Jewel in the Mud

New Balls, Please!

2011-07-18T04:47:00.000-07:00

I try to visit the tennis Championships at Wimbledon every year. This dates back to my past as a secretary at the headquarters of a large British company where I was one floor down from the important directors. Any spare debenture holder tickets that directors didn’t want or couldn’t use were offered to their secretaries first. If they didn’t want them then we lower-level secretaries on the 4^th floor were offered them. I would have killed several of the old biddies to get a chance of a ticket but I had to bide my time, cross my fingers and hope against hope that there might be some spares that year. Usually I was lucky and, with very little notice, I was able to catch the tube to Southfields and walk with the crowds to Church Street. Unlike the hoi polloi, I could wander in through the debenture ticket holder gate and I usually had a ticket for free strawberries and cream as well to be taken in the debenture shareholders’ lounge. I saw all the big names of the time, Connors, Borg, Graf, Evert over the years but did spend some years cowering under an umbrella hoping the rain would stop.

Those were fantastic times but starting a family meant that those glory days were over and I had to just watch the Championships on the TV like everyone else. Many years later I discovered that a friend was taking her daughters out of school every year for a day trip to Wimbledon, which she assured everyone was educational. I decided to be a bad mother as well and do the same. I was working part time by then and my daughters were at secondary school but most years I would choose a day and we would go. It was a different experience from my debenture days! It would mean getting up very early and driving to Wimbledon. We did try the train, tube, bus experience one year but this proved to be rather expensive and very slow so we reverted to the car from then on. We often got caught in traffic or got lost but we would park across the road and then join the Queue. This has to be written with a capital letter now that they’ve mastered the art of managing the Queue. Over the years I have spent varying amounts of time in the Queue with one or both daughters and sometimes on my own. There was the famous year with the youngest daughter when we were early enough to be offered a restricted view ticket to court 1 when we arrived at the ticket booth. We’ve never been that early or lucky since. Another year when the weather was extremely changeable, older daughter and I found that there wasn’t a Queue as everyone was just able to walk into the ticket booths and get a ticket. The odds were very high for rainfall so most people didn’t bother. We had a surprisingly good day.

This year, as in the last few, older daughter couldn’t come to Wimbledon but allowed us to crash on the floor in her London flat so that we had a quicker journey in the morning. To avoid a repetition of the awful year when we made the mistake of going on a Friday (like everyone else) and didn’t even get to the ticket booths until after 5.00 after queuing since 8.00 am, my younger daughter insisted we needed to be up and out by 6.00! My sister accompanied us for the first time and was horrified to hear about the early start which she felt was ‘in the middle of the night’. We hadn’t arrived at older daughter’s flat until after 11.00 and so there was very little time for socialising before younger daughter started making up her bed in the middle of the lounge floor! We all took the hint and settled down too. We did leave soon after 6.00 and arrived in the car park around 7.30. We had to walk some way to find the end of the Queue but at least the field wasn’t full up as it has been on previous years. We breakfasted on items from the stalls – sausage or bacon rolls – and started to wake up with the coffee which was drinkable. The weather was looking good and soon more and more people were joining the Queue behind us. The usual sales people were wandering up and down the lines trying to flog us newspapers with free gifts, like waterproof capes or umbrellas, programmes or giving out leaflets about their wonderful products. I bought a paper with the waterproof cape and we were able to sit on it as the grass was still damp. Unfortunately I had forgotten that last year any goods like these that were free gifts with advertising on them were confiscated once we got to the airport-style security checkpoint. Some people had paid extra to get blankets and weren’t happy but they were told they could go back and put them into the lockers to retrieve later. My cape from the previous year had been overlooked but other bits, like wet wipes (!), had been taken and I had completely forgotten about it until the security guards started pulling things out of people’s bags. I really must remember next year!

