Bromsgrove housesitting

Birmingham's bull in fancy dress! With Alex and Rob

We’ve had a busy time, the joys of sitting locally.

Solihull mountaineering club had a BBQ so we went along, it was very well attended but B had also invited various old members, so we actually spent more time catching up with Mike R and Danielle than many of the current crew, but we did have a lovely time. This then led to going over to see Jo and have a nosy in her new camper van, which is very cute. They are away for the first time this weekend, hope they are having a lovely time!

We also made plans with Rob to go round when Alex was back from her

We had a few GnT's on the rooftop bar!

training course in Austria, so that was Wednesday evening. As ever we had to have a look round at building progress. Opened the front room door to find all the plaster from the walls and ceiling on the floor! Bending is not as easy for Rob as it is for us, plus his hip has been giving him gip for a few months, and he’d hurt his shoulder getting the stuff off! “We are coming in to town on Friday, we’ll come in a bit earlier and clear that then” Very dusty, but not a bad job, and definitely easier for us! Meant we’d earned our curry with Helen, Ian, Bev and Iain anyway! That was a lovely evening, though relatively restrained, we all had plans on Saturday.

A little snippet of the wonderful Lions of Punjab

Castaway by Highly Sprung on the gyroscopic flying machine

Saturday was B’s birthday and a Bank Holiday weekend, there must be something on, and indeed there was. The ‘Birmingham Weekender’ lots of free dance and performance sessions, at four or five different venues, all very close together near the Bull Ring. We got the train in for about lunchtime, managed to catch the three things I’d earmarked that I wanted to see, and another few I hadn’t, one of which was fabulous. We had a 10 minute session by deaf dancers, called Vibrations by D-Sign Dance which was lovely, this was followed by half an hour of 4 men, ‘2Faced Dance’ doing something called Last Orders. Very clever, you could see the interactions that

Las Adelitas - Mariachi

happen when a few beers have been sunk! Nipped outside to a second venue and caught the end of a Turkish band? Maybe, probably wouldn’t have wanted much more of that though it was a very happy sound! Back inside to get seats for the ‘Lions of Punjab’ a male Bollywood group who were part of the CWG closing ceremony. We both wanted to see that and it was fabulous, though very loud! I had mentioned to Alex this was our plan as they too were going into town, and suddenly, there they were! We had a lovely couple of hours with them before they headed off to the cinema. Next on my list was Castaway by Highly Sprung, three women, one of whom was in a

Rob, Alex and Jackie at the Big Splash start

gyroscopic flying machine, powered by a man, look at the pictures, it’ll make more sense! Very clever again, and with a very strong message about the pollution of the oceans. In passing we then caught the end of Las Adelitas, four piece female mariachi band, who seemed to be standing in a doorway, walked past the Relaxerette, a big wheel of hammocks with children all wearing headphones, and the Big Splash, a very long soapy water slide which, mostly, but not solely, kids threw themselves down on little inflatable rings. Just as well it wasn’t cold!

There goes someone down the slippery, soapy slide - it's a long way down there!

And very soapy at the end!

I’d had my turn then, Alex wanted to go to Poli Nation in Victoria Square, it’s why they’d come in, it’s finishing on Friday! Actually it doesn’t start till Friday, so we are really looking forward to going to see that when we meet Denise and Paul in town from Fiona’s next week! Had to then go and see Ozzy the bull from the CWG, would be rude not to! Ok so cake? Tea? Ice cream? Beer? I threw a few words out. We headed to the Edwardian tearoom in the Art Gallery, poo, it shut 5 minutes ago. Oh well, look, there’s a bar there (Theatrix), rooftop bar even. Up we went, no view, but a lovely space, and just time for a couple of GnT’s before A&R ran off to see their movie. We sauntered back through Grand Central to the station, stopping for a delicious bowl of Vietnamese Pho, before the train and home for a movie with Millie. Brilliant day out.

