Post-Olympics blues...

Very tired after sitting up till midnight watching the closing ceremony of the Olympics.  What a riot!

I hate to utter such a cliché, but looking back over the last two-and-a-bit weeks I feel rather proud to be British.  I really think London has done a damned good job at staging the Games.  All the venues looked fantastic, and seemed to have clear sight-lines (& very loud acoustics).  Transport has run much more smoothly than we anticipated.  The BBC tv coverage has been excellent, too.  They managed to make Dressage interesting, which is quite an achievement.  I even spent one evening glued to a handball game, when I hadn't previously known there was such a thing as handball (except as an illegal move in football, that is).

And the Opening and Closing ceremonies were both, in their totally different and bonkers ways, glorious fun.  Good music (okay, some of it better than other bits!) and mad theatre, perfectly organised chaos, and wall-to-wall British eccentricity.

To finish off with Darcey Bussell arriving as a phoenix to dance the Olympic Flame to its rest was a lovely final touch.  She flew in, trailing fireworks from her wingframes, to join four gorgeous flame-coloured cavaliers (led by the unmistakeable figure of Gary Avis - I'm pretty sure I recognised the other three as well but won't mention names in case I'm completely wrong) and dance with them, being lifted and flung dramatically through the air, until at last they gathered round the great unfurling torch and waited; and like a huge fading chrysanthemum it shed petal after petal of flame, and died away.  Call me a sentimental sausage by all means, but it was real lump in the throat stuff.

And if I am rather sleepy this morning, I cannot imagine how tired the participants and the audience must feel.

I did also get some writing done, I'm glad to say.  I got over a little bump that had been intimidating me.  I had realised it had to come from a different point of view, and it flowed much better for it.  I'm at about the 45,000 word mark, though I'm sure extensive revision will be needed; still, that's not bad after two months.