Finalists

I went to my last Olympic event today - the women's semi-finals of the table tennis. Here is the Japanese team just after they qualified for the finals. The lady on the left is Kasumi Ishikawa, who's only 19. The ladies were all a little overwhelmed at beating Singapore (they hammered them and it was over very quickly) and becoming guaranteed winners of a medal. The games were amazing. We enjoyed an upgrade to our seats since, for some unknown reason, our seats up in the gods had a problem. Whilst discussing our new seats, Fred asked the gentleman if there was any chance of better seats. We jokingly offered to bribe him with wine gums (all we had to offer). He gave us front row seats (albeit with a TV camera in our way for some of the time) and he was overjoyed with his wine gum snack. Our new seats were amongst enthusiastic Japanese fans who had anime-style characters of the players on flags and T-shirts. It was fun sitting with them - a great atmosphere. All in all, I've had a really positive experience of the Games. The volunteers, especially, are welcoming, friendly, and have a wicked sense of humour.

Before my Olympic adventure, I was at the West Norwood Feast. The weather was a little rubbish, with torrential downpours at short notice between periods of scorching sunshine. The stallholders were either emptying water out of their crockery or pulling clothes rails into the shelter of the stalls. It was a constant battle to clear the rain build-up on the tarpaulin roofs of the stalls, which caused a lot of havoc and laughter, and copious splashes. Michael the record-stall man played a variety of rain-themed tunes or "thank goodness the rain has gone"-type tunes, depending on the state of play.

During one downpour, one of my neighbours sheltered under my stall's awning. We'd only ever said "Hello" to each other before, which all started because I looked in his garden every time I passed his house to glance at the plastic duck feet (with no duck attached) - they made me smile. The man was known to me as "Duck-foot Man". I now know he's called Simon and the duck feet are actually goose feet, and they are no longer in the garden. We came to the conclusion that they'd been stolen by playful foxes. He thinks the goose that used to be attached to them was stolen by drunk people. He didn't seem perplexed when I admitted what I used to call him. Hooray for Feast for encouraging neighbours to chat. Everyone was in good form and I really enjoyed it. The bunting went down a treat.