The first couple of days of last week I spent watching the Olympics just at home. Well, when I wasn't at work that is. When at work I watched it online :) I also took a few detours home to snap a couple of pictures of the Olympic spirit around London and the couple of mascots they've got all around the place. It's really getting all Londoners into the Games!

On Thursday Uns and I met up at Cooperage Wine Bar by London Bridge Station for dinner, and the only reason we decided against Platform Bar was because of limited visibility of their big screen. So we had to settle on smaller TV's, but at least we were able to see them. The burgers there were rather decent, but decided not to hang around for long and instead head down to Potters Fields Park by Tower Bridge to their massive screen, to watch the semi final of the men's 200m and then the final of the men's 110m hurdles. Certainly better watching it on the bigger screen.

On Thursday Michael and Claire arrived over from Cork for the weekend. Michael arrived that morning as him and Una had tickets to the women's boxing final with Irish hopeful Katie Taylor. Claire only arrived early evening, so I met up with her at the Swiss House by Borough Market, and later joined by Noel and then Uns and Michael once the fight was over. The House of Switzerland at Glaziers Hall is one of the few National Olympic Hospitality Houses to be fully open to the public during the Games. Overlooking the Thames with views of St Paul's and the Gherkin, the conference centre and area has been transformed into a vibrant Red Zone displaying the very best of Swiss sport, culture, tourism, cuisine and creativity. Plus they serve beer and food, which is similar to German Bratwursts. After all meeting there and a beer later, we decided to make our way (again) to a rather wet and rainy Potters Field Park to see Usain Bolt in the 200m which he convincingly won and became the first man to retain both Olympic sprint titles in both the 100m and the 200m. Legend!

On Friday we all headed over to Una's place for a starter dinner and a few drinks, with the Olympics on in the background. These games have seriously taken over our day to day living, everything's revolving around them. Hey, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, usual life can carry on afterwards!

On Saturday morning I was up early and out to the Olympic Park in Stratford to meet up with Keith and his mates, who had organised tickets for all of us to the Men's Field Hockey. And just do it happened to turn out, South Africa was playing the first game against India for the 11th and 12th place position, which was won by South Africa by 3 goals against 2. The second game was between Spain and Belgium and that was easily won by Belgium by 5 goals again 2. After the hockey, the others decided to leave but I figured I'd hang around a bit and soak up the atmosphere.

After a bit of time around in the park, I left and made my way out to Holland Park, west London, to meet up with Uns, Claire and Michael who were wondering around there. Had a nice, chilled out walk around the park followed by some coffee before making my way back to Putney. But en route back I had to make a quick detour via the Wellington pub at Waterloo to watch Mo Farah win gold in the 5000m thriller. Glad I managed to see that!

After seeing his victory lap, I headed back home to Putney and met up with Keith who was waiting for me at the Railway. From there, we dropped his bags, grabbed a bite to eat then made our way back into town and strangely enough back to the Wellington to meet Brett and Matt who were waiting there for us. They weren't all that keen to join us afterwards, so after a couple of cold ones there, it was back to Putney and attempted to try get into Citizen Smith where Si, Seamus and the Callan brothers were, but they were too full and weren't allowing any more in. So instead it was down to Thai Square and later joined by the lot of them. At some point we decided it was a great idea to head up to the Fez, so the three of us headed up there while Si and the rest of them made there way home, and probably best, as we didn't get back in until early hours the next morning. Still, a good night out at the Fez. Relatively speaking I guess!

Yesterday morning was an early start out to Canon Street to watch the Men's Marathon race - a similar spot to where we were last Sunday for the Women's Race. It was a lot hotter than last week, and to be honest could've certainly done with an overcast cloudy day. But still a good morning out there watching them fly past us at speeds I couldn't do over a short distance, never mind over 42km. Very impressive indeed!

Once they had done their third lap, we took a walk past Potters Field Park to watch the end of the marathon on the big screen there and then made our way to Uns' place for Claire and Michael to pick up their bags. While they were picking up the bags, we headed over to Noel's place in Parsons Green for lunch, and watched a bit of the mountain biking which was on in the background on the TV. After lunch, Claire and Michael said their farewells and headed for the airport and Uns and myself made our way over to her place last night to watch the closing ceremony on TV, which was rather emotional as the Olympics drew to a close after a brilliant two and a bit weeks. Hey, at least we still have the Paralympics to look forward to soon!