We are having a summer like no other, as the Mayor of London’s slogan tells us on billboards, leaflets and even T-shirts, but it’s not over yet. We are just taking a breather at the moment and recovering from our Olympic hangover!

London 2012, it certainly is…..

That Olympic sized hangover is pretty big and hard to shift after the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics-  it’s a bit like we have been mixing our drinks at a very long party. It was such fun to be in London for both major events with so much going on around the major set pieces thanks to the London2012 Festival and everyone else jumping on the bandwagon to lay on great side events.

Here are just 5 of the great things I’ve enjoyed since the Jubilee kicked off on June 2nd which are unique to this summer. It was hard to pick just 5 and they are in no order:

1. The Jubilee River Pageant from Tower of London
2. Olympic Opening Ceremony – I got to go to the rehearsal which was amazing
3. BT River of Music with Jools Holland, Beverley Knight and the Saxophone Massive
4. The flags of the world in Regent Street
5. Urban Classics combo of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and urban artists including Fazer from N’Dubz

River pageant

Opening Ceremony

Jools Holland’s big band

Fazer and BBC Symphony Orchestra

Welcoming the world on Regents Street

The day after the Olympic Games closing ceremony I had so many people ask me: ‘what am I going to do now the Olympics are over, isn’t it going to be really dull?’  There were no more gold medal highs, no more strange sports to watch and become instant armchair experts on and no feel-good buzz around London. We were missing our fix so what to do? Taking a deep breath we had to look ahead and see what was that appearing in the viewfinder – the Notting Hill Carnival, Europe’s biggest street party.  That’ll do the job so I’m getting myself ready – Jamaican t-shirt and breads, loud whistles, cans of Red Stripe and a gang of mates to come along and enjoy the fun.

Lifting our heads to the week beyond Carnival, the Paralympics are coming and we’ll be jumping back on the roller coaster of sport and hopefully cheering Team GB to lots of gold medals.

There is always something great happening in London and I’ll make sure I bring the highlights in this blog.

Bye for now
Sue
itsyourlondon.co.uk
@itsyourlondon