There are a number of things on my London “to do” list and I checked one of them off yesterday.
I went to Wimbledon. No not just the area, but the actual tennis tournament.
Me and my friend Tina decided to queue for tickets, and enjoy the whole Wimbledon experience. Every day they make about 5000-6000 tickets available to be purchased. I think every day they make available about 500 tickets for each of the “show courts” (centre, court 1 and court 2) but you have to queue overnight for those. But then they make a few thousand extra for general admission, which means you get to go to any of the other courts and just generally soak up the atmosphere.
So I pulled myself out of bed at 5am, and we were in the queue by about 6:45am. And at that time I was already number 3287 in the queue! Yes, there are a lot of other crazy people out there!
I love the organisation of it all – it was all very English!
There were heaps of stewards helping you along the way, answering questions and just generally chatting and making the experience very enjoyable.
There is a guy who lets you know where the end of the queue is…
And then you get a card to tell you where you are in the queue, as well as a book telling you about what to expect!
I tried to get a photo to show how many people there were, and how orderly the queues were, but it just doesn’t do it justice….
There are about 5 queues that go from where I am taking the photo, to the trees at the end of the park (down the far end).
They have obviously done this plenty of times before, because they make the time fly, and you don’t realise it has taken you 3.5 hours to actually get your ticket and through the gates!
Following instructions from workmates, we headed to court 18 when we got in, as there are heaps more seats for that court than any of the other courts. And we managed to secure ourselves a seat, and settled ourselves in for a second-round game for the Gentlemens Singles (yes, at Wimbledon they are Gentlemen – not just Men!)
The weather has been amazing this past week, and yesterday was no exception. So while we waited an hour for the game to start, we enjoyed the shade of the umbrella.
Unfortunately you can’t keep the umbrella up for the whole game, so we celebrated every single cloud in the sky which decided to pass over the sun! We also kept our drink intake to a minimum, because if you get up from your seat, you won’t get it back!
The game was a good one, and we watched the whole thing (all 5 sets of it!) and the spunky French underdog won!
By this time we were starving (and rather thirsty!) so headed to grab food and drink, look in the shop, wander around all the courts and just generally take it all in. We watched the beginning of a ladies (yes, once again, Ladies not Women!) doubles match, but one of the teams was so much better than the other it was almost embarrasing to watch!
So we decided to head to Henman Hill (how long till it is renamed Murray Hill??) and have our strawberries and cream (a Wimbledon must!)
After 13 hours of Wimbledon fun, we called it a day, and as soon as I was home and showered, I was in bed and out like a light! But now plans are already beginning for next years excursion to Wimbledon!
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