The Commonwealth Games - and other things

In our costumes, all ready

The Commonwealth Games does seem to have slightly taken over our lives. Rehearsals on Sunday and Wednesday from Milton Keynes, and then back to mothers on Friday. Rehearsal on Saturday and then dress rehearsal on Sunday with an audience of volunteers and friends and family. It’s fabulous to be at the stadium and all very exciting.

I wrote this and then realised there was actually very little I could say as it was all meant to be terribly secret and hush hush. I’ll wait till after the opening then, well that was Thursday and now it’s Sunday and we still haven’t stopped. Friday we had to sleep, and then watch the tv coverage, and yesterday.... rehearsals started for the closing ceremony, and today, and tomorrow!

Being at the stadium was so different from being at Longbridge, it all began to feel very real. We finally got to see a little bit of the show, but actually only the section just before us, which is all we ever saw. The props looked amazing, huge floats, and as for ‘Ozzie’ the bull wow!

The completely revamped Alexander Stadium in Perry Bar, Birmingham. In the foreground are the props for the opening ceremony including a curved canal complete with fake lock and a four stage rising circular stage with various images of Birmingham around it. Its a fantastic facility for Birmingham

The 10m high bull at one of the rehearsals

We arrived for our first dress rehearsal on Sunday at 15.45. This was the first time we’d seen our costumes since fitting, and the first time we’d had chance to put our boots on although we had been told we’d be able to wear them in. We all looked fabulous though, and as for some of the other groups wow! Despite it only being our first dress rehearsal, we had an audience, free tickets given to games volunteers, with volunteers also standing in for athletes. The first hour of the show went by very quickly and we were queuing up in our VOM (we have found out where VOM comes from and we are sure you'd like to know: It is short for Vomitory, which means: a passage that allows people to enter or leave an auditorium or stadium) entry positions raring to go. Sometime between that moment and our entry, the heavens opened, and stayed open for about the next hour. Somehow this didn’t dampen our spirits but boy, where we wet? They did eventually distribute ponchos, but by then, it was too late, soaked. The atmosphere was fab and we had an amazing time. Not so costume, who collected all the hats and shirts as we took them off, shirts all washed (though they were after every wearing apparently) hats and everything else dried, and rehung ready for our next rehearsal on Tuesday by the amazing team who worked like trojans.

This is an amazing photo of the bull on opening ceremony night. It's not my photo, someone posted it on Facebook and, regretfully I can't remember who it was. If they happen to see it, let me know, I'm happy to edit this and add your name as a credit

The choir posing for a photo before the start

Tuesday was the second and final dress rehearsal, the one we had been given free tickets for so mum and her friend Joan, and Fiona and James with Becky and Jenny (Corina from Milton Keynes had very kindly donated her tickets) were coming. These are meant to be green games, so driving is not being encouraged “use public transport “ this is easier said than done, for us, our last train from New Street is 23.15, which with the shuttle bus from the stadium was never going to work. We’d therefore booked a space on someone’s drive, about a mile away, for less than £7, well worth it for the lack of stress. 

Our costumes on their rack waiting for all of us. Every dress rehearsal they were there washed and ironed ready for us. Thank you whoever did all this work

Our dressing/waiting/storage area while we wait to go on

Though the first time we’d arrived, from MK with Corina, we had all been slightly dumbfounded by the lampposts positioning! Fi and James has also booked a drive, while Joan was going to get her husband to drop them off. I was slightly dreading getting mum the mile up hill at the end of the evening after she’d had to ascend and descend the extremes of the seating stand, only to then find there wasn’t even a drop off zone. Joan managed to get one of the last spots at the park and ride at the NEC, which actually worked very well. No rain for this performance though it was remarkably cold by the end. All six of our guests thoroughly enjoyed it, though without the BBC commentary, quite what was going on at all times wasn’t clear. Amazingly Fi and James had identified us, and we’d spotted them, and had seen M&J when they arrived, though without binocular they hadn’t managed to see us.