And, of course, no trip to Birmingham would be complete at the moment without a trip to see the amazing Commonwealth Games bull, here in Centenary Square until the end of September

Avoncroft Museum in Bromsgrove

Last weekend was also busy. Friday we walked to the Avoncroft Museum, a space where buildings have been rescued and rebuilt, some very interesting history there. Have a look at our short video with photos of our walk round: click here. Saturday we were at Fiona’s again, 8 birthdays in August and very early September, including an 18th, a 40th, a 65th and a 70th. Brian’s 67th only made it into the second round of singing! Great BBQ, lots of food and drink and family chat. Sunday we headed south to Jonathan and Lucy, as a late breaking decision they too had had a family gathering. Jonathan had come to get mum on Thursday, so we went to bring her back. We had a good day with J&L and Charles, briefly seeing Caroline before she and Sylvia headed off to a family party of Sylvia’s.

The beautifully restored windmill at Avoncroft. It still works

So what with getting Ted MOT’d, taking mum shopping, giving some blood for a genetics study that B has been part of for years, a walk around Bromsgrove looking at the Houseman trail, AE Houseman, the poet who wrote a Shropshire Lad, amongst other things (have a look at our short video with photos of our walk round Bromsgrove: click here), taking delivery of a hot tub for Sarah, the homeowner, and setting it up for her birthday party tomorrow and a Thai birthday meal for Brian, it’s been all go!

This is known as a Prefab and were temporary houses put up around the country after WWII to help aleviate the housing shortage. This one was donated to Avoncroft musem. This probably won't mean much to people below about 60, but I (Brian) remember them well. A small village of them were built opposite my mum and dads house in Castle Lane, Solihull and I had many friends who lived in them, so I was in and out of these as a child. Eventually they were taken down in the mid sixties to be replaced with brick built houses

The kitchen in the Prefab. I remember it well!

St Johns church in Bromsgrove, a stop-off on the Houseman Trail

Prominent gravestones in the church yard of notable local people who lost their lives during the building of the railways in the 19th century. There are more photos on the Relive video round Bromsgrove mentioned above. Click on the link to see them or click here

Sam carrying out the multiple birthday cake at Fiona and James' BBQ family party. Too many people to mention but almost all of both families were there. A great get-together and a fabulous day. The birthdays were: Fiona (my daughter), Jenny (my youngest granddaughter) 18 years old, Abbie (my eldest granddaughter), 24 years old, Steph (my niece), me, Paul (Brother-in-law) 70, James (son-in law) 40 and James' dad 65

Friday night was curry take-out night! Here's Ian, Helen, Iain, Bev, Jackie and me

And here's the special retro birthday cake Helen made for me. In the centre is a vienetta (mint flavour unfortunately as the original wasn't available) and, surrounding it are slices  of arctic roll. It was followed by a song guessing game where Helen played the intro from a 1983 record from their Spotify account. Ian was a demon at guessing them, I was useless! Helen, feeling sorry for me said she'd play some from another year for me to guess. "In what year were you 18?" she asked "1973" I replied. There were gasps around the table. "1973?!? I was 1" said Ian, "5" said Jackie etc (without giving others ages away). Oh, that's great, my birthday and I'm made to feel I should be in an  old peoples home, not with these young Spring Chickens! I did do a little better at the guessing though, but still not that good

What she failed to mention in her write-up was the running I've done on my own so, since this is the only platform I can shout about the things I've done, I'm going to list them here: I've done a couple of 5km Parkruns at Arrow Valley in Redditch on the last two Saturday mornings, I got a time of 27 minutes 43 seconds this last Saturday which I was pleased with. This photo is just before last Saturdays Parkrun with people warming up pre-race. I've also some a couple of practice 5km runs on local footpaths and then, last Wednesday, while Jackie took her mum shopping in Redditch, I hitched a lift with her to Alvechurch and then ran back to Bromsgrove, mainly along the canal, through Tardebigge lock system. It was a distance of 12km (7.2 miles) and I did it in 84 minutes. That's 7 minutes per kilometer which is not that impressive, but I was really pleased. It's the furthest I've run in a long time. If you'd like to see where it went (there are no photos as I was running), click here 

Well, we've been housesitting and, so far in this blog there hasn't been a single photo of little Millie cat who we're looking after. To put that right here's some photos of her. This is the hot-tub that's been delivered for homeowner Sarah's birthday party on her return home tomorrow. Millie finds it quite comfortable strangely!

This is Millie long cat on Jackies lap

Surely there must be comfier places? No, cats like to be up high, so the fireplace surround is the obvious place

Leave me along, I'm very tired!

What goes through a cat's mind when watching other cats on TV?

