I was lucky enough to be offered tickets for No. 1 Court on 8th July via the Wimbledon Public Ballot. If you enjoy tennis and would like to go to Wimbledon it really is worth taking part as in the last 10 years or so I've received tickets for Centre Court twice and now No. 1 Court.
Again I decided to drive (parking isn't a problem as you can reserve a place (at cost!!) in an AA official car park just a few minutes walk from the tennis courts). The huge disadvantage though is the huge amount of congestion and traffic in London itself - it takes longer to get through London once you leave the M40 than it does to drive to London :( To crown it all this time I was following google map directions and managed to get totally lost - the Sat Nav once turned on was flat and even when it charged up it couldn't seem to find out where we were! I have never been so glad to see a roadsign - see the photo below!
Lovely to see en route the wildflowers round this road sign :)
Finally, we arrived only to be picked for a car search as they randomly selected vehicles!
The car park is on a golf course and as we walked towards Wimbledon I found myself checking around for purple butterflies - the day before a Purple Emperor had been spotted for the first time on Wimbledon Common (which presumably is not that far away).
A bag search this time and at long last we were in Wimbledon itself.
The flower displays round the courts are a delight.
We had missed the start but were able to watch some of the first Ladies' Doubles Semi-Final. The seats were very good - this is the actual view we had i.e. not zoomed in.
The next match was the second Ladies' Doubles Semi-final featuring the Williams' sisters. To be honest I am not a huge fan of doubles matches but this was a really exciting game.
We decided to take a break
You can see how busy it had become.
The first Mens' Singles Semi-final on Centre Court had just finished and we decided to see if we could find anywhere to sit on Henman Hill/Murray Mount (whichever you prefer to call it) to watch some of the Murray match. It just proved impossible though as officials were stopping people trying to enter as there was a huge stream of people leaving presumably for a break following the Federer match. I am not sure if they limit numbers anyway so we popped to No. 2 court which was showing the match on screens. We left after about 10 minutes as there really was no atmosphere and the screens were tiny and we decided to go back to No. 1 Court and watch some more live tennis which was the Mixed Doubles Semi-final.
Heather Watson who is British went on with her partner Kontinen to win the Mixed Doubles Final on the following Sunday.
Checking the Murray score - we also watched some of the wheelchair tennis matches during the course of the day which were excellent.
Before leaving we had a look round the museum which has lots of information on the history of tennis and Wimbledon.
Some you who have read my posts on Berkswell may remember me mentioning Maud Watson who won the first Ladies' Singles in 1884 and lived in the Rectory next to Berkswell church so I was pleased to find her mentioned in the museum.
She is pictured bottom right in this photo.
Parts of the caption in the photo below are quite amusing "The Jubilee Medal presented to Maud Watson the first Ladies'Champion. She can be seen in the photo above receiving congratulations from the King in the picture in the Daily Graphic. According to the newspaper she won "when skirts were long and voluminous and feminine players skimmed sedately instead of bounding with boylike agility". I wonder what she would have thought of tennis today. When I return to Berkswell I will make another effort to find her grave in the churchyard.
Pizza for tea
We left about 7.30 and it took about 3 hours to get home - if anything traffic in London was even worse than in the morning although at least we didn't get lost.
The remains of a Sun Dog in the sky as we left London
and a lovely sunset.
D amused himself taking photos of car lights on the motorway.
It was a wonderful day out, if a little tiring!!
I didn't take my Olympus camera in the end planning to share the Canon SX 50 with D but he took that many photos (for once) that I didn't need to take any at all.
