Paralympics

It is not often that the sight of something reduces me to tears.  This did.

I haven't told you about the Paralympics.  We went for four sessions on four consecutive days:  Friday 31st August to Monday 3rd September.  Cycling, athletics, rowing and equestrian (dressage).  Four amazing days. Four fantastic venues. Several medal ceremonies.

It was the women's tandem cycling medal ceremony that did me in.  Earlier, we'd watched the final and the race-off for third place, and cheered and yelled and (probably) deafened the cyclists.  

 

 The results were put on the board.
 

The girls were presented with their medals.  We all stood to attention and faced the flags.

 

As one of the small contingent of Aussies in the audience, I sang my national anthem and, then, it happened. There I was, in the middle of singing Advance Australia Fair, tears streaming down my cheeks, trying not to sob.

We witnessed all sorts of greatness that day.  And on the next three days.  The triumph of the human spirit over adversity.  While the Olympic athletes are correctly feted as amazing, talented individuals; it's the Paralympians who are a step beyond.  They are the true heroes. 

In the Olympic Stadium on the Saturday night, we witnessed four world records fall and several Paralympic records, including Oscar Pistorius breaking his own world record in the T44 200m heats.

 The stadium was amazing, but there were so many events going on that it was hard to keep up.

Is it enough to say that we were there?  We were their witnesses?  

This was taken  at the rowing, when it was cold and wet, with that horizontal, floaty rain that only seems to exist in these islands and which the Irish call "soft weather".

We witnessed the heartbreak of a Spanish rower who, paralysed from the waist down and strapped into his boat, was leading his race by several lengths when the velcro on his strapping gave way, less than 100m from the finish.   Following frantic efforts to re-strap himself in, he came in third.

If the audience had had a choice, we would have given him a special gold medal for his heroism and courage.

How can I adequately describe the Paralympic Dressage?  We witnessed the Individuals Competition at the "Costa del Greenwich".  (It was so hot and sunny, my legs actually took on colour!) 

Against the most amazing backdrop, we witnessed miracles.  Men and women, often with limited - or no - muscle control below their waists, controlling huge horses by the touch of their fingers.  And making them dance.

Seriously, there were horsemen/horsewomen who were only upright because they used special saddles - bouncing around like a sack of potatoes whenever their horses trotted - often with limited movement in their hands and arms, and they made their horses dance by the sheer force of their willpower.  

They are the true heroes.  We, their audience, are not worthy to breath the same air.

Dear BBC

Thank you for all those years when you broadcast the Grand National live on TV. Today was the last one and your coverage was better than ever. (I am not saying that just because I had 50p each way on the winner, either.) You will be missed.

To the Powers That Be: I, for one, would happily pay an extra £20/year on my TV Licence to enable the BBC to continue broadcasting top sporting events. Even if you increased the licence fee to £20/month to pay for more sport and drama, it would still be good value (currently £12.12/month). Personally, I think the BBC is worth every penny of £20/month. Stop trying to cripple it.

- Pam

Sit Rep Sept/Oct 2010

I didn't write a SitRep for September mainly because October slipped by so fast that it was the middle of the month before I knew it.   August's report is here.

SOCKS  My September socks were a pair of "use-em-ups" in some leftover self-patterning Harry Potter/Opal yarn.  The colourway was Slitherin, chosen for the blues (I didn't notice the name until days later).  As usual the feet were made in Lisa Souza's Sock! in Ecru.

For October's socks, I chose the Hibiscus for Hope pattern I received in 2008 after sponsoring the designer after the Yarn Harlot brought it to my attention (http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2008/08/08/regatta_day.html).  I'm using the darker shade of green Jitterbug I purchased last year at the Knit & Stitch Show.  

 Unfortunately, I still haven't finished the first sock - I'm half way up the leg having re-done the heel twice (I don't like the way the short row heel looks - too many holes at the end of the rows - but, from the pictures in the above post, it looks as if the Yarn Harlot got the same results I did).  

