So... a staggering 9 days of tennis at the premier Slam (well yes I would say that, it’s our home one!)... but what does your intrepid blogger take with her for all this quality piccy-taking and Rozzie-rambling?
Well this list was compiled with the generous help of friend, 2 x Le Froglets (see post from Day 6) and a bottle of M&S Poppable Rosé!
So with the exception of Semis and Finals – togs (for me) usually consists of combats that can be rolled up to catch sun if any should appear (how do you guarantee that in the UK? Spend 20m on a roof!); Proper posh togs for the Semis (and Final the one time I’ve been!)
“Layers, onion boy”... Wise-cracking animated donkeys can’t be wrong! Layers especially if you end up outside to begin with and then end up in the gods on centre in the evening!
Came in REAL handy at RG where we were cursed with oodles of rain and then were sat in a very shady bit of Lenglen. LOVELY and sunny outside the court – inside... ARCTIC!
Generally 3 layers! T-Shirt, light long-sleeved shirt and a hoody or fleecy object for the colder evenings. A jacket is a must as well – but... in RG I was taken by the addition of a natty RG Mac (the French call it a poncho – but it had sleeves and the advantage of being quite long so useful to seat on soggy seats)! I add to this a Lakeland hand towel thingy that they don’t seem to stock anymore but again – at RG the staff threw out raggedy towels for people to dry off the seats. I have been looking for a place to use these... so welcome to the Slam kit raggedy hand towels!
Brolly(s) are a must – especially if you don’t have tickets for roof-ville. Little commuter one is all well and good but (see RG posts) not much damn use in a deluge – bring me my Nike Golf Umbrella!
And a new addition to the kit – when Cilla and I were queuing – I was drawn in by the lure of £3 for a copy of the Daily Torygraph and.... a fleecy blanket – fleecy on one side – waterproof on the other!!! Folds up nicely afterwards although of course on that day you saw them wherever you looked!
Finally – certainly for Wimbledon – me and another mate inherited a couple of the nicer larger cushions they used to do – they seem to have stopped them this year at Wimbledon. So a couple of the larger cushions get taken along now. I did buy a little RG one as well, but it seems to lose its cushioning qualities quite quickly ... kinda important for a cushion to retain that, dontya think?
Let’s see – this year I’ve had the miracle of ... iPhone! The App was a godsend to see what was coming up where... and for making much more copious notes for the blogs. In the past I was just going on memory and ... y’know... knocking on a bit now. Just being able to note down significant points in the game at key points really helped – especially with so many visits this year! Came a cropper with Hawkeye Steward (so maybe pen and paper as a backup next time?)
Pics from 2008 through to RG were taken with my Casio Exilim EX-Z40. A modest 4.0 Mega-pixels and it has done me proud. However – sat next to my friend at RG with her double zoom and super doper extra close-up capability, yes.... the gadget girl had camera envy – and so just prior to Wimbles I scampered out and bought myself a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ8. The quality of pictures from up in the gods has been amazing. The only downside is that the rapid burst function eats the battery and it dropped a bar by the end of the day, most days. So by the time I go to France later in the year – I’ll probably have me a spare battery!
When I take mum – we mostly drive to the Park and Ride – but on the Middle Saturday – I trusted in public transport and the lottery that is the District Line ... met up with friend and we toddled off to M&S for our now legendary Le Froglets, a baby bottle of fizz each (add one M&S mini cool bag to the mix next time) and some snackettes – including these awfully self-indulgent strawberry tartlets!
And now I know there is a never-ending bus-ride pretty much straight to the gates – I may well do the public transport thing – lord knows I can never have too many adventures on London Transport :rolleyes:
On that subject - a top tip from my friend - leaving for the day - walk to Wimbledon and get on the Tube there - that way when you get to southfields with the rest of the madding crowds - you have a seat, as the tube starts from there!
And thus... endeth Wimbledon 2010 for me. 9 days at The Championships, out of a possible 13. I saw JJ for one and a half rounds (pffft) – I saw both of Jamie’s matches, I saw LRob’s debut on Centre Court and her round of Mixed with Jamie... I saw Andy play 3 times including that Semi...and for me the highlight was watching Vera Zvonareva from R3 to the semis on her path to her first Slam final...
I will be adding gallery links to all the photos taken at some stage – please respect all rights if downloading images and play nice, saying where you got them!
Acknowledgements have to go to Matt Fitzgerald for all his advice when I was setting up the blogsite, and to all the people who have been checking out the blogs– either in their spiritual home of tennisforum.com or here in their new home (particularly Tashi and Cilla when I first set it up after RG, checking on how the pages looked/posting comments etc ).
Cheers and see you later in the year.
R.
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