Well the tour ended, i had a bloody early flight back to London from Berlin, and most importantly- I was off to Wimbledon! It has always been one of those things i always wanted to go to if i had the chance so when it finally came up, no hangover, lack of sleep or major travel lethargy was going to stop me!
On arriving back to London a little worse for wear from my long journey i packed another backpack, did some pre-camping out grocery shopping with Emma, met Jess and we were off to Wimbledon to line up for day one centre court tickets.
We arrived to the line at about 3pm and were about number 226 i think. Centre court tickets go to the first 500 people so we pretty much definately had the tickets which we wanted. We set up camp, Emma and i in her brand spanking new pop up tent thing, and Jess in her own littler one. Emma and i were camping in style with a double air matress of hers as well. Then we did with much enjoyment participate in that sacred British past-time- the queue. It was pretty good fun honestly! Everyone was pretty friendly, the mood was good, and we were right near the ice cream van!
After a yummy thai dinner i was very fast running out of energy (unsuprisingly!) and i was off to sleep. Well sort of. On and off sleep at least. My main problem was that i was about 6 inches too tall for the damn tent! It was a misty night and air matresses in tents that are that little bit too short for you and quickly becoming some sort of greenhouse type environment are not very helpful in getting a good nights sleep no matter how buggered you are. Needless to say i did not have the best nights sleep and was actually glad when it came time to get out of bed! Not like me at all!
Of course we were ridiculously slow at packing up our tents and nearly missed the line moving when it was time for the queue to bunch up and start getting closer to the gates. Emma grabbed her bag and one of Jess's and made a mad dash to try to not lose our place in the line, Jess was still in line for the toilets, and i was left with a backpack, 2 suitcases, and 2 tents in a very quickly moving line! This no doubt did not improve my "well rested" mood but on the up side Emma did not lose our place in the line, Jess eventually caught up, and we were one of the first groups of people to check in our luggage at the next luggage bit.
This was when the real line began. It was long, long, long. But they did give out some free stuff in line (mmmm strawberries!) and Jess bought a very nice brekky for us.
Lining up for Wimbledon is a long and complicated process. When you first arrive in line you get given a queue card. Which has your number. Then, the next morning when you get closer to the gates you get a wrist band which is for either centre court, court one, court 2 or just the grounds. Then you line up for a bit more, go through security, line up a bit more, then finally have a chance to buy your tickets! (Yes we did get centre court). Then when you finally have your ticket you get through the gates and wait in the grounds for another hour or so before you can even get near the courts! They really have turned queueing into an artform haven't they!
So, finally inside. The first centre court matches didn't start for a while so we managed to get some quite good seats watching an Aussie play. There was no doubt who the Aussies were in the place. We really are quite yellow!
After this it was centre court time and it was brilliant! First game up was Federer and i absolutely loved it. He's a real looker, absolutely gorgeous actually and looks even better close up. What i liked though was that he really seemed like a nice guy and a good sport to watch.
We watched a few other games and then i had my first ever taste of Pimms. It's tops! I can't beleive that i haven't tried it before! I really really like it and it is perfect to watch the tennis with.
More tennis, more Pimms, unfortunately no Marat Safin (the courtside was packed! I managed to get a long distance view of him but that was it!). We finished the day by watching some doubles which featured and Aussie guy and some dreadful umpiring by the chair umpire. Nethertheless, it was a great day desspite the ongoing lack of sleep and i have a distinct suspicion that i may be back next year now that i've got a taste for it! Now i think i deserve some sleep!