It's a lovely pattern, not difficult, but you do have to keep track of where you are.  (Thank heaven for highlighter tape!)  It would have been too difficult to follow at Sunday's NFL game (yes, I was at Wembley), so I started some top-down simple socks in a self-patterning yarn about 15 minutes before we left the house ...........

For the record, except for the opening 4 rows,this is how much you can knit during an NFL game and the pre-match entertainment (20 minutes).  I've already started the heel flap.

 

STASH  The second weekend in September was iKnit London Weekend, where I did two classes:  Lopapeysa with Ragga from Knitting Iceland and Knitting Sideways with Woolly Wormhead (check out her amazing hats).  Lopapeysa are the classic Icelandic sweaters, knitted in Lopi, with the plain body and decorative bands around the wrists, waist and neck. We played with Lopi and Lopi-Lite and I now I have a tiny sweater with which to decorate my Christmas tree.  Luckily for the stash, Ragga didn't have any Lopi to sell at her booth or I would have been sorely tempted - it was lovely to handle AND I have the perfect pattern in mind to make with it.  I did buy two more skeins of the Artesano Aran to ensure I now have a sweater's worth; it wasn't in either of the dye lots I already have so I will alternate it with the others.  My remaining stash-cash went on several varieties of roving and a spindle since I've decided to learn to spin.

<--cough-->Artesano Aran <--cough-->

October brought the Knit & Stitch Show at Alexandra Palace, which totally blew away the stash diet.  I claim that I was taken prisoner by those horrible, nasty people at Black Sheep Yarns and not allowed out until I purchased a sweater's worth of Sublime Organic Merino DK (13 balls) in grey and a pattern, Sublime's "Willow" sweater. 

(I'm only kidding:  Black Sheep are the UK's equivalent to Webs and very nice people.  Every year, they bring container loads of close-outs with them, at massively discounted prices. Sometimes their stall resembles a rugby scrum as women dive bodily into the yarn pile in order to find the yarn they want/need.)  

I also failed to resist the Colinette stall:  no mill ends this year but they did have 150g skeins of Jitterbug for the price of the more usual 100g ones.  Three skeins wormed their way into the stash.  So did 3 balls of self-patterning sock yarn at other stalls, including the one I'm knitting above.  (For the record, I purchased 4 but gave a ball of Opal - plus 2.5mm dpns and a pattern - to my friend's mum in an attempt to corrupt her into a sock knitter.)  My final purchase was a skein of Madeleine Tosh cashmere - yum!

In other knitting news:  I finished the Brown Cabled Cardigan last weekend, with only a couple of metres of the Heathland Hebridean to spare, so that's two more skeins finished.  I've also finished the first skein of the Artesano Aran (I'm making Mr Greenjeans from Knitty) and half the second.  Photos to follow when I've got someone to take me modelling the garments.

I have completely lost track of how many skeins that adds up to, but I must be nearing 30 for the year.

OVERDRAFT  September was a bad month.  The holiday, coupled with the typical "I'm on holiday... To hell with it!", meant that my overdraft repayment efforts went backwards by £86.25.  However, I did well in October (£212.55) and made up that ground and then some for a net repayment over the two months of £126.30.  That brings my total repayment for the year to £1,222.60.

GARDEN I harvested all the tomatoes in a mad attempt to get to them before they were overcome by blight. It only took a few minutes to realise that some were already overcome and were rotting inside their skins (the blight seems to liquefy them from the inside out).  The ripe ones were made into two tubs of tomato sauce and then frozen.  The green ones went into boxes with a couple of apples in an attempt to ripen them.  Some did ripen and have been used, others developed a dry white mould and have been binned.

Bought garlic, shallots and broad beans to plant out this weekend.

- Pam (I think this post is long enough now)

8:0

I don't think I've written about Football before, but today was a rather momentous day - my team, Chelsea, won the Premiership!  And  I went to the match.

