Time flies

Photo: A walk in the Park. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Rob and I were sometimes struggling to keep awake. The score was 3-0, three quarters of the way through the game. It looks like a football score, indeed it was, but American Football. We were watching Super Bowl LIII between the New England Patriots and the St. Louis Rams.

Oh how times have changed. Exactly 17 years ago to the day Rob and I watched the New England Patriots play the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI (February 2002). Then, we were in the New Orleans Superdome in person. It was a very special way to celebrate a landmark birthday for Rob. No prizes for guessing how old we were:

A friend of mine published a list of things that did not exist at the time of Super Bowl XXXVI:

iPhone
Android
Facebook
YouTube
MySpace
Instagram
Tesla
Spotify
Skype
Twitter
LinkedIn
Gmail
Uber
Airbnb
Google Maps
iTunes Store
SoundCloud
Nintendo Wii
Dropbox
Hashtags
SpaceX
Reddit
Fitbit
GoPro
iPad

17 years ago New England Patriots beat the Rams 20-17. This time, with 2:30 left in the fourth quarter the look on Sean McVay’s face (Head Coach of the Rams) said it all:

The Pats beat the Rams 13-3. The more things change the more things stay the same.

It was a great weekend with Rob and Helen catching up on so much as we’d not seen eachother for a while.

On Sunday afternoon we went on a tour of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park & Bow Back Rivers by London Walks. Having been to the athletics and water polo in 2012 it was fascinating to see how the park has developed since. Open spaces, apartments, businesses, a shopping centre and public access to sports facilities are all part of the legacy. We remember how fantastic the games were and what a wonderful atmosphere there was in London. We were impressed by the success of the legacy. It reminded us how succesful we can be if we go about it the right way. A lesson for today.

We finished off a weekend of chat, eating and drinking with lunch, courtesy of Rob and Helen, at Vinoteca in Farringdon, a place we’ve been eating at since it opened in 2005.

A wonderful weekend. A special thank you to Rob and Helen for this little beauty. They gave it to Jan to celebrate her 2018 running challenge. Gin and Liverpool. A perfect summary of Jan.