It has been two years since my last visit to France which is sooner than the gap before. Hopefully the next trip will be sooner than two years.

The purpose for this trip is that I am volunteering at the Paris Paralympics!

I applied a year ago and went through all the steps and was offered a ‘mission’ (role) and then did all the online training.

Today I went to collect my accreditation and uniform. I discovered that my mission has a changed a bit. I will be part of the Protocol team at the Champs de Mars/Eiffel Tower venue. This means looking after VIPs at the competition venue.

There are two temporary stadiums on the Champs de Mars which is directly in front of the Eiffel Tower. The closest to the tower was where the beach volleyball was in the Olympics. This will have cecifoot or visually impaired football.

The second stadium is a huge venue built to house exhibitions while the Grand Palais is being renovated and turned into Olympics venue.

It will have Paralympic Judo and wheelchair rugby. I will have to wait and see exactly what I will be doing but Australia is in the wheelchair rugby!

It was fun going to collect my uniform after a bit of a wait for the accreditation.

The uniform is sponsored by a big sports store called Decathlon which I think has come to Australia. We used to love it when we lived here for cheaper but good quality sports clothes and equipment. The funny thing is they gave me receipt for all the items, even though I didn’t have to pay. I guess so that I know they were sponsored by Decathlon?

Lavinia and I have had fun walking around and visiting some familiar places.