I was lucky enough to win a family ticket to Sainsbury’s Super Saturday in Clapham Common on the 10th of September.I’d entered the Sainsbury’s/Channel 4 competition a couple of weeks earlier and having never won anything before in my life I was very excited when I was told I’d been chosen as a winner!
The event was being held to celebrate and raise awareness for the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
The family ticket was worth £90, so there was no way we’d have been able to afford to go if I hadn’t won.However, I did think this was good value considering it admitted two adults plus two children and under 5’s went free.
The Princess (and I) had been asking (I call it asking, he calls it nagging) Daddy for tickets to see Olly Murs for quite some time, so I was very happy Olly was going to be there.We decided to surprise The Princess and not tell her where we were going until we got there, so we just told her we were going to a park!
We arrived at Clapham Common just as the gates were opening – perfect timing.As we walked through the entrance The Princess looked amazed by all the fun activities that were going on – bungee trampolines, a bouncy castle, zorbing, face painting, even a chance to try out some Paralympic sports such as wheelchair basketball!Then of course she spotted the stage…
Her little face lit up as we told her Olly Murs would be performing on stage soon!I was a bit concerned about her being able to see anything as she is quite tiny, so we headed towards the stage and grabbed a spot right behind the barrier at the far end of the stage, in front of a large screen.At least if she couldn’t see anything on stage she’d have a perfect view of the screen.
First, The Sugababes and The Wanted each did an acoustic performance, before Nicola Roberts took to the stage.Then it was time for Olly!Unfortunately The Princess couldn’t see over the barrier, so I picked her up for his entire performance (my arms are still aching now!), but she had so much fun singing along, arms in the air, waving, clapping and cheering!The highlight was when he ran past the barriers, touching everyone’s hands along the way!
When Olly’s performance came to an end, we moved a little further back and enjoyed the other acts away from the crowd, where Daddy and The Pickle had been waiting for us.The Pickle was having a lovely time too and had apparently been swaying in his pushchair when Olly sang Heart Skips a Beat (it’s obviously so over-played in our house that The Pickle recognised it!)
We’d taken some food with us (although there was plenty of food available on the day) so we sat down and had a picnic whilst listening to The Wanted on stage, followed by an ice cream!
The soothing tones of Will Young sent The Pickle off to sleep for a while, while I queued up with The Princess for the bungee trampolines.We queued for about an hour and a half, whilst listening to Pixie Lott and Dappy, before it was her turn to go on the bungees…. Then the rain fell.
Unfortunately they had to stop the bungees until it stopped raining, then after the downpour they couldn’t get their generator working again!We stayed for a while longer as they tried to fix it, but unfortunately we had to leave before The Princess got a chance to go on them, as we knew we’d pay for it the following day if The Pickle had too much of a late night!Although The Princess was a little disappointed after queuing for so long, we’d all had a lovely day and it hadn’t cost us a penny.As we were leaving, a beautiful rainbow appeared, arching right over the stage.
The Saturdays, Chipmunk and Taio Cruz were also set to perform that evening.
I thought the day was generally very well organised.I had been worried about taking The Pickle along, but there were babies much younger than him and there was even a special tent for baby changing and feeding.With it being a family festival it wasn’t too crowded and the volume wasn’t deafening either.There were people constantly going round picking up litter, so the site was always clean and tidy too.
One of the aims of the event was to help change people’s attitudes towards Paralympic sports. I think by having popular music artists supporting this and also by giving families the opportunity to try out Paralympic sports for themselves was a great way to achieve this.The event was well thought out and there was something there for every member of the family to enjoy.
