overlap

It's taken a few days to nearly catch up on sleep and other stuff, so
I need to post and bring this up to date before something else happens
to comment on. Friday morning saw me driving to work, all the better
for leaving directly to travel to Brum to see the living legend that
is Ozzy Osbourne.

There's something unutterably compelling about him shambling about the
stage like a heavy metal Father Jack, alternating between telling the
crowd how much he loves them all, and demanding that people go crazy.
And then shuffles to the side of the stage to collect buckets of water
to hurl at the front few rows of the crowd. It's more or less what you
would expect, and somewhere between six and eight thousand people get
to go home happy enough.

Saturday's Tour de France Prologue in London meant that going home
just to get up to go to London would have been a number of wasted
miles, so I slept in my car in a layby somewhere in Warwickshire.
Bright sunshine demonstrating the greenhouse effect woke me up early
enough to make good time to get a train into the big city, and walk to
Hyde Park before the crowds were too huge.

Seven hours later, I was still at my place right on the barrier having
got through the better part of 500 shots and more than one set of
camera batteries. The best results are on flickr, and while I'm rather
pleased with some of them, it's just as satisfying to be able to say
that I saw the likes of Zabel and Boonen in the flesh, as well as the
largest Brit contingent to take part for some time.

Once the riders finished, it was back to the car and home for about
eleven. Sunday was another load of stamina training, which is how I've
been almost too wiped out to do much with the rest of the week beyond
gradually sort through the Prologue photos.

It was a lot to pack in, but well worth the effort.

Labels: Ozzy Osbourne, rock, Tour de France