A weekend off is a real luxury for me. My volleyball partner, Zara, and I are
away training and competing for about 10 months of each year and when I’m in
England, I live in Hook, Hampshire, with my gran, and commute daily to the
Sport Training Village in Bath, which is one and a half hours away.
On Fridays I finish training at about 3.30-4pm and in an ideal world I’ll
drive straight to Heathrow and jump on a flight to Edinburgh, as my best
friends Laura, Jenny and Sara live in Scotland. I met them when I went to
boarding school in Edinburgh when my father, a hotel manager, was working in
Scotland and then in Ireland.
Laura will pick me up from the airport and we’ll drive to Jenny’s house in
Dundee where Sara will join us. We don’t get to meet up nearly enough so
we’ll probably spend a couple of hours catching up. The others will drink
wine but I’ll probably decline. With the Olympics just around the corner,
tea has become my evening drink of choice!
I don’t often see my family but they’ll be watching me in London later this
month. My brother lives in Dublin, and my parents live in Jordan — where Dad
is still working as a hotel manager. More often than not the only time I
get to see them properly is when we go to South Africa for Christmas. I was
born there and it feels like home.
Taking part in London 2012 is the realisation of a long-term dream. Zara and I
are getting really excited — it’s hard not to. Horse Guards Parade, where
the beach volleyball competition will be staged during the Olympics, is
definitely the best venue of the Games. Beach volleyball isn’t played much
in Britain so I think it’s great that we’re bringing it to London and
showing everyone what the sport is. It’s the most popular spectator sport at
the Olympics.
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