ineke.co.uk

“I don’t like change. Although there’s a few I’d like to make.”

I overheard someone say this today and it got me thinking, doesn’t this just sum up the negativity of our society?

The Olympics were so great for our countries morale, but it seems we’re now slipping back into what we’re used to: cynicism and grumpiness.

I’m not immune to this, I can be one of the worst, but this sentence just caught up so much of what bothers me. It sort of says “I only want things to change if they change for me, for my benefit.” The selfishness of this society.

Gosh, doesn’t this blog sound negative in itself! Apologies – Happy Friday all! 🙂

I’m still completely blown away by last night. I thought it’d probably be some artsy fartsy representative work of our countryside, history and be a little bit dull to be honest.
The first 15min or so I thought I was right, but it greatly improved!
I’ve been trying to find the best bits to paste here, but there’s nothing official on youtube, so instead here’s links to some BBC videos.

• BBC Highlights



• Bond & The Queen – Do other countries think this is normal day-to-day for us?! Oh, and they both parachuted into the stadium, don’t believe me? watch it!



• Mr Bean – I never ever expected the British sense of humour to be displayed in the opening ceremony, so to have this treat – utterly brilliant!



• The torch lighting – This was outstanding. We’d all been speculating as to who might light the torch, but I don’t think anyone would have guessed this. A beautiful gesture. A part of the cauldron brought from each country, and lit by multiple representatives of the next generation. Amazing. (But still with a selection of the famous Olympians bringing it to the stadium to keep everyone from complaining!)



• The Red Arrows – no major British event is complete without this!



There were definite fluctuations through the evening, from surreal to superb and back again several times, but overall just fantastic! (assuming we ignore Paul McCartneys minor muck-up against his backing track…!)

I was worried before it started that we’d just humiliate ourselves or be boring, but it was fantastic!

So last week I was driving home from work and there’s a bit where there are cars parked along the edge of the road and so only room for one car at a time to go down the road. Oncoming there was a car that was trying to parallel park and so I stopped to wait patiently to let it do so. Behind it was a learner driver and an ice-cream van so I just decided to wait and let them all go through. The cars behind me had other plans. Two cars pulled out round me, in front, and then had to go round onto the pavement (narrowly avoiding a pedestrian) to get round the learner and the van. I mean what did they gain from that? 20 seconds off their journey? Ironically, as I then let through another 5 or so cars, they all thanked me, apart from the one person I knew, who didn’t recognise me and just drove on through!

But as I drove home it dawned on me. Who is going to get home flustered and stressed, and who is going to get home peaceful? Who is more likely to have a stupid accident one day?

I didn’t feel rushed, it looks like patience pays off 🙂