London 2012: My Olympics and Paralympics

Now the Olympics and Paralympics are over its a good time to look back over this summer's posts and report on JP's London 2012, hopefully without using words like "journey":

• My first Olympic moment was watching the torch relay on the streets of south London
• I then soaked up the atmosphere on the tall ship Maja as it went underneath Tower Bridge the day before the opening ceremony
• The following day I watched the torch on its final journey (oops, sorry, it just slipped in there) on the Gloriana up the Thames
• Living in London I couldn't help notice all the preparations and take pride in the Olympics coming to our great city
• The Red Arrows roaring over London signalled the start of the stunning Olympic's Opening Ceremony
• The first weekend I saw the two cycle road races flashed over Putney Bridge, the men's with Wiggo on Saturday and the women on Sunday, winning one of Team GB's first medals.
• Of course my main interest was the sailing, watching online and on the web site
• Much better than either were the three trips down to Weymouth, sitting on the Nothe soaking up the great atmosphere as posted here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
• By then nearly everyone was getting Olympics fever so the official web site was melting as people tried to grab those last minute release of tickets
• I managed to get a ticket to see the Beach Volleyball where we were joined by some of Team GB's rowing medallists
• Medallists were beginning to appear everywhere, including Tom Slingsby with his Laser gold
• The Olympics even reached up to Nelson's hat
• There was a parallel cultural London 2012 with events including art installations (not all equally good)
• Across London there were the National Houses and I visited those of Brazil, France and Denmark
• The Olympic Closing Ceremony wasn't that great so I made up my own
• No problems with the moving and inspirational Paralympics's Opening Ceremony
• The cauldron was lit again in the Olympic Stadium as I saw when went to see the Paralympic's athletics
• I also managed to get a ticket to the amazing Paralympics Closing Ceremony
• Finally I was in the City for the parade of Olympic and Paralympic heros and then in Trafalgar Square for the Red Arrows fly by (below)

It's become a much repeated truism that the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics were a once in a lifetime event.

For that reason I'm glad I didn't hold back, but enjoyed as much as I could of both the Olympics and Paralympics