I'm asleep on the bed, I don't care that it's time to get up. And that mud wasn't me!

And this is me, looking cute!

Before we go we must put these on. Jackie mentioned in the last blog about the robot lawnmower that comes out each night and randomly scurries across the lawn to keep it short, much to the amusement of Millie cat who thinks it's there just for her to jump over and play with. This is it's house and we love the little windows and door. Someone has a sense of humour!

And there he is parked up and resting where he'd connected himself to his recharge station ready for the next nights exploits. One night, early on in the housesit Jackie looked in whilst he was out cutting the grass and found a dead, shrivelled frog inside. It must have gone in to have a look and then the mower returned home and trapped it between itself and the recharger. One would hope it had a quick death by electrocution rather than starved to death. Anyway, on that happy note we'll sign off. Until the next time... 

A housesit, a paella and a safari

Paella weekend! With James, Fiona and Jenny

We are now at a Housesit in Bromsgrove, for little Millie cat, very cute, young and very pretty. Purrs a lot, but will also take a swipe for no obvious reason. Very happy that now it’s cooled down a bit she is spending time indoors with us, even sleeping on the bed last night. The other ‘pet’ here is the robot lawnmower, it brings itself out of its little house about 18.15 and drives randomly over the lawn for about three hours. Millie thinks it’s playing with her as she leaps about the lawn which is very funny. I did have a nose inside it’s house the other night, only to find a frog, that had also been having a nose at some point, only to find itself trapped by the mower as it returned to its charging station! It had obviously been there some time!

Cutie little Millie cat trying to keep cool in the heat

Walking along the canal to meet the others

Yesterday we met up with John and Brian W for a walk, and Keith that Brian has met down the pub, but is new to me. Turns our he lived just round the corner from me in Tring in the 80’s! What a very small world! The plan was to meet them in Barnt Green for breakfast and then walk back here. The train would have been quick and easy, but Brian wanted to use his bus pass, so we waited for a bus that never turned up, before dashing into the town centre to miss it there! They were about to start walking along the canal towards us, so we went to the canal to meet them! We then went to the Hanbury Turn for a few pints, and a cheese cob. It would have been sensible to leave them then and go back to Millie, about 20 minutes away, but no, we went with them to the Ladybird, by the station, about 35 minutes away, knowing we would also have to walk back! Much beer, much chat and 24,000 steps later we arrived back at the house, slightly wet, but having had a lovely day.

We'd walked 12 miles so deserved the half dozen or so afternoon pints! With Brian W, John and Keith

Rainbow Lorikeets having some nectar from Pauline 

Thursday, when it was very hot, we decided we’d take mum out. Though I say it myself I had an inspiration, we went to the West Midlands Safari Park, arrived early, borrowed a wheelchair so we could get to the lemurs and goats in the furthest corner, without mum overheating, before sitting in the car with the aircon on for the afternoon! We had a brilliant day, avoided the worst of the crowds by driving in the afternoon and avoided the horrible heat, except when I had to open the windows to feed the giraffes!

Its very amusing the way giraffes eat food from your hand

With the heat it felt like we were on a safari

The previous weekend had been our annual paella with Fiona and James, another lovely day, and part of a lovely weekend. We stayed over so we could all have a drink before walking into Leamington on the Sunday to see where the bowls had been taking place for the Commonwealth Games, and then watching the men’s cycling road race. Friends of Fi and James live right on the route, so we sat on the end of their drive watching the action. Brilliant. All rounded off with a Sunday tea club. More lovely food, chat and laughter.

Being in with the Lorikeets was the best place as it was air conditioned in there, a lovely escape from the heat

Jackies fabulous paella that she cooked for James, Fiona, us and Jenny

Oscar cat would have liked to try it too!

Apparently Brian may have had a few too many glasses of wine and sangria, much to the amusement of granddaughter Jenny

Kerbside seats for the Commonwealth Games cycle race through Warwick and Leamington Spa at James and Fionas friends house

Here they come now! It took them about 20 minutes to do one of the ten or so circuits, but as the race went on they spread out so much there were riders coming past almost continually. It was a lovely atmosphere with the police motorcycle riders waving and 'high fiving' spectators as they rode slowly by

Fiona and James' cat Oscar, who we'll be looking after in a couple of weeks while they go on holiday. There'll be more photos of him later...

