Tag: Tom Daley

16 MONTHS

By mumofthreedevils on May 16, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Ok, 16 months.
16 months to lose some weight and get into shape.
That’s about 12 months more than I gave myself before I went out to Italy in 2017 so I should be able to achieve it!
The only issue this time is my knee which has slowly got worse and worse over the last year.
With no Dr’s doing face to face consultations and no elective surgeries being performed which will cause a HUGE backlog, there was just no point in seeing anyone about a problem that was not life threatening.
So, I just keep ticking along on pain killers. It’s not horrendous. I am still walking. It’s just becoming more and more noticeable and annoying and I don’t exactly walk anymore, l limp or hobble.

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have seen the start of my build up of interest in the Olympics!
I had annual leave last year to be able to sit and watch it all to my hearts content, but then COVID got the event cancelled.
I have the same annual leave booked for this year, and so far it’s full steam ahead.

Unfortunately, over the last year, one of my favourite Gymnasts has had to retire due to an ongoing injury that he just can’t shake. I blogged about it in January this year and if you want, you can read it HERE.
He injured his neck a couple of years ago and had to have some major surgery and since then he just hasn’t been able to reach full fitness and has never quite recovered.
So, he’s gone onto the next step in his career and is opening a couple of Gyms where his exuberant and inspirational attitude towards gymnastics will hopefully produce a few world class gymnasts in the future.
It won’t stop me from following the GB boys in Tokyo though!
The final announcement of who has qualified for the team is expected over the next few weeks but it is looking pretty good for Max Whitlock. He should be defending his Olympic Gold title but it will probably be his last Olympics. It would be nice to see him go out with a bang!

Rounding Off: Max Whitlock dazzles in first competition in 16 months

The other event I like to watch is the Diving. Specifically the 10m individual and 10m synchro.
Competition events in preparation for the Olympics have been taking place over the last few weeks and my boys, Tom Daley and Matty Lee walked away with the gold medal for the 10m synchro and Tom walked away with the gold for 10m individual at the FINA Diving World Cup in Tokyo between the 1st and the 6th May.

They both continue to do well at the European Championships in Budapest with the pair again walking away with the gold for 10m synchro yesterday. Tom is going for another gold in the 10m individual later today.

Gold medallists Great Britain's Matthew Lee (L) and Great Britain's Thomas Daley pose on the podium after the Men's Synchronised 10m Platform Diving event

They are both shaping up nicely for the Olympics later this year!

Anyway, back to today. I’m on day three of three days off and I was ‘hoping’ to get the grass cut in the front and back gardens but it’s been raining a lot the past few days and is just too wet to do anything with.
It’s really frustrating because my back garden is looking really good. The grass is just getting too long and messing it up.
The front garden is another story. I haven’t done any work in it yet this year so it’s beginning to look a bit like a jungle.
I want to do something with it before it gets too out of control!!
Oh well, it’s going to have a to wait a few days.
So today, I will be watching a couple of movies instead, so there is an upside.

TOTALLY WORTH IT

By mumofthreedevils on April 13, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

I did it!
I set my alarm for 02:40 to watch Tom diving in the 10m Synchro, live at the Commonwealth Games and it was worth it!!

Gold and Silver for England!!

Considering he had Pneumonia earlier in the year and suffered a concussion during the World Series Competition in March AND he injured his hip during training on the Gold Coast, I think the boy did good!!

Tom and his diving partner, Daniel Goodfellow, dived pretty consistently and gained a good points lead over the first 5 rounds, which is just as well because poor Daniel had a bit of a nightmare on the final dive when he lost his orientation, straightened up too late and face planted the water. He was pretty winded when he got out of the water and looked like he could vomit!
Thankfully the points they’d already garnered were enough to keep the top spot.

A special mention has to be made about the Silver winners, Daniel Dixon and Noah Williams.
Both of them are only 17 years old but they kept their cool and worked their way up the points and even stood a good chance of pipping Tom and Daniel in the final dive of the competition.
It’s Daniel’s 18th birthday next week!! I think it’s going to be a happy one.