 This morning, we had a one point lead over Manchester United.  And one game to go - a home match against Wigan Athletic.  We had to win the match in order to win the title.  A draw wouldn't do.  When the players walked out onto the pitch, you could have cut the tension in Stamford Bridge with a knife.

Everyone was jumpy.  And the ball wasn't going where we wanted.

Six minutes into the game, Anelka scored!  The stadium erupted. We had the goal we needed to win the match and, as long as we could keep our lead over them, we'd win the Premiership.

But Wigan refused to lie down.  They came back at us again and again.  At about 30 minutes in, a Wigan player cut down a Chelsea player in the Wigan goal mouth.  Penalty!  Frank Lampard faced the Wigan keeper.  And scored!

The third goal was Salomon Kalou's.

The fourth and fifth took Didier Drogba to the top of the table of goal scorers and won him the Golden Boot.

On the fifth goal, Chelsea achieved the milestone of 100 goals in a season.   The first team ever to do so.  By the eighth goal, we'd set another record - our biggest win EVER.  Plus, our Keeper, Peter Cech won the Golden Gloves for the most clean sheets of the season.

Congratulations Chelsea FC.

- Pam (Stick that in your pipe ManU and smoke it!)

Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars

Well, not quite, but that was one of the more memorable advertising jingles from my childhood.

Being an Australian, life is all about sport. I love this time of year: the cricket season is not quite over; the English Premier League (soccer) season started a month ago; the NFL season starts tomorrow (go Pats!); and the Aussie Rules season has reached the semi-finals (Come On the Bulldogs!). All my favourite sports are being played and I'm lapping them up.

Today, I used the BBC's website to follow the progress of the One Day International cricket match, England vs Australia at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. The Aussies outclassed the English at our "national religion" and are now 3:0 up in the series. Revenge for the English winning the Ashes at the end of last month.

Tonight, I watched England qualify for the World Cup in South Africa next year. They beat Croatia, 5:1, in a match at Wembley. They played better than I have seen them in a long time (until recently, England played as a collection of prima-donnas; tonight they played as a cohesive team). The Aussies have already qualified, so look out world! When we take a game seriously, we don't stop until we are world champions.

Also tonight, DH and I finished picking our teams for a fantasy NFL game. I've chosen several New England Patriots players so that I have someone to yell abuse at when they play at Wembley next month. That's the entire logic of my team.

Heaven! Now, if only I could find out the date for the annual Australian Rules Exhibition Football Match at the Oval, I'd be really happy.

- Pam




PS: The guys I work with can't quite believe that this girly-girl who knits is a sports fan.

Current obsession

When it comes to sport, I am pretty much a true-to-type, die-in-the-wool, stereotypical Australian. Sport is our national religion. It is the one thing that unites all the disparate peoples and cultures that make up Australia. We have four codes of Football (Australian Rules, Rugby Union, Rugby League and Soccer), Cricket, athletics, rowing, sailing (even people who've never been on a boat in their lives follow the progress of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race), golf, surfing, cycling, horse racing (the Melbourne Cup is the only horse race in the world that has it's own public holiday), tennis, etc, etc. And in all of the sports I've listed, we're world class. When Australia takes a sport seriously, look out the rest of the world; we won't stop until we're champions.

It's summer, so I'm obsessing about Cricket. In particular, the international matches between England vs. New Zealand at the start of the summer, and England vs. South Africa now. If I could, I'd listen to every ball of every game. Sadly, I work in a radio black spot (last year, I purchased a DAB radio just to get Test Match Special but there is no reception here), and the IT Department have blocked radio via the internet.

Kim has "County" membership of Surrey Cricket Club. In June, we treated ourselves to a Girls Day Out - a One Day International at the Oval. It was a day that started with the threat of rain and became hot and sunny, so I went prepared for anything: hiking slacks that convert to shorts (similar to these), strappy top, cardigan, waxed Barbour jacket… We packed a picnic, knitted a bit, drank champagne, sobered up on Pimms, and had a really good day out.