We only had to sit in the queue for an hour or so before we were told to stand up and we very slowly started moving through the golf course towards the bridge. The Queue must stretch for a mile or so but we were very happy to be moving closer to the ticket booths while it was still so early. We had made a good choice because we were there on a day when Andy Murray had a rest day – and it wasn’t a Friday. The forecast was for showers so we weren’t sure how much tennis we would see, but it’s always a pleasure to walk around and look out for famous people no matter what the weather is doing. This year my cape was taken by the security people but they missed my scissors. I’m not convinced this is the right priority! Luckily I wasn’t planning on stabbing any tennis players. Once we were through security we dashed over the bridge and now we were on the same side of the road as the All England Club and could see over the fence! There was no Queue on this side and we walked to the ticket booth and got our day passes for the princely sum of £20 each (cash only).

We had spent time in the Queue debating which courtto head for. Last year younger daughter and I had seen Troicki playing a bad-tempered doubles match a few days before he played Andy Murray in the singles, and he was due up on court 18 in the second match. Hoping for more histrionics we dashed past the broadcasting centre and there was Clare Balding chatting to another woman right in front of us as we headed for seats at the back of court 18. We tried to act nonchalantly as if this was no big deal, but once we were sitting on court we acted like star struck teenagers! Luckily we were there an hour before the tennis started so we didn’t annoy anyone else. Court 18 is a show court – the one that the epic match was played on last year, the one younger daughter and I decided not to go and watch because it was carried over from the day before and we thought wouldn’t last long! It has the broadcasting centre at one end and high rows of seating on the other. At the sides there are only a few rows of seating and the side opposite to us is on the main walkway from Henman Hill end to the far end of the club. That means that side fills up fast but people come and go frequently as they just pop in to see what’s happening on the court. We thought our side would be quieter with fewer people climbing over us to leave and enter. We were right in the front row level with the service line – a fantastic view. The first match on court at 12.00 was a ladies singles: Kuznetsova against Dulgheru. We hadn’t heard of either of them, but there was a section on Kuznetsova in the programme and she was seeded. The match score looks like it was a walk-over but even though it was 6-0, 6-2, Dulgheru did put up a fight in the second set. Kuznetsova was knocked out the next day so didn’t survive long.

Then we had the pleasure of Victor Troicki again playing singles against Yen-Hsun Lu who was unseeded. Troicki disappointingly appeared to keep his cool as he won the first set but Lu was a fighter and came back at him in the second set. As the clouds started rolling in Troicki got behind and once the raindrops started falling he really lost his cool. The game was at 30-15 to Lu when Troicki went for a shot in the back corner and slipped. He shouted out ‘This is f***ing ridiculous’ and stomped off the court and went and sat on his chair. The umpire had got down from his seat before the game started and had tested the grass with his foot and he did the same again. We were all very disappointed that Troicki didn’t even get a warning for his language. Lu was standing around wondering what was happening as the umpire seemed to dither about what to do next. In the end he got on his radio just as the rain started coming down a bit harder and so he suspended the play. We were pleased to find that Troicki eventually lost the match once it restarted.

By now it was 4.00 and we’d been sitting in the same position for more than 4 hours so we were quite glad of the chance to move and find some food. I had been listening to the radio and the commentators were saying that it was only a shower so we weren’t too upset. At younger daughter’s insistence we went to check out the queue for the resale tickets. This was enormous so we decided not to bother to queue just yet as we wanted to see more tennis first. We concentrated on getting some food and showing my sister around instead. We checked out the programme again and decided to walk down to the other end of the club to court 12. This is another show court which has now been moved next to the new court 3. We were hoping to see Nalbandian but by the time we’d queued again to get into the court, that match had finished. Instead we had Tursunov against Melzer which was going well until more rain fell.

