National Paralympic Day - September 2013

One year ago today, I was up in London with my youngest child, Owen, waiting for the start of the Greatest Team Parade, despite having arrived four hours early. But it guaranteed us an amazing spot at the start of the route to see the athletes go by. Nearly one year later, I decided to take Matthew to the National Paralympic Day at Olympic Park to meet the paralympians who had amazed and inspired us!

On arrival, having had to walk for about to 15 minutes or so, we immediately saw a group of paralympians posing for press photographers. We quickly headed over to get a shot of them and got the chance to meet the lovely Olivia Breen. Mattie went all shy and refused to have a photo with her.

As we did not have tickets for the Copper Box, due to finding out about the event far too late to be able to get them, we headed over to the stall area to see what was about. We ended up spending most of our time there going back and forth between the Paralympics GB Tent, where there were signings with different athletes every hour. Mattie was quite shy meeting them to begin with but by the end, he ended up being very confident and a little gobby!

One of our favourite things we found was the Luminarium. It was this huge blow up tent, which each section beautifully lit in different ways. To me and Mattie, it was this huge and ridiculously brilliant sensory tent, which Mattie fell in love with immediately. He had so much fun in there and was so happy that it became incredibly hard to get him out, but eventually after bribing with him with me offering to buy him an ice cream, he agreed to come out! This tent is amazing and has made me want to have the chance to create a sensory room for Mattie, if he ever gets his own bedroom.

Between one of the signings, we headed over the bridge to sit and eat our lunch, when we spotted a huge crowd heading past us. It turned out to be Boris Johnson, a number of paralympians and a group of press photographers. We headed over to see what was going on and when the chance presented itself, we got the chance to meet Hannah Cockcroft, Sophie Christiansen and Will Bayley. Hannah was absolutely lovely and was so patient while waiting for Mattie to take my photo with her, especially as he accidentally turned the camera off! I also told her that my husband fancied her, which she laughed at (the husband is not happy I told her though).

I am not going to list the names of those we met, because I could not for the life of remember who each and every one of them were, but they were all so nice, offering us chances to hold or even wear their medals from London 2012 and one had even brought their medal they won in Lyon this year. The final one we met was the person I think everyone wanted to meet and the one of the main reasons we went, David Weir. It was a big deal for us, not because we had cheered him on but because he is the local boy. David lives not far from us and I grew up in the same town as him. When we met him and told him that, the journalist sat next to him immediately asked to interview me to which I agreed. I told him how proud I was that a local boy had done so well! David ended being the one person I did not need coax Mattie to have a photo with!

Cardiff Film and Comic Con - August 2013

Despite living in London and therefore having access to numerous conventions there, I knew I could not pass up the chance to attend a new convention taking place in Cardiff. Being that Cardiff is the home where the fantastic Doctor Who and Torchwood series are filmed, I absolutely had to attend. Despite the long wait from booking to attending and the lack of guests announced till literally just before the event, I made the right decision in attending as I had an amazing time!

The first guest we met, because surprisingly he had no queue at the time, was David Hasslehoff. The kids picked out the shot of him in Spongebob to get signed as they all love him in that, so I decided to have it made out to the kids. It was a good decision to make as we ended coming away with more than what we were entitled to. For £30, we should have had only one autograph, but because David recognises that as he is the only live character in the Spongebob movie, children are more likely to recognise him than the voice actors. As a result, he had made up postcard  of the shot we had chosen, specifically to give to children. He got two of them and signed them and gave them to the kids. He also gave the kids one of those face masks that are so popular, this one being of him, which I cheekily put on to embarrass the kids! David also generously allowed Rachael to have a photo of him! Definitely £30 well worth spending!

Next guest we met was Kai Owen, who played Rhys in Torchwood. I had been lucky to meet Eve Myles in July and purposefully picked out a shot of them together to get signed as I already knew I would meeting Kai at that point. Kai was an absolute delight to meet and he joked that I had my own personal photographer when Rachael took our photo for us! He talked about just how lovely Eve was and we told him how she had been so nice by allowing to take a sneaky picture of her with my son when we met her. It was obvious from the way he talked about her that they had formed a close friendship when working on Torchwood together! Admittedly I have to say his Welsh accent was gorgeous!

As we moved away from meeting Kai, we spotted K9, so we popped over to get some shots. Both me and Rachael got a shot with him, but poor Mattie just did not seem interested this time round! K9 kept moving about while we were by him which I loved! I am pretty certain that Mat Irvine, who was sat nearby and is the technical consultant on Doctor Who, was the one playing with the controls! 

On spotting Chris Rankin with no queue, we quickly shot over to meet him! He had originally scheduled to appear at Colletormania in Glasgow the weekend before but was unable to make it, so was rescheduled to Cardiff and being a huge Harry Potter fan, I was absolutely delighted he was there as was Rachael. When we arrived at the table, the excitement obviously got to me, as I said to Rachael, "It's Percy Weasley!", which Chris laughed at. Chris was absolutely lovely, nothing like his character in Harry Potter and quite happily came out from behind the table to have photos with both me and Rachael!

The next we met was the amazing John Leeson, better known to TV viewers as the voice of K9! He was absolutely brilliant to meet and so nice! He kept doing K9's voice, which was had us laughing and was very kind in allowing us photo and inviting behind the table to do so! Even better was the autograph from him and K9, which I love! After John, we had a quick break and then went onto to meet Kenny Baker, who is known R2D2, for Jon and got the DVD boxset signed for him!

Our last guest we met was the brilliant Brian Blessed. We got in the queue just as they were asking people not to have posed photos with him. That was fine by me as I had a photo shoot booked with him! He was very lovely to meet and very chatty as well! Rachael was impressed that he had been in Doctor Who (though in the much earlier series). When it was time for his photo shoot, there was a ridiculously long queue and thankfully as we had an extra help pass so we were able to jump it, but sadly Brian had done a disappearing act and ended being 15 minutes late. But when he finally turned up, despite the crew's need to get everyone through quickly and promptly, he kept on chatting away to crowd that was queuing and making everyone laugh. Definitely one of the most interesting photo shoots I have ever been to!

This convention was the first convention when I finally plucked up the courage to ask those in cosplay for photos! It didn't feel as though there were as many as at previous conventions, but they had their own section upstairs, so perhaps that is where most of them were. I have to give special mention to all the children dressed up as they all look so cute! One little girl we saw before we went into the convention was dressed in a pink Batgirl outfit and looked so adorable! Also loved the number of Disney costumes as well, specifically a brilliant Merida from Brave and a fabulously done Ursula from the Little Mermaid! But my favourite cosplay was definitely all the Doctor Who ones! Two guys I found, dressed as the 10th and the 11th Doctors, not only their costumes perfect with the correct sonic screwdrivers, but they really did look like their doctors, right down the hair! Next year, Rachael says she wants to cosplay, so I will pulling out her Disney Princess dresses for her to wear!

It was definitely a fantastic first convention in Cardiff. It was definitely busier than anyone expected as there was still a long queue to get in just before 3pm, just as we were leaving! But it has not put me off coming back in March for the next one!