It’s such a pity that the hip injury has meant that Tom can’t compete in the individual 10m, but it’s good that’s he’s prioritising his own health over another medal!!
I hope that with all that’s going on in his life, and the addition soon to arrive for him and Lance, that he stays healthy, manages to continue his training with no issues and then smashes out some medals at the next Olympics (and all competitions in between).

Urgh, I’m going to be a zombie by lunchtime!!

GUTTED

By mumofthreedevils on April 11, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

After the excitement of the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics, I was steeling myself for a weekend of Diving with Tom Daley.

Unfortunately, he’s had to withdraw from his individual 10m platform event due to injury.
I am absolutely gutted.

However….

He will still be competing in the synchronized 10m platform event with Daniel Goodfellow.

YAY!!!

The only problem with this is that it means the only time I will get to see Tom diving is at 3am on Friday morning here in the UK.
I’m so glad I’m not working. I’m just going to have to set my alarm.

Anyway, poor Tom.
All the hard work he’s been putting into defending his Commonwealth title for the third time!! I can only imagine how he’s feeling.

Team England have quoted….

“The technical dives in the individual event put enormous physical strain on Tom’s body. Due to prior illness and with his hips being the determining factor, some of the dives Tom was due to demonstrate in the individual event would be too dangerous and impactful on his body.”

I just hope he does well in the synchro and doesn’t hurt himself too much.
Permanent Hip problems could mean the end of his diving career and that would be a disaster.
I really want to see him at the next Olympics. So 2 more years of hard work ahead of him. Dealing with a major injury could make it even harder.

At least Lance is there to support him!!

BIT OF A SLIP UP!

By mumofthreedevils on April 3, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

The Commonwealth Games has it’s opening ceremony tomorrow on the Gold Coast of Australia. (BBC one, red button and online, from 10am)

Being in australia means that I’m going to have to be up at stupid o-clock to see any of the events I want to see, so I’ve got my timetable ready!!
All the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics and Men’s Diving carefully planned out in the hopes of at least seeing some of them!

I’ve been keeping up with my two favourites, Tom Daley and Nile Wilson, via their Vlogs on Youtube and it’s been fun seeing them build up to the event and show us around the athletes village and all their shinanigans.

However, Nile’s shinanigans may have just got him into some hot water!!

Tom and Nile have done some colaborative vlogs together in the past and have become quite good friends so when Nile decided to ‘prank’ Tom and release the Vlog earlier today, I got my Youtube notification and took ten minutes out to have a laugh.

In the Vlog, Nile manages to steal Tom’s training trunks out of his bag before Tom goes to the pool and then films himself wearing them on the beach.
Also in the Vlog, Nile gets a facetime message from Tom, what he neglected to edit out was Tom’s mobile phone number!!

There it was, in all it’s glory and it was soon picked up on in the comments under the vlog.

The Vlog only got released a couple of hours ago and it already has over 35000 views.
35000 people (yep, including me, not that I would ever use it) have paused that video and made a note of that number.

One person in the comments has already tried it and got Tom’s coach who said that Tom was sleeping.
It’s currently around 5am in Australia, so Tom is going to wake up with a bit of a surprise and a nightmare to sort out.
Poor Nile is going to be distraught when he realises his slip up!

POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE!

By mumofthreedevils on March 12, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

After a relatively depressing first day at University, as the scale of the next year really hits home, I’m sat here already onto my second glass of wine!!

To try and gloss over the day, I’ve been catching up with some Youtube favourites.

Not a lot of people will know that an interest of mine is Swimming, diving and gymnastics.
Believe it or not, I used to do gymnastics!! I really enjoyed vaulting.

When it comes to competitions and the Olympics, I have always favoured swimming, diving and gymnastics.
Forget track and field events and winter olympics. As exiting as they are, I just love swimming, diving and gymnastics.

Two of my favourite Vloggers are Tom Daley and Nile Wilson.
Such enthusiastic and incredibly talented young men with a personality that just bubbles over into their Vlogs.

