Wimbledon Withdrawal

I have loved being back in Vancouver so far (with the obvious downside of being hubby-less for a bit) but this week is difficult because Wimbledon has started.

By far my favourite iconic London event, I'm still mad that I only made it there 2 years out of the 5 summers that I have been in London. I think the first year I was too lazy to figure out the complex system, a second year I stupidly booked a trip home to Vancouver that coincided with it, the third year I had just started my new job at Sky and didn't feel I could take the piss and ask for more holiday right away (having started on 1 June and then immediately taken 3 days off to go to Cinque Terre - no regrets! Still one of the best holidays ever. Seafood spaghetti from Aristide in Manarola, you will always be in my heart).

Finally, in 2010, I made the effort to take time off and go. We were completely ready to get up at an ungodly hour and queue up in the morning, but miraculously Keith managed to score some of the 500 Centre Court tickets online at Ticketmaster right at 8pm. We had 3 computers going and he managed it. He didn't even go - Kate and I were the lucky beneficiaries. That year marked the first time in 33 years that the Queenie deigned to grace Wimbledon with her presence, so that was one of the 3 times that I have seen the ol' girl in person, within spitball shooting distance. (The others were at Royal Ascot, where to be fair, she shot by on a carriage and I was 5 people deep behind the track railings. The other was at the Queen's Summer Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, where I was too busy chowing down on free afternoon tea to even stand still during the anthem when she walked out of the palace). She had come to watch Murray play, which we got to see at Centre Court as well. We also got to see Caroline Wozniacki (SNOOZE) and I think the third match might have been Nadal. All 2nd round matches of course, so easy wins for the seeded players.

Last year, we didn't manage to be so lucky with the Ticketmaster frantic clicking, but Keith and I committed to the cause and got a cab from our Clapham Junction flat at 4:30am to join the queue. We obviously didn't beat the people that had been camping overnight in the field, but we we timed it perfectly to beat the first load of public transport Wimbledon wannabes. Still we were 1086 and 1087 in the queue (still have the queue cards in a scrapbook!) and nervously waited, having no idea how many tickets they release for each court during the day. I remember well that we were in front of two guys in their early 20's who had WALKED from Central London after a night of clubbing and hadn't slept at all. We admired their dedication. In hindsight, I'm glad we didn't get the tickets online. Queueing and the anticipation was as much a part of the experience as the Pimms and strawberries and cream were. When we got our Court 1 tickets we were ecstatic. We watched Djokovic and Tsonga take out their 2nd round opponents. Tsonga being by far the more entertaining player to watch - big fan.

So this year it is with great sadness that I 1) sleep 2) sit in the office while all of the action is happening. Unlike in the UK, neither Wimbledon or BBC's live internet feed of the play is available, because it is geo-blocked. BOOOO. Last year I didn't even need the internet feeds since I worked at Sky and smack dab in front of me is a 55 inch television which we would turn to Wimbledon everyday as play started at noon. (Completely approved by our Director who despite having his own personal TV in his office would come out and OOOH and AAAHHH as he cheered Federer on).

Making it even worse is that Keith scored Center Court tickets online AGAIN this year and went yesterday where he watched a match that is going to go down in the fact and history books - Nadal losing in the 2nd round to Rosol, ranked 100 in the world. Epic. And I missed it!!!

Why didn't I just wait until the summer was over to move back???? Oh yea... because I didn't want to do another year-end at Sky. Happy year-end, Sky friends!