We were able to stand outside and watch various props and actors get ready for their slot in the opening ceremony. The start featured a number of red, white and blue Midlands manufactured cars that drove in to form a Union Flag shape in the Stadium. Here they are queueing as they drove into the stadium

Before we got locked into our security area prior to the start we were able to walk freely around inside and see some of the pre-show entertainment for the spectators

Team England arrive to our applause

Fridays call time was even earlier. 13.45. Not for rehearsals or notes, just for sitting around and chatting. The buzz was getting higher, make up and costumes on. We could cheer the athletes as they arrived and were led to their ‘storage area’ by the practice track. We had to keep going outside as it was ridiculously warm inside. The Red Arrows did their fly past, slightly later than the 20.12 we had been expecting them, but bang on time for the end of the National anthem, and we were off.

In to our VOM positions, unable to see for the amount of smoke they had to welcome Ozzie and then we were announced and in we all marched. Not that most of our moves made it onto the coverage, so all our initial shapes and moves have only been seen in the stadium. It made a big

A lovely note from Josh on opening night

difference having real athletes, rather than bits of string of a length to represent them. Good though that was, we could have done without the athlete passing out just in front of us, our brief was to locate one of the dance captains or stage managers and wave, but this was easier said than done, it felt like ages before anyone was spotted, medics were called for and she was wheelchaired out. We have no idea who she was or how she is but really wish her well. As far as we are concerned the rest of the ceremony passed without incident though it did slightly take the edge off! In my mind however “we could just do this next time “ which bit of me didn’t believe this was the real thing? Perhaps it’s because we are straight into closing rehearsals I don’t know, or what we will do with ourselves when that is over?

It’s an amazing thing to be part of and we’ve met some lovely people, most bizarrely Linda who it turns out was at a party we should have been at if we hadn’t been in MK. Fiona who lives just around the corner in Latimer Road. It’s a very small world!

Killing time while we wait for our time to go on. We could see nothing of what was happening in our locked down area. We thought it would have been nice to have least had a TV showing the ceremony in progress, but no

Since returning from MK we have managed to catch up with Monday’s club, and have had my old works balti, so two visits to Diwans for lovely curry. Everyone else, look out, you could be next.....

Waiiting at one of the dress rehearsals to go on. Here we are queueing while we watch the bull go on. He has to do all his routine with the actors and, once they come off, on we go. This was about 15 minutes before we went on, the excitement was growing!

There he goes, lights flashing, smoke blowing and the audiences first view, a real surprise. It was one of the best kept secrets, which had the maximum impact. Although this was a dress rehearsal and we'd seen him a number of times, we were not allowed to publish any photos beforehand. They wanted secrecy for maximum impact on the night

At an earlier rehearsal (not dress rehearsal as you can see), here we are at our VOM2 entrance to the stadium as we're about to enter. Didn't take photos on the night as I didn't take my phone as we'd been asked not to (it has to be said that not everyone obeyed this as many were taking photos during the ceremony - but we didn't!)

We didn't get much TV time on the night as, mostly the cameras were focussing on the athletes entering and on interviewing various athletes. Fortunately my daughter, Fiona took these photos from her TV at home and, as she'd been to the dress rehearsal, knew exactly where we were. The arrows point us out. Not exactly fame, but it doesn't matter, we were there, we had the atmosphere and excitement and we have the memories

blurred images of us dancing away

The opening ceremony is over and we're straight back into rehearsals at Longbridge for the closing ceremony. I have to be careful what photos I put on as, once again, we've been told not to publish any photos of the set that's being used. As no rehearsals can take place at Alexander Stadium as it's being used for thee games, all the set is here. We've seen it, but can't show it to you, you can only see a tiny bit here which doesn't give anything away

We have done other things. This was a night at Diwans with Jackies ex works colleagues from the BBC. They all still occasionally get together (and invite me even though I've never worked for the BBC) although most of them have now either retired or moved to other jobs. There's only a couple here who still work there. I'm not in it as, of course, I'm taking the photo. It was our second visit to Diwans this week, last time with our Monday Club, but I forgot to take any photos then!

And I went for a 5km ParkRun. This is at Edgbaston Reservoir where the route went twice round the outside, a really nice setting. I had to hitch a lift there as Jackie needed the car to got to her hairdressers, so I put a note on the village Facebook goup asking if anyone could give me a lift. A very nice couple came and collected me, along with another guy Rich, who went on to come first with a time of 16min 53sec. A bit better than my 28min 30sec!