But we've still got another week and a half of cutie Millie cat to go yet

Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 - our experience

Action at the closing ceremony

Its over! Last night, 8th August was the closing ceremony for the Birmingham hosting of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Jackie and I were part of it, as we were for the opening ceremony on 28th July and what an experience it has been! It has been fun and laughter all the way through, from the first, slightly anxious audition at Edgbaston Cricket Ground to the climax last night of seeing local band Black Sabbath with Ozzie Ozbourne perform in front of a sell out Alexander Stadium in Perry Bar, Birmingham and broadcast to millions around the world.

Nathan on his stage at one of the earlier rehearsals

Rehearsing at Longbridge with our numbered bibs

It has to be said that we were not major performers, so only eagle eyed people, like my daughter, Fiona, would have picked us out. We were Marshalls, looking after the athletes whilst forming shapes, dancing and clapping along all synchronised by Nathan Wright, our Aussie Parade and Production Director prompting and encouraging us all through our in-ear communications. Long will we remember his friendly and calm instructions during the performance such as "we've got about 15 seconds before we start vogue....start vogue in three, two, one, go please" and then see 400 of us all commence at the same moment. His encouragement and praise kept us going "Oh my lovely Marshalls, you look amazing, from up here it looks absolutely fabulous, keep it going". Nathan has many years experience of large scale events and has a way of making all participants feel valued and happy and knows just how to make it work. We have enjoyed every minute of our time there even down to the auditions where he managed to put everyone at ease and get the best out of people. Whether his praise was genuine or just to make us feel good was irrelevant, it did make us feel good. I'm tempted to think that he meant it as we all did seem to gel together and things happened. His voice breaking in our ears at the last run through yesterday afternoon as he told us how much he had enjoyed working with us and how much he'll miss us was definitely genuine as he ended up not being able to speak. We'll miss his jokes too as he kept us amused whilst waiting. Here's one: why should you never trust stairs? Cause they are always up to something!

In our cast holding marquee at Longbridge waiting our call to go out

We've made a lot of friends too. To get 400 Marshalls, 72 placard bearers and often other performers all together to rehearse means we are called to rehearsals with plenty of time to spare, you can't get 500 odd people on site, check them in, hand out bibs with numbers on, hand out in ear communication devices, hand out snacks and offering free tea and coffee quickly, so we always had plenty of time waiting and that means chatting to other people. Always friendly, always happy to be there and enjoying the experience. It's a unique environment so even the times waiting were part of the special memories we'll hold.

Arriving at Alexander Stadium for the first time - this is all a bit serious now!

As these things disappear in a blur, I thought it'd be a good idea to write down our journey, partly so we'll be able to remember it and partly in case others are enthused to get involved in similar events in the future.

Trying our moves out on the field of play for the first time

Our audition in March 2022 in Edgbaston

It all started for us in June 2021 and that was down to Jackie keeping her eye on internet announcements. She'd long been thinking about us volunteering for the games, being so local to us, so she'd found the BCG website and expressed an interest. On 1st June 2021 an announcement was made that volunteering applications were now open, so we both registered our interest on their website and got a note back to say the response has been overwhelming and they will be in touch later in the summer. Just like many other volunteering jobs we've applied for we put it to the back our minds. We got occasional emails telling us how the selection process was going with information on how the games preparation was going, but it was on 20th August 2021 that we both received an email saying our application had been successful and we were invited to book an interview, which we did the next day. That was done in the library in Birmingham by other volunteers who had been selected ahead of us and was friendly and relaxed. A big group of us watched a video on a loop getting us excited about the prospect of being involved and then we were called in one by one. I really didn't want to be in charge of groups of people so I told them I'd be happy to be involved and do whatever is necessary but my days of managing other people are over. I told them about my ballroom dancing background and the kind of things I liked doing, boxes were ticked, we got really enthusiastic and then waited. We were told we wouldn't hear anything until March or April 2022, five to six months away.

