I Knit Day 2008: Pretty Damn Fabulous

What can I say? I am sitting here at home, with my mother asleep upstairs, in the knowledge that I have had a very good day. Actually, I have had such a good day that I almost feel bad about it.

You see, I know from personal experience of being a part of a Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony once, that when you are the organiser or the performer, you are the entertainment and you do not get to experience an event in the same way as the paying public.

That day, I spent hours and most of the ceremony sitting in a very hot, airless, sports hall, in the height of summer, in my number 1 uniform (almost 100% manmade itchy, heavy plastic fibre - yes sweat did trickle down my back) waiting to be called out to march around the stadium.

Most of us had come very close to passing out (either through boredom or dyhydration) before we were called. When the moment came, we were marched into the stadium, were coralled briefly in the centre where none of the acoustics made any sense (they were projected into the spectator stands) and then? We were marched back out almost straight away, under the cover of the finale fireworks, to be put straight onto buses and returned by train (6 hour journey) to our university accommodation pens bedrooms.

All those hours of waiting and we must have been in the stadium for no more than 20 minutes, where we didn't get to see or hear anything. Days later? I got to watch some of the Opening Ceremony on TV. The event that I saw on screen was breathtaking - it didn't bear any relationship at all to the event that I had experienced as a part of the show.

Opps - I have rambled again. It is just that from experiences like the above, I do realise and appreciate that those people who organise or entertain on a day like I Knit are working and they do not get much any opportunity to enjoy the event itself.

So to Gerard, Craig, Stephanie, Erika, Jane, all of the other presenters, every single stallholder and all of the other helpers - thank you - I do realise how hard you worked to make it happen and what a long day it was.

Do you know what though? I saw a lot of people taking photographs. Like this one:

So I am sure that blogland will show over the next few days how much we all truly appreciated it. What a bloomin' great day!

I am off to bed now. I will blog properly about today, in pictures, at some point in the next 24 hours or so.