Olympic Rings
It was quite a cloudy and windy start to the day with the prospect of rain, so wearing my waterproof I set off, though a small detour was in order first. St Anne’s Church opened that day (Thursday), and I wanted to see inside before I went off to the station.
Limehouse Basin with Canary Wharf in the background
Our Lady Immaculate & St Frederick.
Before reaching my destination church, I found this one and then promptly couldn’t find St Anne’s, even though I’d walked there the day before!
I guess this is Fred!
As it happened I wasn’t far from the church, and further along the road I came in by a different entrance to the one I’d used before. The daffodils were looking lovely in the gardens.
After visiting the church, I walked back to Limehouse DLR and caught the train to Poplar where I changed to another DLR line to take me Stratford for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (see map on link). A lot has changed since I was last here in 2012. Back then, we were a heave of excited Olympic enthusiasts. I came here with one of my sons and his friends, who was staying with us, to watch hockey. We came twice, both times for hockey, as it was all I could get tickets for. I remember going online when as soon as the website opened (getting up early for this unique moment in history) and tearing my hair out as event after event was sold out, and then the website crashed! Finally, we got our hockey tickets and tickets for a football match at Wembley. Phew! The excitement of being here then was up there with the best things in life. We were here on Super Saturday, which was wonderful. We could see on the big screen what was going on with Mo Farah, even though we weren’t in the main stadium. It was my biggest disappointment that I couldn’t get tickets inside the stadium for athletics, as I’ve loved watching them on TV since I was a teenager. But at least we were here to soak up the atmosphere. Back home I watched everything, even things I wouldn’t normally watch! I was in London the day the Olympic torch came through along the South Bank, and I was in Kingston to watch both the Olympic torch relay and the Olympic cycling road race! I think you could say, I was well into it!
So to be here again brought back memories of that first time walking across the bridge from Westfield’s Shopping Centre and getting my first sight of the Olympic Stadium, now West Ham United Football Stadium. It was much quieter, this day and work was still going on the East Bank, but the gardens were beautiful and there were plenty of places to stop for a hot drink or snack.
It was a lovely day out at the Olympic Park, reliving old memories and seeing new things. I had a cup of tea in a cafe run not-for-profit. Everything is ploughed into helping homeless people and training for jobs. Very community based.
I arrived back at my accommodation just in time that afternoon, as the rain began and carried on all night! But I was in the dry, except when I had to skip across the gardens to the chapel for the concert in the evening. (see previous post)
The final part of this trip will be posted on Easter Monday. Have a lovely Easter everyone. See you next week. Thank you for reading.
My London+ 