Nathan (in the red suit) and the other choreographers at the auditions making us feel relaxed

We still got the odd email telling us how preparations were going, but the one we received on 13th January was the most interesting, "Be part of history" it said "applications open today for volunteers to join the cast of the opening and closing ceremonies" and at the bottom was a big "Apply Now" button. Up to that point we'd assumed that volunteering for the opening and closing ceremonies was automatic and part of the general volunteering, but apparently not, so we applied, that being the thing we were most interested in. I can't just remember what questions were asked on the application form now, but we obviously did OK as, on 20th February we both had an email telling us we'd been selected to attend an audition with our 'world-class creative team' and to log on to the ceremonies portal to book our auditions. This is suddenly sounding quite scary. An audition! Never been to one of those before! "Click here to book your audition" Lets go for it, what could possibly go wrong? 8th March we booked, at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, 13:30 to 16:30 - no going back now! 

Leave your inhibitions at the door in the auditions, it doesn't matter who's looking

These are the people that matter and are watching

Like everything to do with these games (in our experience), it was very well organised, volunteers to guide us into parking, volunteers to check us in, volunteers to measure us for costumes: hand size, head size, arm length, everything. "have you got pierced ears?" Er, no, but why? Photos taken and then "please take a seat in one of those chairs arranged on the floor". How scary is this? Nathan was there putting us at ease as was Perry, a man in a bull costume posing with people for photos, but a number of other more serious looking people eyeing everyone and making notes. Time to lose those inhibitions and just let yourself go, so we did bits of group acting, imagine you're walking a tightrope, imagine you're pulling a heavy cart through mud, make circles with your arms, stuff like that. We were shown a routine and then another one - our brains were full, but we were being watched, was there a turn there, should I clap now? Oh, got that wrong - and they are still watching. There's lots of young wannabes there and they all look good as there are older people. As Mr. and Mrs average will we really be selected? The final assignment was to dance in your own way across the floor in front of everyone, you have about 30 seconds to think about it. Some people did cartwheels, gymnastics, it all looked good. What shall I do? Jackie was in front of me and said she'd hang back a bit and after I do a bit on my own lets get together and do a bit of ballroom. OK. That seemed to go well we got a cheer, but what will those silent, serious people think?

This was our first sight of the bull at the stadium on our first rehearsal there. We were allowed to take photos, but forbidden to post on social media. Anyone doing so would be 'followed up'. They didn't want anyone spoiling the surprise

Our Peaky Blinders costumes

The email next day thanked us for attending and said they'd be in touch in April. They had also said that we can't be a general volunteer and be a performer as rehearsals would overlap volunteering work so, when on 1st April I had an offer to be a general volunteer I was in a quandry. Should I take that and then not be able to be a performer, or turn it down in the hope I'd be selected as a performer? I turned down the general volunteering and hoped. Then on 19th April we both had our emails confirming we'd been selected to be a volunteer performer. We'll be performing at the Alexander Stadium in front of 30,000 spectators and a global TV audience of up to a billion. There's nothing like starting small then! We accepted and were told they'd be in touch in Mid May with everything we'd need to know for our first rehearsal. We had to apply for ID and accreditation which required the Home Office doing background checks on all performers and then we had our rehearsal schedule emailed through from Josh, the Casting Coordinator. Saturday 11th June on the site of the old Rover car factory at Longbridge. The factory has long since been demolished and its now a big outdoor expanse. They had taken it over, tarmaced the surface and erected lots of huge marquees round the edge where various smaller rehearsals, cast holding and check in would take place. An observation room erected high on scaffold overlooked the marked out plan of the Alexander Stadium allowed senior people to get a view of the overall shape of us as a group and make changes they thought would look better, so our rehearsals were all outdoors and open to the elements. Fortunately the weather was reasonable, sometimes quite cold so we were wrapped up, sometimes a bit wet, so we had waterproofs on and sometimes it was hot, so we needed sun cream, but always it was fun and we wore smiles. Nathan was always there, cracking jokes, making us laugh and always encouraging us along. 

Lining up outside on one of the rehearsals ready to go on. Now it was getting excited as spectators were watching for the first time

We made progress through our five rehearsals at the Longbridge site and they got us working as a huge team. Then we moved to the Alexander Stadium for rehearsals, firstly in amongst the workmen finishing off and then in the finished article. We had another five rehearsals there and, as soon as they started it just felt more serious, still fun and Nathan was still encouraging us along, but we could tell how much this meant to him too and we all wanted to do well for him as well as ourselves. Jackie's written about the run up to and the opening ceremony in a previous blog post so I won't go into that any more other than to say it went well but actually still felt like another rehearsal rather than the real thing. Perhaps thats because we knew rehearsals would be carrying on straight after for the closing ceremony.

