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llywelaDoctor Who is back! This is A Good Thing. Also back on my TV at present: George Gently, New Tricks and Leverage. All Very Good Things.
Tuesday this week, I took a very long trip up to London to see a Paralympic equestrian event. Due to the timing of the event and various transport issues, this involved staying up all night to catch a bus at 2.30am in order to get to and across London in time to get through security at Greenwich ready for the 9am start. Slept most of the way up, but even so - knackering!
The event I saw was the grade 4 freestyle dressage final and medal ceremony. Now, I know nothing about dressage. I knew nothing before I went to the event and I still know nothing now that I've sat through an event. It involves horses prancing around to music (mostly really horrible tinny techno music, at that, judging by what I saw!) and they are awarded points for that prancing, but after sitting through an entire event I still couldn't tell whether they were doing well or not! Seriously, the points system means absolutely nothing to me. But I didn't need to know anything about dressage to have a good time. The horses were gorgeous and the competitors amazing, considering what some of them have been through, plus the atmosphere was fab - up to and including an impromptu and prolonged Mexican wave while waiting for the medal ceremony to begin!
Horses prancing to music!
Medal ceremony - silver for Britain!
The session we'd booked for ended at lunchtime, so we had the whole afternoon to get back across London and see a few sights before catching the bus home. So, since we were in Greenwich anyway, we stopped off at the Maritime Museum and saw the Cutty Sark before catching the river bus for a lovely boat ride back along the Thames to London Bridge, waving at the Tower of London in passing. *G*
I really wanted to go aboard the Cutty Sark, but it was expensive and we were starving, so we just looked as we passed - maybe next time! I also missed out on the Britain at War museum, which Mum took Chelsea into (as a child and senior citizen, they got to go in for half of what I'd have had to pay!) but then I found a bookshop and bought a book, so might as well have shelled out for a ticket after all...
We also had a bit of excitement while sitting around outside Victoria station having a quick snack - a police van came screaming up, sirens blaring, and stopped right in front of us and then a policeman came out of the shopping centre hauling a bloke who was high as a kite and struggling violently. A female police officer had to jump out of the van to help manhandle the bloke into the back, where he proceeded to throw himself around like a madman, rocking the van on its wheels. Just a day in the life for the London police, I suppose, but that was only the start of the evening's entertainment...
By the time we caught the bus back to Cardiff, we were absolutely wiped out - the Small One had been falling asleep on mine and Mum's shoulders all day, in fact. So we spent most of the journey dozing peacefully, tucked away at the very back of the upper deck of the Megabus. I was awake enough to catch an absolutely glorious sunset, to complement the very pretty sunrise I'd seen earlier, but other than that: sleep. But then just as we were approaching Newport, on the last leg of the journey, a fight broke out on the bus - these two fellas scuffling and skirmishing in the aisle, crashing into other passengers, people yelling for the driver to stop the bus, it was all very dramatic. The combatants almost landed on top of one young woman, who rocketed out of her seat and sprinted to the back of the bus where there was an empty seat alongside me, and that was when I lost track of the fight because this girl was hyperventilating so I focused on calming her down. The driver had to pull off the motorway onto a slip road and called the police, and then the bloke who'd started the fight jumped off the bus and ran off into the woods in the middle of nowhere. The police came and took statements from everyone and all in all we were delayed by almost an hour! Not quite how I'd expected the day to end...
Tuesday this week, I took a very long trip up to London to see a Paralympic equestrian event. Due to the timing of the event and various transport issues, this involved staying up all night to catch a bus at 2.30am in order to get to and across London in time to get through security at Greenwich ready for the 9am start. Slept most of the way up, but even so - knackering!
The event I saw was the grade 4 freestyle dressage final and medal ceremony. Now, I know nothing about dressage. I knew nothing before I went to the event and I still know nothing now that I've sat through an event. It involves horses prancing around to music (mostly really horrible tinny techno music, at that, judging by what I saw!) and they are awarded points for that prancing, but after sitting through an entire event I still couldn't tell whether they were doing well or not! Seriously, the points system means absolutely nothing to me. But I didn't need to know anything about dressage to have a good time. The horses were gorgeous and the competitors amazing, considering what some of them have been through, plus the atmosphere was fab - up to and including an impromptu and prolonged Mexican wave while waiting for the medal ceremony to begin!
Horses prancing to music!
Medal ceremony - silver for Britain!
The session we'd booked for ended at lunchtime, so we had the whole afternoon to get back across London and see a few sights before catching the bus home. So, since we were in Greenwich anyway, we stopped off at the Maritime Museum and saw the Cutty Sark before catching the river bus for a lovely boat ride back along the Thames to London Bridge, waving at the Tower of London in passing. *G*
I really wanted to go aboard the Cutty Sark, but it was expensive and we were starving, so we just looked as we passed - maybe next time! I also missed out on the Britain at War museum, which Mum took Chelsea into (as a child and senior citizen, they got to go in for half of what I'd have had to pay!) but then I found a bookshop and bought a book, so might as well have shelled out for a ticket after all...
We also had a bit of excitement while sitting around outside Victoria station having a quick snack - a police van came screaming up, sirens blaring, and stopped right in front of us and then a policeman came out of the shopping centre hauling a bloke who was high as a kite and struggling violently. A female police officer had to jump out of the van to help manhandle the bloke into the back, where he proceeded to throw himself around like a madman, rocking the van on its wheels. Just a day in the life for the London police, I suppose, but that was only the start of the evening's entertainment...
By the time we caught the bus back to Cardiff, we were absolutely wiped out - the Small One had been falling asleep on mine and Mum's shoulders all day, in fact. So we spent most of the journey dozing peacefully, tucked away at the very back of the upper deck of the Megabus. I was awake enough to catch an absolutely glorious sunset, to complement the very pretty sunrise I'd seen earlier, but other than that: sleep. But then just as we were approaching Newport, on the last leg of the journey, a fight broke out on the bus - these two fellas scuffling and skirmishing in the aisle, crashing into other passengers, people yelling for the driver to stop the bus, it was all very dramatic. The combatants almost landed on top of one young woman, who rocketed out of her seat and sprinted to the back of the bus where there was an empty seat alongside me, and that was when I lost track of the fight because this girl was hyperventilating so I focused on calming her down. The driver had to pull off the motorway onto a slip road and called the police, and then the bloke who'd started the fight jumped off the bus and ran off into the woods in the middle of nowhere. The police came and took statements from everyone and all in all we were delayed by almost an hour! Not quite how I'd expected the day to end...
no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 02:02 pm (UTC)Sounds as if you had a good time despite the unexpected additional entertainment.
Sue
no subject
Date: 2012-09-06 02:05 pm (UTC)Erm...
*G*