Both had new Vlogs to catch up on today.
Tom has been competing in China. His first official competition of the year and his first Vlog tackled jet lag!!

However, it was a Vlog from Nile Wilson that struck home.

In this Vlog he talks about the importance at looking where you came from and where you are now to truly understand how far you’ve come!!

As I sat here and thought about the last ten years, I have stunned myself into submission.

Ten years ago, after being a stay home mum for over 12 years, I was in the right place at the right time to find a job that I had no idea I would end up loving.
Paediatric Health Care Assistant.
Yes it’s tough and there are days where I wonder what I’m actually achieving, but when all is said and done, I do love my job and the people I work with and I wonder where I would be now If I’d found it 25 years ago!!

When I look at how the job has changed for me personally in the last 10 years, I began to understand exactly how much I’ve learnt.

I got the job with no official qualifications.
My job was very basic.
Help to keep people happy. Clean and make beds. Do basic observations and make sure the stock levels are OK.

In ten years, the amount I’ve learnt is unfathomable.
I can now look after a surgical patient from admission to discharge. The only thing I can’t do, because I’m not ‘qualified’ is pick them up from theatre and give them pain relief.
If anything out of the ordinary is required for ordering, I’m the ‘go to’ person and I know what all the stock is for!
If Doctors need help, I’m the ‘go to’ person If I’m around.
I now officially have a level 3 qualification to back up my on the job learning that I did a couple of years ago and I have been gently pushed by several work collegues to take things a little further, which is how I ended up doing the new ‘Trainee Nursing Associate’ foundation degree.

It’s a two year course which will see me able to do ‘some’ medications and I will have a pin number and be totally accountble for my actions.
A scary prospect, but one I feel ready for.
It will at least mean that I can completely take surgical patients from admission to discharge and be recognised in my pay band for the work I do.

I found the first year at level 4 a real challenge but I managed it. I passed with ‘A’s and ‘B’s and only one ‘C’.
I must admit, I impressed myself.

However…….

Today I started year two. We had a run down of what is expected this year and got our timetable of events that re-iterated the little melt down I had a couple of days ago.

As I drove home, I wondered if it was all worth it and then I watched Nile’s Vlog about looking back and taking stock of what you’ve achieved and I realised just how much I’ve grown personally in my unexpected career and I realised, ‘I CAN DO THIS!!’

It’s going to be an incredibly tough year but at the end of the day….. It’s only a year!!

I may have a few wobbles along the way but I know that I have the support I need from work collegues.
This time next year I will be qualified.
I ‘WILL’ be picking those patients up from theatre.
And I know I’ll be a hell of a lot more relaxed!!!

HERE’S A RANT… TWO ACTUALLY

By mumofthreedevils on February 17, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

First of all…. GUNS!!

Come on America.
Enough is enough!!
Time to get rid of them don’t you think?

”’But you can’t do that. It’s in our constitution. It’s our right to have them””

THEN CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION!!……. SHOCK HORROR!!
It’s not impossible (just go and read about Article V) and let’s face it, it’s in need of an update, don’t you think?
Or have I stepped on a few million toes and spoken out of line.
I don’t give a f##k really.

And I’m sorry…. for all the people out there that are saying about this latest school shooting, that the person was mentally ill, we need to address the mental health service, it’s not the guns.

YES IT IS THE BLOODY GUNS!! and how easy it is for a mentally ill person to get hold of one.

There’s too many of them and they are way too easy to get hold of.
Apparantly there are 101 guns for every 100 Americans.
That’s more guns than people in America. WTF!!

I think P!nk summed up the situation perfectly in this Instagram.

And breath!!!
OK, I’ve said my piece on that one.
It’ll just be another rant that gets ignored and disappears into the ether.
No doubt, there will be another shooting before long and the whole debacle will start again.

OK, rant number two.

Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail is a biggot!!
Anyone who knows me, knows that biggots get right up my nose.

I follow 2 people on Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.
Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black.

Gymnastics, swimming and diving have always been my favourite Olympic sports. Forget all the athletics. So the baby Tom Daley has been wonderful to watch as his career unfolds.

