Wimbledon

Following weather frustrations which plagued the tournament this year, we targeted a Thursday evening in the first week of Wimbledon to catch some quality tennis. It seemed half of London had thought the same thing and the queue must have been about 800m long. After much deliberation we joined the queue and got in after about 50 minutes.

It took us a while to get our bearings but finally we decided to try and get some £5 returns to Centre Court to watch Rafael Nadal, whom we thought still had a set to play but in actual fact by the time we got in there he only had 1 game to go on his way to a straight sets victory.



Fortunately the weather held and we were able to watch tennis until about 9:20pm so we caught some more doubles action including crowd favourite Marcos Bagdathis who was quite funny and when they lost he hit a ball for a marvellous straight six which would have cleared the boundary on any ground.

Royal Ascot

A group of us had managed to get General Admission tickets to Royal Ascot which wasn't quite as classy as the Royal enclosure but that was fine as it meant we didn't have to wear waistcoat, top hat and tails! It also meant we had shelter from the inclement weather which was more than could be said for those in the silver ring.



Somehow the English have a knack of doing things like the races in a reasonably classy way which is surprising given some of people you see on the way out there. Anyway, we had a good day, were pretty conserrvative with our betting but doubled our money which was exciting. It was also exciting to find a caravan that sold dark 'n' stormies which was the drink that Josh introduced to us in Bermuda, and it was even made with Bermudan rum. The only thing that didn't really go our way was our trek to the silver ring as it hosed down and we got drenched. Oh well, got to get the full English experience of a day at the races I suppose.

Oh, and the Queen was there. I was miles away but thanks to a digital zoom it looks like I was a bit closer....

Oxford

It was Bevan's third day in the UK and I had entered him and I into a 10km run in Oxford on Sunday morning. It was an early start to catch the train and a mad dash to the start line but we made it in time. We both made it round in respectable times, for the record older triumphed over younger, but not by much.



Bevan enjoying a well earned drink, and struggling to stand up straight, in the oldest pub in Oxford.



The rest of the day was spent wandering round Oxford with flatmate Clare and her friends, and a highly amusing attempt at punting down the river. How we managed to stay dry is a miracle.



We got a bit tangled up in some nasty foliage from time to time.....

Catch up with the Cuzzies

Dion and Rosiland were in town for a few nights at the start of their big trip so we met them for a wander through Hyde Park and a Pimms in the garden bar while everyone else yelled at the TV watching the FA Cup final. Brad was unable to attend due to an unwelcome dose of chicken pox.

Lords

It was the first test of the English summer, England vs West Indies. Both teams were coming off poor displays at the world cup, had new coaches, new captains and injury worries so they had a few points to prove. Hamish and I were lucky enough to get tickets to day one so we packed up a picnic and got there in time for the first ball, following a delayed start because of rain.



It was a bit of a frustrating day, mainly because England weren't bowled out within the first hour in conditions which should have assisted the swing bowlers. There were also a couple of delays for bad light which was complete rubbish and the crowd wasn't happy. Nonetheless, we saw 60 overs of cricket, watched Alistair Cook get a hundred, ate and drank exceptionally well all day and even saw the Queen (we were at the other end of the ground though).



A week later Bevan and I went back and did a tour which was really good. We were walked through the famous Long room, taken into the dressing rooms, saw the Ashes, walked around the grandstands and taken into the media centre. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos of anything in the old Pavillion, or even from the balcony and of course you can't take photos of the Ashes or it would shatter into a million pieces..... nontheless we managed a couple of token shots around the ground.

Dorset

It was the first bank holiday weekend in May. The weather had been outstanding so I decided to jump on a train and get out of London. I didn't really have much of a plan other than I wanted to camp at a place called Swanage. So I trained to Poole, had a look around, bused and ferried to Swanage, went for a walk, checked out some cliffs, tested my new tent (which was a bit lucky given that the camping ground apparently had no tent sites left) and that filled in Saturday.

Swanage beach front



Limestone cliffs



Bit of a dicey walk out on this little path...



There were even some animals. Thanks to the pleasant English haze, you probably can't make out Bournemouth in the background, but believe me, its there. You can see the boats though, the entire area was buzzing all weekend with various watercraft.



Swanage had a very cool steam train. I really should have gone for a ride on it but was quite content to listen to it and watch the smoke pour out of it. Unfortunately this photo doesn't do it justice but it's pretty hard to get a good one when it is in full operation and covering you with smoke. You would have loved it Dr.



And one could not help but be intrigued about what this shop had to offer.... with a name like that the shop must do a roaring trade.



Sunday wasn't such a nice day so I caught a different bus back to Poole which worked out well as it went past a castle, unfortunately it was raining so it wasn't great viewing. I stopped in at Bournemouth on the way back which had a very long beach and not too much else and arrived home at about 9pm on Sunday night.

Kite surfers at Bournemouth.

London Marathon

It was the hottest London marathon on record, and although I'm not exactly sure of the official temperature they were predicting 23 degrees and it sure was hot. There was a record number of runners, about 37,000 registered and I think about 35,600 finished. There will still be some clowns out there for the next few days, including one idiot who is 'slow motion walking' the entire course and reckons it will take him 3 days.

I managed a personal best and almost got the time I was aiming for - 9 seconds out, my time was 2:48:09 so was pretty happy given the heat and the crowds. The website tells me I was 300th but in closer inspection I was the 300th male and 317th overall, nonetheless I'm pleased with that.

The heat / dehydration / exhaustion got to me at the end and my face, tongue and arms were all numb and my mouth felt like I couldn't fit a pea into it. I lost the ability to speak properly for a while but after enjoying a free massage feeling gradually came back and I made my way out of the finishing chute about an hour after I'd crossed the line!

Thank you very much to all those who came out to watch. I managed to pick out most of you somewhere along the way and the support really spurs you along. And big thanks to Steph who has supplied the photos below.







Also, check out this link, it appears there were cameras everywhere!