London 2012...

Ooh I couldn't be more excited if I'd won the lottery! Well, maybe, but hey it feels like winning the lottery having the Olympics here in my country and in mine and my childrens' lifetime.

A group of us gathered at a friend's house to watch the opening ceremony and party the night away and all I can say is Wow, definitely with a capital W. It may not have been to everyone's taste, hey 'Trainspotting' wasn't either, but intense, powerful, moving, funny and beautiful I certainly thought it was.

Honestly James Bond and the Queen, we were all squealing with delight that it was actually her! Obviously not parachuting out of a helicopter, we're not mad, she's an elderly lady for goodness sake, but oh it did make us all laugh!

Sending out apologies to all of Mark's neighbours for being so loud, but I think we all hoped they'd be watching the same thing as us so I'm sure we didn't upset too many people :)

Being the avid sport watcher that I am, its absolute heaven coming home from work, switching on the telly and choosing from the massive array of BBC Olympic channels. Feeling very proud of Team GBs women's footie team, go girls! The Team GB women's volleyball team won last night (actually early hours of the morning, ooh I'm so tired!) which is their first ever Olympic match win, so proud of you girls you were awesome. The Gymnastics have just been stunning and Team GB Men winning their first Olympic medal since 1912 was beyond wonderful. 

I could just list on forever but I really mustn't, I'm sure you know what events there are, lets just suffice to say that I can barely contain my excitement for the athletics and particularly the prospect of the men's sprint finals, ooh man that's going to be a good 'un.

One of my favourite parts of the whole ceremony was the innovative and truly beautiful Olympic Cauldron. As a little sign off here's a picture from the Daily Mail as a reminder Olympic cauldron 2012. I just found a video clip to show my daughter as she missed seeing it on Friday as she was away on holiday and honestly I went goose pimply all over again.

I hope you all enjoy our Olympics, all the drama, spectacle, super human effort and drive and that you find something there to remember forever.

What a beautiful day...

Despite my last minute brolly buying panic (my darling daughter seems to run off with all of mine!) Rachael and Tom's wedding day wasn't the rain soaked affair we thought it might be. 

All dressed in our finery a large group of us set off from the village in our coach. Unbelievably even that got caught up in the RBS banking debacle. There we all were thinking we'd paid our contribution to the cost of the coach, however when the driver got to us we realised that the transfer Rach had sent through to the coach company hadn't arrived! Oops. He didn't actually say it but I think the general gist of it was without payment they weren't going to take us anywhere! Fortunately one of our number is a friend who is what I would describe as 'comfortably off' who managed to dash home and find £295 cash to hand to the driver, bless his little heart.........

We did get a bit of a soaking when we arrived at the venue, but clearly they are well set up for British Summer weddings and had large baskets of umbrellas to hand out as we stepped off the coach, how thoughtful! This rain was the last we saw until late into the evening happily.

It was a truly beautiful day, full of laughs, happy tears, good friends, new ones, wonderful food and gorgeous piggies!

I haven't lost the plot honestly! The wedding was at a fantastic venue on a farm. Whilst they were taking their vows you could hear the cockerel crowing in the background...

Even though the weather was grey and forbidding looking it was still quite warm and sticky, hence the bridal shawl wasn't really needed. She did however have it with her in pride of place on the top table which was lovely. We took a couple of pictures just to prove it was there.

Yes that is me with the beautiful bride, I'm possibly the most unphotogenic person I know, but at least I've got my eyes open in this one :))

Rach and her very proud dad.

Bet you've never seen a Yorkshire parkin wedding cake?! She's a true Northern girl at heart...

Ooh and a lovely groom in a kilt too!

Altogether a wonderful day full of wonderful people. I wish them every happiness, they deserve it. Oh and boy did my feet ache the next day, haven't danced that much for years x