By now it was nearly 6.00 which is usually a good time to try and get resale tickets for the main courts. We trundled back up to Henman Hill to find that they had now split the queues. There wasn’t one for court 2, but that was just ladies singles again. Centre court’s queue they said was still an hour long, no doubt because tennis was guaranteed with the roof closed! Court 1 queue was a reasonable length and there was a chance to see Sharapova and Laura Robson after Tsonga’s match had finished. We were just getting ourselves sorted out when we realised play had started again on court 1 so we rushed to our seats. Tsonga was playing a young chap called Dimitrov who seemed to be about to go out when we arrived. However Tsonga went downhill and couldn’t seem to win a match point. The game went on and on with thrills and spills until Tsonga eventually managed to win his sixth match point! By then it was 8.30 so there was no chance of seeing Sharapova. We held on but once they brought the hoover out to suck up the loose grass and dust we realised there would be no more play.

From listening to the radio I knew Federer was still playing on centre court. We decided to dash over there to try and get in under the new roof. Other people seemed to have the same idea so I suggested we climb the stairs to go up to the top of the stand. There were a couple of people ahead of us and as some people left they politely ask for their tickets. I was gasping after the stairs and wheezed ‘Tickets’ at the next poor unsuspecting people who came out. They probably thought I was mugging them, especially when I shouted ‘We need 3!’ Someone quickly surrendered another ticket (probably to get rid of us) and we slipped past the soldier at the entrance. My daughter and I had tickets in the back row and my sister was one row ahead on the other side of the gangway. The players seemed quite small in the distance and the court seemed a little yellowy because of the roof lights. We were just in time for the last set where Federer was trouncing Mannarino. It was over far too quickly for us but by now it was almost 9.30 – a late finish for Wimbledon.

We couldn’t believe our luck to have seen some good games, especially Tsonga, and to actually get on to centre court under the roof. We let the crowds leave and then wandered down the steps to get some photos of the roof. We didn’t really want to go at all, but the staff were gently encouraging us to get out of there!

On reflection we thought it was one of the best Wimbledons we had had. Younger daughter hadn’t seen Federer before so was pleased tohave done so. We all thought the roof was amazing and can brag we’ve been there. It was rather expensive as far as days out go, but well worth the early start. I’ll definitely be back next year and we may be camping!

2009-10-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

Well it's been some time coming, but here's my first real post!

I've missed my sis this half term as she is normally my companion on mad dashes round the country, but as she's otherwise engaged on the far side of the world I dragged along the other half instead. He is famous for being a sun worshipper and has been known to get his shirt off in February if there is a hint of warmth in the sun. The Lake District is not his cup of tea! The first time we visited we had a week of solid rain - which is no fun when you're camping! I visited the Lake District on just about every school holiday between the ages of 11 and 17 and came to love it whatever the weather (usually rain, but occasionally snow, sun or wind). Derwentwater is a beautiful place and Grange in Borrowdale is the place I want to be when I visit. My grandmother's house has changed little in the (far too many to mention) years which have passed since she sold up and had the nerve to emigrate to Australia. Castle Crag still draws me like a magnet. It's only a little hill at 900 feet, but it guards the Jaws of Borrowdale and the views from the top are fantastic - on a clear day.

I dragged him first to Chester. I've had fleeting visits there twice now. The first was in the evening when it was dark and my interest was piqued. I'd lived in Wales for nearly 13 years as a youngster so why had my parents never taken me to Chester? Earlier this year I visited during daylight hours and was very impressed. It's a beautiful city and I wanted to see more. This time we stayed overnight right in the centre of town (well, just outside the city walls) and had the morning and some of the afternoon to look round. The day didn't dawn well as it was drizzling and it absolutely poured down while we were having a full English breakfast. It returned to drizzle when we started to walk round the walls and after only 5 minutes the sun broke through and we had some good views of Welsh mountains while we were looking west. The plaques on the walls are really interesting and it was a very pleasant walk. The walls go right past the castle which my sister and I hunted for high and low when we first visited. We had decided that there was no castle so I was rather surprised to see how large it was and how close to where we had looked for it!

