Who'd have thought it? Me, the most reluctant of sports fans, whose disdain for the subject was, I thought, unparalleled, who times the weekly supermarket run to coincide with any major TV sporting event so that I have the place to myself - me, actually getting excited by the Olympics?
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Who'd have thought it? Me, the most reluctant of sports fans, whose disdain for the subject was, I thought, unparalleled, who times the weekly supermarket run to coincide with any major TV sporting event so that I have the place to myself - me, actually getting excited by the Olympics?

But it's happened. I've talked about little else over the past couple of weeks. I'm in danger of becoming an Olympics bore (although of course I now believe that's a contradiction in terms).

It started with a quick trip to see the torch handover in my local park, Crystal Palace, home for the duration of the Olympics to the Brazilian national team. The torch was picked up by Marlon Devonish, whom I have to admit I had not previously heard of but who clearly was a real athlete beloved by the autograph-seeking crowds. I watched where the TV crews were standing and as a result got a good phone pic, good enough to tweet. Perhaps I could be getting a little bit keen on sport after all.

Next came the Opening Ceremony on TV. I lapped that up too. Not just the chimneys and the nurses and Paul McCartney, but the traditional parade of athletes - the sign that this wasn't just an extravaganza in its own right, but the start of something big and definitely sporting. (On the Boyle Spectacle, I read a comment from the LA Times that the NHS tribute was like paying tribute to United Health Care in the US. Well no, actually, it's not. Americans - with some exceptions - don't understand the visceral regard with which the Health Service is held in this country. It's even more popular than football. Most of us will defend it to the death, excusing the pun. But back to the sport.)

Then I watched the diving, the gymnastics and the swimming on TV. To start with, it seemed that the only thing Britain was going to get gold for was putting on opening ceremonies. But that didn't last long. On came the rowing and cycling. By now I was hooked. Wouldn't it be great to get along to an Olympic venue? I hadn't got any tickets. I had applied, pressed on by my daughters, but half-heartedly and without success. I suspect the ballot spotted my lack of enthusiasm and dealt with me accordingly.

So I went online one night and got tickets for the men's canoe slalom, a sport whose existence I had barely registered. And what an amazing experience it was being there. I would never have guessed that I could be fascinated by men carrying out very dangerous manoeuvres in very small boats in very fast flowing water, but I was. My engineer husband (who will watch anything that involves competition, speed, accuracy and excitement - and golf as well) obviously wasn't as absorbed as me, because he found time to work out that the white water pump power was 2MW, equivalent to that needed for 100 homes.

In the middle of all this Olympics pizzazz, I have been, like most people, I guess, trying to work, looking with colleagues at our (National Numeracy's) response to the government's draft plans for the school maths curriculum. But concentration is difficult and I found myself thinking more about the sports curriculum. The athletics has been on in the background most of the time.

Of course, it makes a difference that it's happening here in my home town, that there's such excitement - and apparently goodwill - in London's public places. OK, I know it won't last but we're all enjoying it while it does.

But for me it's more than that. It's actually pricked my lifetime sports cynicism. I've become genuinely interested. I've actually started to think about the value of sport. I can see its physical advantages in terms of health and fitness and even I sometimes go swimming - Crystal Palace has after all got a magnificent 50m pool. But I'm beginning to appreciate sport's entertainment value, its aesthetic value, its social value, perhaps even its moral value as a means of sanctioning and regulating raw self-interest. (I think that was what Mihir Bose was getting at on Radio Four's high-minded Moral Maze last week). Others may have realised all this ages ago, and I'm slow catching up. But I do now get it.

Roll on the Paralympics. Yes I've got tickets (lots of them, perhaps more than I intended - for some reason the ballot didn't spot my half-heartedness when I applied). Next year no Olympics, so what then? Perhaps my first ever football match? Crystal Palace FC is just up the road. Or Wimbledon? Or the Cheltenham Gold Cup? Or just start saving for Rio?