going through security this morning (please note: without house keys in my pocket this time, so no alarms were set off), it was beyond weird to get my head around the fact that today was the last day of the badminton competition. I wasn't mopping today because Young Games Makers do finals and, despite the baby face, I am apparently getting on a bit. Even though I wasn't in uniform, though, I kept looking around for the good ol' Games Maker trainers in their plastic bag (FOPers can't wear them other than on court) and the number of times I panicked today because I thought that I'd lost the bag (which was safely in my suitcase in the flat) was pretty ridiculous.




I went back to our lounge over dinner (mainly to eat some of the line judge's food), and managed to get myself a shirt swap sorted as well. When we got our kit, we were all given two T-shirts, and one of the line judges asked if they could swap theirs for my spare once they'd finished their last match. The technical officials shirts are blue (complete with BWF shoulder-y things), so I was very happy to gain a top that clashed slightly less with ginger...

Please ignore my complete lack of regulation trousers/ shoes...

After dinner (I believe that the southerners amongst us call this lunch), I went to the final warm-up area to have a quick photo shoot with all of the Lancashire representatives at the Olympics. We did let Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei finish their knock-up before we gatecrashed, just in case you were wondering...


I then went up to the seating to watch the men's finals.

This afternoon I saw:
Men's singles final: Lin Dan (China) vs. Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia)
Men's doubles final: Cai. Y & Fu. HF (China) vs. M. Boe & C. Mogensen (Denmark)

The men's singles final was probably the closest match that I've ever seen and, even in final points of the final set, I couldn't tell which way it was going to go. I did want Lin 'wants to be a popstar now' Dan to win, but was also slightly gutted when Lee Chong Wei lost. Lin Dan's celebration was absolutely epic but, what impressed me more, was how respectful he seemed towards Lee Chong Wei afterwards. The crowd were fantastic as well and they were so loud and there seemed to be so many flags, which added to the whole atmosphere. One of the umpires who I spoke to was saying that in Asia the crowds are so loud that when you introduce the players you may as well say that you have Mickey Mouse on your left and Donald Duck on your right, because it's too loud for anyone to hear, and I really think that you got a of a sense of that during today's finals.

Just before the medal ceremony, it was announced over the tannoy that Ben Ainslie had won the sailing. There were a few Union Jacks in the Arena (despite the distinct lack of GB representation in the finals) and the crowd went mental, which will go down as one of my favourite Team-GB-winning reactions of the Olympics so far (along with, obviously, the Jess Ennis/ Greg Rutherford/ Mo Farah Bollywood wins and also everyone in the canteen standing up for the national anthem after we won the first cycling gold).

The men's doubles final followed and China completed their complete and utter clean sweep of the badminton, meaning that, as of yet (we'll have to wait and see how the rhythmic gymnastics goes), no other national anthem has been played in Wembley yet during the Olympics (I'm not counting the 'God Save the Queen' rendition during the dress rehearsals!). It was, however, a nice change to see that there were three different flags raised during the Victory Ceremony!

After the final final, we went back to the lounge to watch the rest of the Andy Murray match/ shout encouragement at the TV (we had been Twitter-ing the live score and reporting to the stand throughout the doubles final, much to the amusement of Peter Gade), before sprinting around the entire Arena to try and get photos of everything because the clean-up operation was already underway. And I am now about to slow your Internet speed down majorly with a couple of these picture highlights...:

Spot the floor mopper in the lounge...

Yey for Team Fern!/ Team FOP!

Considering a career change to a line judge (and probably not looking serious enough for it)...

Pippi Longstocking was always my favourite.

I have some Chinese water bottles. Ebay, anyone?!

Court 1, 20 seconds *stops mopping*

Doctor for the afternoon... Just don't get injured please because I'm far too squeamish.

Yes, I went there.

Despite my own probably-not-legal serve, I also did some service judge-ing.

I did debate taking the mop home, but I'm not sure I'd have been too popular on the Underground carrying it...

London 2012

The warm-up courts

The Olympic rings

Gold medal for ermm... floor mopping?!

It was very strange leaving Wembley and the badminton, but I would go back and do it all again in a heartbeat if I could. I'm still in London for a couple of days, so the blogs will still continue for a while (I know that this has secretly made your day and you can breathe a sigh of relief now). For now, though, I will leave you with an except of a conversation which I got caught up in on the train on the way to Hyde Park/ the world's largest bark park to play some badminton and watch some non-badminton related Olympics yesterday evening.

Very loud Canadian girl: (reading out news headlines) Andy Murray beat Switzerland's Roger Federer... (progresses onto reading texts) that's so funny.

Annoyed English woman opposite: Why is Andy Murray winning funny?

Very loud Canadian girl: It's not.

Annoyed English woman opposite: Is it ironically funny because America didn't win? We've waited so long for him to win. I don't find it funny.

Very loud Canadian girl: I didn't say that him winning was funny.

Very loud Canadian girl #2: Maybe we should speak in French now.

Annoyed English woman opposite: I speak French too.

Very loud Canadian girl: (looks at the extremely cute Chinese toddler next to me in an attempt to change subject) is he yours?

Me: Not that I know of.

P.S. Sorry today's blog took a while to get up, it took me until 1 this afternoon to sleep off my mopping tiredness!