The Ready Brek Glow

Friends, Londoners, Countrymen…

It has been a week since Danny Boyle sparked a Ready Brek glow in the pits of our stomachs.

Everyone, and I truly mean every single soul, that I have come into contact with over the past week seems to be holding onto this rare, unheard of level of loveliness. I haven’t once tutted, wagged my finger or rolled my eyes. Instead, I have laughed in the face of the well taught stranger danger and chatted away to people (especially those beloved purple and red volunteers that have popped up like very human wombles, laminated labels swung round their necks). I even had fun in the Post Office yesterday, that usual pit of hell we suffer. Staff and the usually mardy customers all chatting excitedly about Bradley Wiggins. And I can’t even ride a bike.

I know it’s exhausting, it’s not our natural state of being, especially as London dwellers. But my days, we are doing enthusiasm really bloody well. It’s almost like the Olympics have unlocked something dormant in us. At some point we all started grumbling and found it hard to snap out of it. We lost faith in this little Island of Cheddar Cheese, Real Ales, Mods, Rockers, Cockles soaked in vinegar, rain and Shakespeare.

Danny Boyle gave us an utterly bat shit and bonkers reminder of all that is Great about Britain. Our beloved NHS, Branagh as Brunel, our rich and diverse music history, the suffragettes, this green and pleasant land we have all been so cynical of. Then the games started, and these super human, brilliant sportsmen and women have fuelled that glow further than I ever anticipated. I am watching ALL the sports. I don’t know the rules and regulations, sometimes I am confused, but I am always proud and hugely excited to be part of this.

As I type this we have won fourteen medals in Cycling, Canoe Slalom, Shooting, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Rowing, Swimming and Judo. These superb new role models who are surely inspiring the young generation watching them. I have high hopes that children will put down the games consuls and want to swim like they have gills, row like there’s a pot of gold at the end, swing up onto bars like they were born a creature of the trees and cycle like they’re powering the national grid.

As for all of us. Keep it up, this loveliness. At the end of the Olympics, when your cheeks are aching from being pushed up to your eyes from the smiling, no one will begrudge you for slipping back to your old ways. I will probably revert back to taking down the number plates of people who run zebra crossings (and do absolutely nothing with the information). Or maybe we won’t.

Maybe.

Maybe things will just remain better than they were before. ♥

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