We waited and waited for something to happen eventually the first running event started at around 10.00am. Then there were some unusual events mother and baby race, which entailed some young girls wrapping a doll in a sling onto their backs and running to the finish line, very funny. Boys and Girl’s getting dressed event, children had to put on their Zenith Uniform including shoes with the help of parents and run to the finish line. Relay race, sack race and bucket and bean bag race where three bean bags were put onto the track at various intervals by one group of children and then had to be collected and put back into the bucket first to finish won. We then noticed Bradley going down the stairs to compete in an event so I quickly followed him. He was put into one of the lanes on the track with another five boys and the event began. It was so funny he had to balance a blackboard on his head and walk to the finish line. He was balancing the board really well at the start but I think I was distracting him trying to get a photo so he ended up finishing last. He then did a race where he had to find his own shoes which had been placed on the track, put them on and run to the finish line.

Balancing a Blackboard

Finding your Shoe's

By now the children were running riot as how do you keep children sat watching other children competing in events for four hours. They were busy eating crisps, sweets, baguettes, drinking icey’s, pop and running up and down the stadium steps. The few teachers which were sat in the house groups were oblivious to it all there seemed more teachers down on the track interfering than watching the children. Paul and I were getting more and more annoyed, there was just no organisation like back home, we finally took Abigail and Bradley out of their house groups and gave them some lunch and applied some sun cream and let them sit with us. After midday Paul asked Mr James one of the teachers which event Abigail was entered in we were surprised to find out her name was not on the list so Mr James placed her into the spoon and lime event. At 1.00pm Paul had to leave to go to work, shortly after he had left I was annoyed to be told that due to the events running over the spoon and lime event had been cancelled, so Abigail never got to enter any events much to her pleasure.

We decided to leave early as both children were bored and tired of just sitting around and as for myself my head was banging from all the ruckus of the morning. We left by the front entrance as a trade fair was being held within the stadium grounds. We had a quick look around the various stalls which were either advertising or selling things such as cars, food, jewellery, material, wood carvings, lighting, banking or travel. After a quick chat to Max who was also having a look around the stalls we set off back home. On arriving home Awa was busy cleaning, the children changed and I took them out to La Parisienne for an ice-cream as I also needed to call at the bank and get some shopping.