Amazing day, awful day

Today had some amazing bits and some awful bits.

Amazing: at the Paralympics, watching the incredible Pete Norfolk, GB flagbearer, and his doubles partner play fantastic tennis and get to final, watching 7-a-side football, goalball and basketball, watching swimming on big screen, wearing a Union flag as a cape all day, other half wearing 8 mini flags and Union Jack tie, soaking up the atmosphere, the beatbox, not getting sunburned despite super sunny weather, the wonderful Games Makers, and the impressive diversity of Games Makers, the accessibility of the park and the enormous number of (visibly) disabled people spectating at the Paralympics.

Awful: supporting something sponsored by ATOS, selling a ticket to a friend but forgetting to give friend said ticket until we were halfway through Olympic park and friend was stuck back at mobility, unable to get through security without his ticket*, missing GB's football match, Tesco totally useless broadband & Homepho-one (call them and listen to the introduction lady. "Phone" apparently has two syllables!) and BT engineer not turning up to install phoneline and internet, so very helpful friend sat in our house for 5 hours for nothing, leaving Olympic park at the same time as athletics ended and stadium emptied, huge queue for train, not boarding train in first-arrived order, javelin train we got on being delayed, being made to queue through the entire length of St Pancras station after getting off train, all causing me and other half to each miss our respective trains so arriving at home around 2.30am, both working tomorrow morning, realising I had no keys as given to friend waiting for phone engineer and having to wake flatmate to let me in, using all my phone battery on useless London 2012 spectator travel website which said today is not valid as not during paralympics, and Waterloo and Riverbank Arena not valid locations, then gave useless info anyway (journey duration and number of changes, but not where to change I'd how to get there), therefore phone dying in early afternoon, being conned for pricy phone charger in dodgy offlicence, sore neck back from the number of jumpers in my bag in case of bad weather - it was 26C...

The awful list is far longer, and we'll both feel rubbish tomorrow, but I think it was worth it.

Would I do it all over again? I'd have left the park slightly earlier to avoid stadium crowds and missing train, but ultimately, yes. Emphatically and resoundingly, yes.

*this really happened. I gave ticket to friend, he gave me money, he needed help due to broken wrist so I held his ticket while he sorted his bag, I did not give ticket back. I went into park with ticket, and only discovered half an hour later when I saw the many missed calls. I went all the way back through park, out exit, gave ticket to friend, I got back in with spare ticket we hadn't managed to sell (lucky!).

I can't be trusted with a ticket, yet I am daily trusted with people's lives... this is a little concerning.

I blame it on having just done the weekend on call. Yesterday's shift was 13 1/2 hours, with no lunch, just banana and cake. In future, I should spend my post-on call weekend Mondays sleeping, nothing else. The Paralympics was the exception. In future, sleep, no responsibility.

Regardless, best day ever. Or for a long time. Now planning our trip to Glasgow 2012 Commonwealth Games. Do the Commonwealth Games have Para-Commonwealth Games?!?!?