Sunday morning, i got up at 7.00. First shock to the system, especially for a girl who has pretty much been travelling non stop for the last 2 weeks and hasn't has a proper lie-in in ages.
Crawl up to Stevenage, north north north London, sort of the equivalent of Basingstoke for those who know, even more roundabouts and less soul, if possible. Let's not even mention the closing of Finsbury Park station for flooding reasons (This month of April has broken all records of raining. horrible.), which was where i was supposed to switch over,nor the 15 min wait in the freezing corridor at the station before pick up time.
But hey!! still here to tell the tale, right?
So we get to the John Lewis warehouse, and i discover that thankfully there are about 20-25 of us sacrificing their Sunday to....FILL UP 7500 GOODIES BAGS for the Paralympic Athletes.
The 25000 Olympic bags were done on Friday afternoon and Saturday (all day).
target is 4000 a shift (5 hours) so it s no fooling around...
5 or 6 elements in each bag, amongst which lovely home-made pennants made by kids, sewing circles, retirement homes, you name it, from all across the UK...Beautiful and also quite moving, each being unique and full of little messages to wish the athletes the best of luck.
So we're off, everybody regroups in teams of 4-5 people and settles in packing, wrapping, putting on the palettes, putting into storage, counting etc...every gesture boring and repetitive but you can't let go as the whole chain of people depends on you and your rhythm. I met some great women and with some chit chat, speculation about delegations, the whole thing was super pleasant. In the afternoon, i chose to be a runner, ie making sure everybody has plenty of stock and getting bags from one place to another. and my, that was exhausting and super super intense.
We did so well and finished at 3.30, a whole 4 hours before the official end of the shift. The poor afternoon shifters only worked for about 30min before we wrapped it up!!
Great sense of accomplishment i can tell you...
Tomorrow i pick up my uniform!!!
Crawl up to Stevenage, north north north London, sort of the equivalent of Basingstoke for those who know, even more roundabouts and less soul, if possible. Let's not even mention the closing of Finsbury Park station for flooding reasons (This month of April has broken all records of raining. horrible.), which was where i was supposed to switch over,nor the 15 min wait in the freezing corridor at the station before pick up time.
But hey!! still here to tell the tale, right?
So we get to the John Lewis warehouse, and i discover that thankfully there are about 20-25 of us sacrificing their Sunday to....FILL UP 7500 GOODIES BAGS for the Paralympic Athletes.
The 25000 Olympic bags were done on Friday afternoon and Saturday (all day).target is 4000 a shift (5 hours) so it s no fooling around...
5 or 6 elements in each bag, amongst which lovely home-made pennants made by kids, sewing circles, retirement homes, you name it, from all across the UK...Beautiful and also quite moving, each being unique and full of little messages to wish the athletes the best of luck.
So we're off, everybody regroups in teams of 4-5 people and settles in packing, wrapping, putting on the palettes, putting into storage, counting etc...every gesture boring and repetitive but you can't let go as the whole chain of people depends on you and your rhythm. I met some great women and with some chit chat, speculation about delegations, the whole thing was super pleasant. In the afternoon, i chose to be a runner, ie making sure everybody has plenty of stock and getting bags from one place to another. and my, that was exhausting and super super intense.
Great sense of accomplishment i can tell you...
Tomorrow i pick up my uniform!!!
