It was the Olympic cycling road time trials yesterday, so I popped along to a stretch of road about half way round the course, between Cobham and Esher. I took my chair with me this time since the whole thing lasted about four hours.

Here are some highlights of the time trial. First the ladies, here is Lizzie Armitstead, Emma Pooley, Judith Arndt (who won silver) who has just overtaken Marianne Vos, and Kristin Armstrong (who won gold):

And here are the men. Chris Froome (bronze), Tony Martin (silver), and Bradley Wiggins (gold):

There is excitement when Chris Froome arrives because he has just overtaken Sylvain Chavanel.

I had a lovely time. It was a very festive atmosphere, a group a few hundred yards up the road had brought a big gas-fired barbecue and were making quite a party of it. I had a bit of a walk to find my spot, but once there I had a nice picnic, and read some of my magazine and did a little bit of knitting. As you can probably hear on some of the videos there were some people with a cow bell on my right, and others with what sounded like the kitchen sink on my left. The kitchen sink lot started off with the cacophony approach, but actually became more musical (or perhaps I became immune) during the day.

It was a great fun day out, and I have enjoyed seeing some of the Olympics in real life.

I recorded the telly coverage of both this and the road races so that I could watch the whole thing later since although you get a lot of atmosphere actually being at a race you really have no idea who is winning. It has been fun and slightly odd seeing them riding down roads I know very well, particularly in the road race. Today I drove on part of the road race course to go to the tip 🙂

I have been doing a little bit of knitting, and am getting on with the Christmas presents! This year I am going to be organised!

Here is a hat for my new nephew (due next week):

The pattern is Doodie by Woolly Wormhead. I used 3.5mm needles and Artesano Superwash Merino. Baby hats are excellent instant gratification knitting.

This is the first time I have used this yarn and I really enjoyed it. It is a very nice soft squashy yarn which feels lovely to knit with and makes a very nice fabric. The only difficulty I had with it was that it turned my hands turquoise. I thought it would not be the mark of a good auntie to turn my nephew’s head turquoise for his first Christmas so I have given the hat a nice wash before it is wrapped up. Turquoise can often be a difficult dye colour.