Bring on the Paralympics!

Everyone who loved the London 2012 Olympics will be eagerly awaiting the start of the Paralympic Games this week. My enjoyment of the Paralympics has already begun!

Saturday 25^th August saw me proudly donning my Ambassadors uniform again for a Paralympic Flame Celebration event based at the London 2012 Live Site in Coventry. 

Coventry had been chosen as one of 36 communities across the country to host Flame Celebrations for the London 2012 Paralympic Torch Relay as part of the programme of events taking place over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Coventry City Council invited everyone to come and celebrate the London 2012 Paralympic Torch Relay with a celebration of disability sport, art and culture as part of the nationwide Flame celebrations.

Community groups and Paralympic athletes past and present were celebrating and the  Lord Mayor Cllr Tim Sawdon was there to welcome the Paralympic Flame lantern from London, brought into the celebration by Rita Thompson, Coventry’s former Paralympic Gold Medalist and Paralymic Flame Ambassador.

 

I was lucky enough to have a go at a number of the activities on offer. Including wheelchair basketball. Sadly, I showed no skills what so ever! As I got into the chair and it began rolling down hill I was convinced that any minute now someone would grab it and stop me rolling. But no-one did! 

I have so much admiration for these players. I couldn't manage to stop the chair rolling away with me, steer, prevent accidents with other players and then catch the ball too! I just didn't have enough hands to do everything!

One very inspirational player, Jacob (on the left in the picture above) told the crowd that he is aiming to be chosen for the GB squad for Rio in 2016. Before losing a leg he was a keen Rugby player and after watching the Bejing Olympics in 2008 he was inspired to take up wheelchair basketball. 

He spoke about his club striving to show 'sport over adversity' and I have absolutely no doubt that we will be hosting celebrations in Coventry in 2016 when Jacob does us proud in Rio.

Other activities I tried included Tandem cycling and blindfold football. Coventry Visually Impaired and Sighted Tandem Association (Coventry VISTA, for short) aim to enable the Visually Impaired to discover and enjoy the pleasures of cycling. A sighted 'pilot' rides on the front of the tandem while the visually impaired 'Stoker' riders on the rear.  On Saturday the group offered visitors the opportunity to be a 'stoker' by wearing special glasses to restrict vision. This really gave everyone an opportunity to experience the way a visually impaired rider would feel.

The blindfold football was (excuse the pun) also an 'eye opener'. The participants on Saturday were mostly children, although it was open to everyone. Here, the youngsters had to stand in a line and pass the ball, containing a bell, through their legs before dribbling to the front of the line with it and starting again. It's much harder than it looks and I can't imagine how the athletes at the games will hear the bell in their games with the cheers expected from the crowd!

The Ambassadors were joined for a photocall by Lady Godiva who thanked us for volunteering during the Olympics. She told us we had made Coventry proud.

It was a real thrill to meet one of Coventry's past Olympians, and an ex world record holder, Dave Moorcroft. 

Dave has been very active in the work to promote local involvement in the London 2012 games.  He is Director of Sport for Join In Local Sport, a UK national multi-sport event which aimed to encourage local sports clubs in the UK to put on sporting activities on 18th/19th August 2012.

We were all thrilled to hear from Dave that he has been told by so many people that Coventry's enthusiasm for the games was recognised as the best UK celebration outside of London. He went on to thank everyone involved and said he was so proud of the ambassadors for welcoming the world to our city. He also said that both the Canadian and Japanese football teams had told him how welcome they felt when they came here to play during the games.

 

Dave was travelling with part of the Paralympic flame over the weekend.  The flame had been split into 36 smaller flames which were being carried in lanterns. As the Paralympics draw nearer the 36 smaller flames will come together and  reunite in London.

So as another Olympic and Paralympic celebration came to an end in Coventry there is really only one thing left to say - Bring on the Paralympics and let the next stage of the games begin!

win a 20 x 28 inch canvas from HelloCanvas.co.uk

The lovely Mirka at All Baby Advice blog is currently running a giveaway to bloggers for the chance to win a 20 x 28 inch canvas from HelloCanvas.co.uk.

This prompted me to dig through my recent photos and find a picture I’d love to have blown up on canvas.

I settled on a recent set of pictures from a sunny day last week (yes, we have had at least one sunny day this summer) where Piper and Daisy decided that it was far too nice to come inside at lunchtime and they wanted to have a picnic in the garden.

My favourite photo from that day is this one of the girls enjoying their sandwiches. 