When we finished the tour of the walls we left Chester and I managed to avoid the usual detour along past Albert Dock in Liverpool and resolutely directed the other half up to Crosby Beach to show him the Anthony Gormley statues on the beach. He didn't seem too impressed - but that might have been the less than perfect weather with a strong cold wind blowing in from the sea. At least it wasn't raining!

We set off for Keswick and managed to find the worst traffic jam in England that day on the M6. We crawled for miles and arrived late and starving. The Guest House was rather nice which was a pleasant surprise after the very late booking, done with a hint of desperation when nearly every other guest house in Keswick was full. Unfortunately there was not a table free in any of the nice restaurants and pubs by the time we ventured out looking for food but we found a little Italian restaurant off the beaten track that was practically empty. Fortunately the food was good, if not too exciting.

The next day was dismal for the other half - rain coming horizontally, wind, flooded roads, etc. To me it was bliss being there and visiting Friar's Crag and Grange. He didn't seem to appreciate the drive through Honister Pass and was relieved when I directed him to some wider roads. We toured lots of lakes that afternoon: Buttermere, Crummock Water, Loweswater, Bassenthwaite, Ullswater (and Aira Force - lovely cream tea in the caff), Brother's Water, Windemere, Rydal Water, Grasmere, Thirlmere and ending up next to Derwentwater again.

The sun showed up the following day - crystal clear mountain tops which had been covered in clouds the day before. A wonderful Lake District day! There were a few clouds drifting over Blencathra and Skiddaw but Grisdale Pike was revealed and even Great Gable and Helvellyn were mostly out of the cloud. We debated whether to do Castle Crag (again!). The other half's claim to fame is that he managed to climb Castle Crag in flip flops the first time - not to be recommended as the path through the shale is rather hairy. Instead we decided on Latrigg as it was close and is also a relatively easy climb. We had some false starts as we didn't know where to start the walk from. The A66 wasn't there when I climbed it previously! After 2 false starts we managed to find the right route and it was a very pleasant walk. The views from the top were great, although it was starting to cloud over a little. Derwentwater looked black, which is unusual. Skiddaw looked tempting but we remembered that it would be getting dark early and both of us have knees which are far from perfect, so we decided to resist the temptation. Instead we decided to take a different - and quicker - route down to Keswick and only realised how steep and tricky it was after we'd got half way down. It was a practically vertical path through the pine forest and rather hard on the knees and calves but we made it back to Fitz Park and headed straight for some refreshments. We found some rather nice toasted teacakes but had trouble standing up and walking out of the cafe after a sit down as our muscles had ceased up!

Grange was calling me so we headed back there via Watendlath. The other half really didn't like the road up there and back but the tarn is pretty and the river was in full flow on the way down to Lodore Falls. The cafe there was closing so we headed down to Grange and visited the old post office. However the milky coffee they serve is nothing like latte and I wished we'd gone back to the other cafe instead. Afterwards we strolled down to Hollows Farm camp site and admired Castle Crag. It was beginning to get dark so we couldn't attempt it. I managed to explore the island by the bridge in Grange on our return as the day before the rain had really poured down just as we were going to walk across it and we hadn't bothered. It's just something I have to do when I visit. The river was bigger than when I visited last - because of the heavy rainfall of course. That evening we had a lovely French meal as we ate very early - we'd learned from our mistake the previous evening!

We visited Tarn Hows on the way home the next morning. Unfortunately the cloud was low again and it was drizzling a little. It's the first time I've been back there for many years and it was disappointing that it wasn't as spectacular as I remembered it. However the walk round the Tarn was lovely, if damp and misty, and the reflections were as good as I remembered.

We travelled home via Conniston Water which made a round dozen of lakes visited this time - not counting Tarn Hows because it's a tarn, not a lake!

I had a lovely time - the other half wished he'd been able to book the holiday in Turkey instead!

Jewel in the Mud

2009-03-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

Trying hard to be a shining star but not getting on very well with that