With Linda (a friend of friends - and now a friend of ours) on a walk round the fabulous stadium

The opening ceremony was on Thursday 28th July, we went home straight after rather than going to the aftershow party in central Birmingham (too difficult to have to move the car and find somewhere else to park in the city centre) and then on Saturday we started again back at the Longbridge site. It was like coming home, all very familiar and, by now we had settled into a nice routine. Arrive, get our bibs with our numbers on (119 for me, 117 for Jackie - they were given out on our first day and Marcia got to the desk just before me to get 118, so she was always in between us), a communication device and a snack, then across to the cast waiting marquee to get a tea or coffee and catch up with the usual crowd (impossible to know everyone, so smallish groups were made, usually around similar numbers). I only bumped into Pete, a member of our SMC mountaineering club at the final dress rehearsal, he was a Marshall too and had been at every rehearsal, but we hadn't seen each other.

Forming our lovely shapes on opening night. We're there, but only we know which one's we are

The fabulous bull  on opening night

There was a definite feeling that the end is now looming as we only had four rehearsals at Longbridge and then we were straight into the closing ceremony. It has to be said that our roles were relatively limited for the closing ceremony, there were athletes attending, about 3500 of them and we had to get then into designated areas on the field of play and prevent them from moving outside their areas by corralling them and then dancing, waving arms, clapping and trying to interact with them. Our moves were therefore relatively easy, but still we had to learn to move to certain areas at certain times and Nathan, as usual, was keen for us all to move together and dance in synchronisation to make it look as smart as possible. Getting 3500 athletes into position in 3.5 minutes was always going to be a tall order so they had to make changes to our moves at almost every rehearsal once they saw how it looked from their observation room high on top of the scaffold. It didn't help that they'd made changes to our rehearsal schedules at the last minute, changing a Monday night rehearsal to a Saturday morning instead and a Sunday morning to a Sunday afternoon. We had to change plans to make those, but others were unable to change their plans, meaning half the cast were missing from at least two out of four rehearsals. They had their reasons for changing them and it was probably as the main stage dancers had much more complex routines to learn and they needed rehearsal times more than us. Although we were all quite relaxed about it we sensed Nathan was getting quite stressed, particularly on the day his microphone kept cutting out so we couldn't hear his instructions, testing him to the limit. He didn't swear, but he almost did!

Back at Longbridge for closing ceremony rehearsals and a whole new stage and routine

Our reharsal on Friday last at Longbridge had an exciting but sad feel about it. No more will be coming to our familiar Longbridge site, only one more meeting will we have at the actual closing ceremony and then it would all be over. It was a cold night at Longbridge as we finished around 9:30pm feeling a bit under rehearsed. We were considering taking an extra layer for the closing ceremony, but in the event it wasn't needed, the wind changed and the temperature was back up into the high 20C, still being 21C at 11:00pm at night. We'll be hot then!

And sneak previews of some of the other acts

Arrival time at the Alexander Stadium was requested at 1:00pm. Getting a total cast of at least 1500 in and organised needed a lot of time, particularly with the tight security needed for a global event with royalty attending. No chances could be taken so airport style security was employed and all bags scanned. We collected Fiona (not my daughter, but a friend living rounnd the corenr in Alvechurch and another Marshall) and headed off to our reserved driveway parking in Dyas Avenue about a mile from the stadium. We'd booked the same driveway for every rehearsal at the stadium as we were worried about the threatened rail strikes so took no chances. It's a curious parking spot on what is, otherwise a nice street, being situated behing a lamppost and a street sign. We thought it couldn't be right when we first saw it, but a bit of angled reversing in and it worked. It was certainly convenient being about a 20 minute walk away so we had no complaints.  

Back at the Alexander Stadium and there's the stage we last saw at Longbridge on Friday. It was dismantled after our rehearsal there on Friday, shipped to the stadium and after the last competitions finished on Sunday night was re-erected and ready by 4:00pm on Monday - nice work!