Why do I love this one? Well, it’s so wrong that it’s just right. (If you get my drift.)

Firstly, this was the day that Piper got some new, flowery sandals. She could hardly wait to get home before trying them on and deciding that these were her chosen footwear for the rest of the day. You’ll notice that she didn’t even bother to take the sticker off the bottom. So her ‘new’ sandals are now immortalised forever on a photo.

The next thing wrong with this picture is Daisy’s bowl. Yes, this was taken in August and yes, she is eating out of a bowl with Santa on it! Which is typical of Daisy – she is very opinionated and loves to eat from this bowl. So regardless of the time of year, this is the one that comes out each mealtime!

Although it’s obviously usual for the subjects of a photo to be looking at the camera, the fact that neither of them is paying attention is another thing that is so typical of the girls. Both of them are incredibly nosey and  as I took this photo they both looked towards the house because Daddy had just stepped out of the patio doors and they wanted to see what he was up to.

Although  Mirka only asked for a blog post to include the picture that we would like to see on canvas, I have to show the other shots taken around this one. This is just to demonstrate how difficult it is to get a shot of Piper and Daisy when both of them are looking at the camera.

First we started off with a picture where Daisy is quite obviously saying 'Cheese'.

Then we had one where Daisy was chattering away while Piper admired her new sandals.

Then came a picture where they were 'sharing' their biscuits.

Followed by one where neither of them were paying any attention to the camera at all! It was at this point in the day that I decided to give up and accept we were unlikely to get a picture of them both looking at the camera without gurning!

Whatever did we do before we had digital cameras? If I had been using a standard camera with film, I wouldn’t have known how much they were enjoying chatting, eating and being nosey, until the prints were returned.

If you would like to enter for the chance to win a fabulous 20 x 28 inch canvas from HelloCanvas.co.uk, with  a picture of your own choice, check out the giveaway on Mirka’s blog here

Good luck and I hope you have as much fun deciding on a photo as I did.

Blackberry Crumble for tea

On one of the few sunny days we have seen this summer we wandered around the fields close to our home and indulged in one of our favourite free activities – blackberry picking.

Now I have to admit, personally I’m not a big fan of blackberries. I think it stems from when I was little and used to go ‘blackberrying’ with my own parents and I gorged on them and ended up rather poorly…..

Anyway, back to our sunny afternoon. 

We didn’t actually intend to collect blackberries. We had gone for a stroll and happened to notice the bushes full of fruit. Grumpsie decided he fancied a blackberry crumble for tea. He’d already begun pulling fruit from the bushes before considering what we could carry it in.

Grandma rooted around in her bag for a suitable container and came up with……an envelope!

 

When the envelope was full, pockets came into their own!

Surprisingly, even though we only picked fruit for a few minutes, on our return to the kitchen we weighed the fruit and found we had gathered over 600g of blackberries.

So, on with making the crumble.  I do have to adapt recipes because I’m coeliac and others in the family have problems with digesting diary, so my recipes always exclude gluten and usually exclude dairy too whenever possible. 

For my crumble I used:

500g/1lb blackberries

The juice of 1 orange.

120g/4oz brown rice flour

4 tbsp sugar

120/4oz diary free margarine

My grandma used to recommend leaving hedgerow fruit in a bowl of water for an hour or so and sprinkling a little sugar on top of the water. She insisted this would draw out any creepy crawlies from the fruit. I have no idea whether it works but I did it anyway.

 I didn’t notice anything nasty floating on the water but, just in case I skimmed the surface with a slotted spoon before giving the fruit a good wash.

I then placed the blackberries in a saucepan with the orange juice and 2 tablespoons of sugar. 

I gently warmed the fruit, stirring well, until the fruit was softened slightly and the sugar had dissolved. I then drained the liquid from the fruit before dividing the blackberries between two  oven proof serving dishes.

In a separate bowl, I sieved the flour and the remaining sugar; added the dairy free margarine and rubbed together to form a crumble.

I sprinkled the mix over the blackberries

 then placed the dishes the middle shelf of the oven, heated to 180C/350F/Gas4.

I baked for 20 minutes until the top was golden brown, removed from the oven, allowed to cool slightly and served.

 Grumpsie was official taste tester

 His opinion of the finished result?

'Delicious!'

Daisy meets Myleene

Friday was a brilliant day and I have to send very grateful thanks to the lovely people at Start Rite shoes who invited us to London on Friday to meet Myleen Klass at the Autumn / Winter launch of their childrens shoe range.