Anyway, ever since the match, I've been pondering County Cricket Club membership and whether it is worth applying for "County" membership to Surrey. It would entitle me to free entry at all County games and priority booking of tickets for all Internationals. Whilst £150/year isn't expensive to watch one of my favourite sports, it isn't cheap if I don't use it. The Oval is at least an hour and a half away by public transport but their secondary ground at Guildford isn't too difficult to drive to (a lot of miles, though, and then there is parking to consider).

The enticing alternative, of course, is Middlesex County Cricket Club, who at least play some matches locally to our home. And, of course, their main home ground is LORDS the Headquarters of Cricket. The benefits are the same as for Surrey, but up until about half an hour ago, it had never even occurred to me that Middlesex membership might be a possibility. In my mind, I'd been confusing them with the famous "MCC" or Marylebone Cricket Club, with whom Middlesex share Lords. The MCC was never a possibility - it has a twenty year waiting list and then only if you get proposed and seconded by at least 4 existing members. (If you are a billionaire who donates £mega-millions, I'm sure they'll find a way to squeeze you in sooner.) Middlesex, on the other hand, is do-able at £133 plus joining fee.

Decisions, decisions.

However, the question still remains: if I became a club member, would I use it? I want it, but even if it only cost £20, if I don't use it then it won't be worth it. For now, I'll put it on my "wish list" and maybe save up for it via the Sanity Fund. That'll give me a couple of months to review the idea before I have to commit myself (I have to join before October - my BIL wants tickets to next year's Lords' test match between England and Australia).

[ sigh ]

- Pam (I wants it NOW!)

A Football Match Was Attended

... And it was NFL! Yes, we went to the historic first regular season match outside America at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. It was a "home" match for the Miami Dolphins against the New York Giants.


We supported the Dolphins, on the basis that they were the underdogs (and we've driven past their stadium in Miami).As you can see from this shot of the cheerleaders, we were up in the top tier. It didn't matter - the view was good.

Here's DH (at the front) and friends, all wearing their team shirts and jackets. They're serious fans. DH and his best friend used to play in the local amateur league, and they've all played play-by-mail fantasy NFL games.

Do you like DH's New England Patriots jacket? Pretty blue, isn't it? He's had it since he was 21. I was disappointed to discover it still fit him (I was hoping to "borrow" it for the match).

Here's me and my knitting. Unsure of whether there would be a problem with knitting needles, I almost smuggled the sock in. The security guards saw my make-up-bag-knitting-case and didn't check inside. Once inside, the Safety Stewards didn't care.

You can't really see from the picture, but I'd just picked up the gusset stitches and knitted 3 rows before we got to Wembley. I knitted throughout the match.



Can't say it was a particularly good football match (if you hear that from me, who's only seen a couple of live NFL-Europe games and a few televised matches, it really was bad!). But the pre-match and half time shows were good and it was just really great to be there.

The middle two quarters were dire. The Dolphin's were their own worst enemies - they clocked up a string of penalty plays in the second quarter (six, I think), including a 1st and 25. Much to the surprise of my friends (who'd thought that was the worst play they'd ever seen), the Giants topped it with a 2nd and 37!

Just when you thought the Dolphins had a chance in the final quarter, they inexplicably blew through their 3 time-outs before the two minute warning. This meant that although the did manage to score a touchdown (finally!), they couldn't call a time out to organise a field goal. Even I know that was stupid. What did their coaches think they were doing? Throwing the match?



This is how far I managed to get with the sock, approximately 60 rows knitted at the match including the gusset. The blue part is leftover Opal self-striping yarn, while the white is all Lisa Souza's Sock! in ecru ordered directly from her (remember the problem I had obtaining white yarn? Lisa solved it for me. More pictures later). No, I didn't borrow DH's jacket - he held the sock for me.

Here's another photo of the sock. Taken in the last two minutes of the match.



On the whole, a great evening out. Next time, though, please can we see the Pats?

- Pam (when the play got really bad, I was chanting "we want Pats")