My Bucket List: For many years, my sporting interests—rowing and rugby—have been included somewhere towards the top of my Bucket List. Now in my eighties, I have become extremely concerned that opportunities for ticking the list were becoming rather less as the days passed. Tense negotiations with Boss No. 1 (wife Judy) and Big Boss (daughter Robyn), with several trade-offs, including carrying tracking devices in my pocket, wallet, and luggage, obtained a positive response. Mind you, there were some worrying thoughts about their reasons for the tracking demands. I can say though that I was too busy with my events calendar to have participated in any of the activities that I think created their concerns (and too old and tired as well!!).
Planning: This was a doozy. All official hospitality was provided exclusively by the Official Hospitality Provider of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, On Location. I got things underway late March and in 3 weeks all was settled. There was some negotiation, and I quickly settled accommodation and a venues programme with the Agent, Jack Coleman operating from somewhere in Asia Pacific. The outcomes were all digitalised, enabling me to rely on my smartphone for monitoring transport, booking programmes, and ad hoc hospitality opportunities, all without the need for a grandkid.
The Hotel Eiffel Blomet, less than half an hour away from the Eiffel Tower, provided me with a wonderful base. The Olympics management had positioned volunteers in each of the accommodation facilities to help with the many enquiries about transport, good dining facilities, etc.
Abbey gave me directions to the starting point, Vaugirard, a short 5-minute walk away. However, I couldn’t find the Station. I asked a kind young woman for help, and she said, “Just up there by the yellow sign.” I quickly spotted the sign but still didn’t see the Gare. After several minutes of confusion, I finally found an escalator under what I thought was a McDonald’s sign.
This, however, was only the first of quite a few escapades. On my first day in town, I find that I have left my laptop charger at home—not the first time, mind you! I chose Google Maps to rescue me. The know-all system showed me the way, which would take 38 minutes. I don’t know what happened, but at 43 minutes I was told I had 40 minutes to go. I put this down to being in the Northern Hemisphere and was rescued by a guy from Argentina who lived in Singapore and got me an Uber.
I was delighted to be able to catch up with our friend Raewyn’s son, John Sutherland, who lives in the north of Spain at this time of the year. He must have had a monkey on his back. For a start, his arrival was late, with Basque people alleged to have vandalised the train track. On this day we were booked to follow the rowing in the morning and Men’s Sevens in the afternoon. Our taxi to get us to the Sevens burst a tyre on having hit a pothole (yes, they do have them in France). John came to the rescue with his French. We were out in the wop wops, no Internet, but were lucky to be able to wave down an empty taxi.
The friendly and obliging, eager to please attitude was to me the highlight of the event—nothing too small or too large was the name of the game for the Parisens.