We were lucky enough to be chosen as one set of winners of a recent Pinterest competition ‘My Start Rite Inspiration’ and were invited to the Russell and Bromley store in Westfield shopping centre to meet the very lovely Myleene Klass.

Mar –Mar (Daisy’s name for Grandma), Mummy & Daisy set off for London, imagining that the trains would be incredibly busy due to the Olympics, but in fact the train was very quiet.

We have to say a big thank you to the lovely gent sitting opposite us who offered to take a photo of us. I bet he wished he hadn’t bothered when Daisy thanked him by letting rip with the biggest, wettest, sneeze and covering him in something quite unpleasant – oops!

As we arrived at Euston station we received a call from our taxi driver telling us where he was waiting for us. We felt so special being met at the station and driven across the city to Westfield Shopping Centre. The roads were as quiet as the train had been. We had seen on the news that London streets were surprisingly quiet and we can certainly confirm this was the case on Friday!

Our excitement was rising as we reached the Russell and Bromley store and could see photographers already taking pictures of Myleene. She really is gorgeous. I was so jealous of her amazing shoes and beautiful glossy dark hair.

On TV Myleene looks pretty and petite but in real life she is even more so. She completely put us to shame with her amazingly slim figure. (Both Mar-mar and Mummy are now on diets!) 

The nicest surprise though was how lovely she is. I’ve met some celebs previously and not been particularly impressed, but I was completely blown away by how friendly Myleene was.

Typically, just as we arrived at the store, Daisy was reaching her usual nap time and began to get very cranky. She really didn’t want to have her feet measured, or sit still while Myleene fitted her with a gorgeous pair of golden shoes. 

Myleene was completely brilliant. She was sympathetic to Daisy’s tiredness and spoke quietly to her and tried to entertain her with cards and balloons. She even commented that in a few years time Daisy would be much more likely to want to go shoe shopping!

The lovely people at Start Rite gave us a voucher for shoes for Daisy. We were told we could select some from the store or bring the voucher home and choose some from a store near home. We decided to wait because of how tired Daisy was, so we are now looking forward to being able to have another girly shopping day and choosing some lovely shoes from the Autumn / Winter range.

Daisy dropped off to sleep almost immediately as we left the store so Mummy & Mar-Mar spent a couple of hours wandering around Westfield, buying some gifts from the Disney store for Daisy and to bring home for Piper and also buying a huge London 2012 British Lion to remind us of our visit to London during the time of the Olympic Games.

We had a fabulous time. Thanks again to Start Rite for choosing us as winners and thank you so much to the delightful Ms Klass. A lovely lady who made our day.

Godiva Awakes

Many people have heard the legend of Lady Godiva, who rode naked through Coventry to protest against taxes for the poor. What may not be so well known is that Coventry is tying into the London 2012 Olympics by 'awakening' Lady Godiva from a 1000 year long sleep.
The Godiva Awakes ceremony happened over the last weekend in July to coincide with the opening of the games, and on Monday 30th July this fabulous animated Lady Godiva model will set off for London, powered by a 'cyclopedia' of 25 attached cycles.

This photo of me alongside Lady Godiva shows the huge scale of this fabulous engineering project.
Godiva no longer needs to ride naked as, thankfully, women today don't need to take their clothes off to make a point.

This project is not just a way for Coventry to tie in with the Olympics, although Godiva will be part of the closing day when she will be in London to hand over a book of intent containing details from all of the young people who have worked on the project for the past 2 and a half years. The Godiva Awakes project demonstrates the skills in and around Coventry, from the engineering needed to animate such a huge model, build her 'horse' shown below and link the cycles together, to the fabric making skills needed to create the undies she is wearing which were designed by the amazing Zandra Rhodes.

I was so lucky to be involved in the Godiva Awakes project as a volunteer, an opportunity that came about because I had also volunteered as a city ambassador welcoming visitors to Coventry for the Olympic football. So far I've met people from Japan, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, Mexico and Gabon. It has been a complete privilege to be involved in these events and this summer has reminded me to be proud not just to be British but to belong to one of the best cities in the UK.

You may think that being 'sent to Coventry' is a bad thing - but believe me, we love to welcome visitors to our city so if you get the opportunity to come and visit us, please do. You may even be able to see our lovely new Lady Godiva who, over the next few years, will be having a permanent home built for her near our legendary cathedral.

One final photo of Godiva - I love this pic of her size 72 feet. I always thought my feet were big!