I love films and ‘Milk’ is an incredible film garnering a much deserved Oscar for writer Dustin Lance Black.

Over the last couple of years, their Tweets and Instagrams and Youtube collaborations regularly bring a smile to my face. They have hundreds of thousands of devoted followers who were all ecstatic when they both announced that they were going to become parents by posting this on Valentines day.

Wonderful news.

Sadly, we still got people poo pooing all over it.
Most noticeably from Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail.
C’mon guys!! I thought we were past all this, especially in the press!!

Even though he tries to wriggle out of his biggotry by saying that ‘I supported civil partnerships long before it was fassionable’ Richard Littlejohn states in his article titled ‘Please don’t pretend two dads is the new normal’

‘That said, and despite the fact that countless single parents do a fantastic job, I still cling to the belief that children benefit most from being brought up by a man and a woman.

Which is precisely what worries me most about the Daley publicity stunt. Here we have two men drawing attention to the fact that ‘they’ are having a baby.

But where’s the mum, the possessor of the womb which features in this photograph? She appears to have been written out of the script entirely’

OK, this has me angry on several levels.

1 – All a child needs is a loving and stable family environment. It doesn’t matter whether they are brought up by a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman or just a single parent of either sex. As long as they are loved it doesn’t matter!

2 – It was not a publicity stunt! They were announcing their news to their fans. Something Richard Littlejohn obviously doesn’t know about.

3 – They haven’t announce who the Mum is because they are obviously trying to protect her privacy and health. The last thing the poor woman needs is to be pestered for the next nine months by paparazzi and press!!

He then goes on to state….

‘What I also find slightly disconcerting is that this story was reported virtually everywhere without so much as a raised eyebrow, as if it would be impolite even to ask any questions about the parentage’

Yes Richard, that’s exactly how it should be!!
It’s normal for a loving couple to announce their happy baby news.
I seriously hope this article comes back to bite you in the arse you pathetic man!!

It saddens me that we still have to put up with biggots.
I still have to bite my tongue, even with family members I’m sad to say, but I have seen huge changes in public opinions in my lifetime and I hold out much hope that all of this will become just plain old ‘normal’ in the future.
Hetero, gay, lesbian, bi, trans…whatever!! It’s what makes the world so colourful.

BIT OF A MEH! DAY

By mumofthreedevils on July 23, 2017 • ( Leave a comment )

It’s been a bit of a meh! day today.

I’m feeling old.
I’m feeling bloated.
I’m feeling as rough as most women once a month.
I just wanted to eat and drink all day…. which I did!!
And I’m fretting about this bloody presentation I have to do tomorrow.

I’ve been working my way through a few bottles of Corona and Bud.
I had home made spaghetti bolognese for lunch and I’ve just polished off a cheese and bacon toastie for tea.
I don’t say this very often but I seriously need some chocolate!!

Not surprising that I still feel bloated!

Anyway, to try and cheer myself up a little, I started watching Girls again, from the beginning.

Yeah yeah. I know Adam is shirtless in both these clips. So sue me!!
I told you I needed cheering up.

I also spent some time Youtubing the events of the San Diego Comic Con this weekend and then I continued my discovery of my new favourite couple.

Tom and Lance!

Although someone really needs to explain to me how this guy…..

Is 43 and 20 years older than this guy!!!

Seriously. 43!!
I’m 47 and feel so old.
Tom I am so jealous. Lance is a hottie!!

I guess you’re as young as you feel and Lance feels a 23 year old on a daily basis!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Anyway, Tom’s Youtube channel has lots of Tom and Lance vlogs, including their wedding. They are an exceptionally cute couple. Check them out.

Right, enough time to do a little more Youtubing before bed.
I have to be up at the crack of dawn to get to Uni early.
I’m hoping to get a run through done with the rest of the group and as one of them hasn’t turned up to a single read through I’m not holding out much hope that tomorrow will go very well.
If he doesn’t show up early enough, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my mouth shut when I see him.

Watch this space.