The classic cars waiting for their call to go on

Time passed quite quickly in the very hot huge building in the grounds of the stadium that had been converted to our cast holding area, with curtains diving the various performing groups. It seemed quite familiar back in here again, this being our seventh visit here so we settled down to chatting, drinking tea, walking round and watching things progress. Security seemed even tighter now and we were prevented from leaving all but a small area surrounding our building and not allowed in any part of the stadium. Nathan had got us a short time slot allocated on the field of play at 4:00pm so we could go out and practise our positions and moves as this was the only time we could rehearse in the actual stadium. We only had about 20 minutes allocated to us as so many other acts had their piece to rehearse too so we could hear the tension in Nathan's oh so friendly voice that we needed to get all this cracked and in our heads as quickly as possible. Don't worry, he assured us, when you come out just listen to me and I'll be guiding you in every move. He then reminded us this would be the last time he'd be able to speak to us before the ceremony and wanted to tell us how much he'd enjoyed working with us and how he was going to miss us. We could feel his emotion and hear his voice cracking up. He's such an emotional guy!

With Marcia preparing to go on for our 4:00pm final run through

Final positions at 4:00pm

We've got this, so back to our holding area, we picked up our lunch packs of sandwich, crisps and a piece of fruit, had another cup of tea, chatted and walked round outside in the cooler air as much as possible. One of the staff came in, stood on a chair and announced we could take our costumes home, all of them, don't leave anything behind he said. That's nice, we both really like our costumes and I've always wanted a flat cap. Bits we can wear again, perhaps not all at once, unless we're going to a Peaky Blinders party. 6:15pm they'd told us to start putting our costumes on so gradually men and women alike all started undressing in full view of everyone else and getting their costumes on. Such is the community 'all in it together' attitude no one turned a hair to this, we all just got on with it. Changing rooms were available but it was all too much trouble, no one was looking anyway. Once dressed we headed outside again to see the athletes arriving, clapping and high fiving them as they went by. What a great atmosphere it was! At 7:15 we were asked to all go back inside to wait our call, we did, but many stayed outside and we could hear the claps and cheers as team England arrived. Soon Josh our Casting coordinator came in with a sign for VOM2 to form a line and head out. We're VOM1 so not us yet. Off they went and suddenly there's much fewer of us and we're getting excited. VOM1 please line up Josh shouted holding up his sign. That'll be us, off we go. We're outside in the late afternoon warm sunshine assembling up in our lines for the last time, excited but sad. Once we're lined up Josh looks us over and leads us down to the stadium entrance where we can see the pre-show entertainment going on and what looks to be a very full stadium.

Applauding the athletes as they arrive

With Heather (120) and Marcia (118) ready to go on

9 minutes to show start the screen says and spectators are looking over taking photos. We're smiling and waving back, taking photos of them and we're clapping all the other actors coming past us to go out, it's really exciting. As the first acts go out we move round to the front of the entrance so we can see out and watch the others head out and start the ceremony. We wait for the second half of 'Come On Eileen' our man at the front raises his hand, Nathan comes over our headsets and says "come on Marshalls, show then what you can do and, above all have the time of your lives. This is it, this is what memories are made of, good luck" and with that, we're on, waving hands and doing just what he's telling us, having the time of our lives. "odds to evens in three, two, one, go please" "athlete position in three, two, one, go please". Good job we know what all this means! We had a great night, the music and the show was amazing, the atmosphere amazing, we really did have the time of our lives, memories truly are made of this. Black Sabbath as the climax may, for many people, not be the ideal but for Jackie and myself they were amazing. I first saw them in concert in April 1971 when I was 15 years old, and here I was, 51 years later, dancing away with as much gusto as I did all those years ago. Who cares what people think, We're living this and we're drinking it in - fabulous!

Lining up at VOM1 ready to go on. It looks a packed stadium!

It's a quiet day today but we're still buzzing. Will we see any of those lovely people again? Don't know, someone took our contact details and said they'd set up a WhatsApp group and perhaps try and meet up again, Jackie has expressed an interest in the next Commonwealth games in Victoria, Australia in 2026 and, of course, in two years time the Olympics will be in Paris. Who knows if and when we'll next get a calling. Fun it has been, addictive? Maybe! At about 120 hours of rehearsals, travelling to and from and performances it is quite a commitment.

The show has started, the first act is on and we're waiting for our signal to enter

The show is on and we're in our 'athlete position'

My daughter managed to get this photo from her TV. Fame at last!

And she got this one too of Jackies back. I don't think anyone will be asking for our autographs!

So that's it, it's all over, but not in our memories!