Some Ice, Some Stars And A Flame

The Olympic Torch reached Nottingham today, after travelling from Athens 41 days ago.

It had come from Lincoln, and after staying the night tonight, the convoy will be heading to Derby, before reaching London next month.

It arrived in the county during the late afternoon and made it's way to the Ice Arena, where famous local skaters Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean did a turn on the ice with it. They made history in 1984, when they got straight sixes for their interpretation of Ravel's Bolero.

I was lucky enough to get a couple of tickets for the show from a friend. Gail unfortunately couldn't make it, as she had a prior engagement, and it was also difficult to get into town, as the local authority had closed many roads across the city centre.

It didn't go to waste though, as I bumped into a pal, and fellow photographer of mine. So I invited him along. The arena was packed as you can imagine. But we managed to get some decent seats to take some shots. We both had good telephoto lenses on our Nikons, which also helped.

After the show was over, we went outside and followed the torch to the Old Market Square. It was also rammed full of people, and so we missed some of the action. But we did see them put out the flame. We also met up with another Flickrmate and wandered off to the castle, to see what was happening there.

A couple of bands were playing. and low and behold, another two photo buddies appeared. It was almost like a Nottingham Flickr group convention!

Here's one of the many shots that I took of Chris and Jayne skating with the torch.