Happy Sunday!!
Well, what can i say? I have been on an absolute high all weekend leading on from the best night ever on Friday evening.
The day on Friday started with a nice lie in at home (as i was certain it was going to be a very late finish - those athletes sure know how to party!). Once i was ready to go, i met a few other volunteers at a really nice pub at St. Pancras station. The plan was to have a bite to eat and a few drinks and then head to the Olympic Park via the new Javelin train (its a super fast train that gets you from St. Pancras to Stratford in 6 min's!!!). Why is it that when you have a few drinks, you really get the taste for it and then it's really hard to stop. We ended up having 3 bottles of wine between 4 of us!! It's fair to say that i was slightly tipsy on the way to the stadium.
Whilst i was still at the station, i did a quick interview with the news team at Free Radio (Mercia) and a live interview on the BBC Coventry and Warwickshire drivetime show talking about how i got involved, what people can expect (without giving too much away) and even got asked for a sneaky clue about one of the famous people involved - the clue i gave was James Bond!
You can listen to the BBC interview here:
It seemed like i was only there for a few minutes when we were given our 30 minute call - yikes! In 30 minutes time, i would be performing to 4 billion people worldwide - it doesn't get bigger than this.
Once i was in my starting position, i was continuing to get texts, Facebook and Twitter messages of support and excitement and even some really funny pictures from the Belgrade (Theatre i used to work at) peeps party they were having - see the pictures below! By this point, as you can imagine, i was mega excited. I could hear the 80,000 live audience cheering and the countdown begun.. 10, 9, 8... it was Showtime!!
So, how on earth did we manage to transform this...
... to this?
1000 x Working Men and Women, 1000 x Drummers, 300 x Green and Pleasant Land, Brunels, Suffragettes including months of intense rehearsals, talent and commitment - that's how!
It was amazing to see everything come together on the night especially as we were kept out of some of the secrets like J.K Rowling and David Beckham appearances, any details to do with the Olympic Cauldron and even the Mr. Bean comic sequence.
The atmosphere throughout the whole evening was fantastic. It's such a great feeling being part of such a worldwide, global event - The Greatest Show On Earth!
I think a lot of the 'Drummers' were actually dreading the Athlete's Parade section (which we were all also part of) as it involved a lot of standing around, dancing, smiling but i have to say that this section was by far my favourite. It was so much fun standing amongst 10,000 athletes, constantly getting high fives, being given country flags from the athletes and breaking into dance every minute. The athletes were all loving the atmosphere and had massive grins on their faces the whole time which was really nice to see - it was their night after all!!
The highlight of my whole night was standing right next to Team GB and even high fiving Tom Daley just before breaking into 'Big Ben', 'Buckingham Palace', 'Rocking The Thames' and 'Union Jack'.
I'm actually really relieved that it is all over and that it went so well. It was an amazing feeling to see the excellent reviews in the papers, over Twitter and Facebook and I'm pretty sure that Danny Boyle is amazed that his 'Isles of Wonder' was a complete and utter... success!
Well, it's no rest for the wicked. I now have a short break (until Wednesday) and then it's two weeks of intense rehearsals for the Closing Ceremony - but that's for the next blog.
I'll leave you some photos, taken throughout my whole Olympic journey right through to the Opening Ceremony.
Enjoy!
Thanks for reading,
Craig
Love it!!!xx
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