A Fery good day!

Sophie and I were very excited about our day at Wimbledon, and although we had been a little disappointed that Sinner wasn't playing (he was on Court 1 anyway on Tuesday), we were delighted that we'd be seeing the Fery-Cobolli match instead. Arthur Fery was a British wildcard and had done brilliantly at getting through to the quarter-finals. We were hoping for a fantastic match, and knew that there would be a huge amount of interest!

Sophie had frozen a bottle of German white wine (she thought we would be seeing Zverev) and chilled a bottle of Cava for tipples while we watched. Keith had spent yesterday morning making sausage rolls for us, and these were all packed into a cool bag. We took the two plastic Wimbledon glasses Sophie had acquired on her previous trip, and we were all set to go!

Keith dropped us off at Northampton station, and we bought drinks and pastries to eat before we boarded the train. It was already warm, and we were hoping we wouldn't be too hot later in the day. We had dressed in loose trousers and tops, and I took the hat I bought in France with me.

We grabbed seats on the train and chatted. As we drew near Euston, the train became more crowded, and a young woman standing next to me sank to the floor to try to sit down. I offered her my seat, but she wouldn't take it, even though I offered it twice. The sun was shining relentlessly out of a clear blue sky outside, and the glare from the cars and glass on the buildings was intense.

At Euston, we had a few minutes of difficulty locating our pre-booked Addison Lee car. We found him in the taxi rank with one of the station staff talking to him. We jumped in, and he set off straightaway, thank goodness, but the air conditioning certainly wasn't very strong, and I nearly had to ask him to cool down the car as I was so warm!

It took us over an hour to get to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (a.k.a. Wimbledon) through a maze of London streets teeming with cars, cyclists, pedestrians and scooters. The driver dropped us off a short walk from the entrance, and we joined a throng of other people heading into the grounds. We had to show photographic ID and then our tickets on our phones, which Sophie had sorted out for me. 

Once into the hallowed grounds (it was so good to see the familiar ivy-covered Centre Court), we made our way past The Hill (formerly Henman Hill) to get a glass of Pimms.

The grounds were very busy, and there were long queues for drinks and food. I managed to grab a seat in the shade while Sophie bought the drinks - £13.45 for a glass! While we sipped our drinks, we munched on Keith's sausage rolls, watching other people eating expensive sandwiches and salads!

Our next-door neighbours, Vince and Sue, had kindly lent us their hand-held fans, and they came in very useful today! One of the things that I noticed was the lack of shaded areas to sit at Wimbledon and the lack of seating itself. Seats under an umbrella were hugely coveted!

We finished our drinks, put the plastic glasses into a bin for recycling (we could have had a £1 back, but you can donate to charity) and decided to have a look around. It was very crowded and hot, and the idea of going to look at the outer courts didn't appeal. There were matches taking place on these, but I hadn't heard of any of the players. I was so pleased we had managed to get Centre Court tickets; you can get a Grounds ticket, but that definitely didn't appeal!

A wheelchair match was taking place here

As it was getting close to the 1:30pm start time, we made our way into the underneath area of Centre Court. Here, there were big display screens with all the previous winners, some going right back to the late 1800s!

We found the correct entrance and walked up a flight of steps, where we had to show our tickets again. We then turned right, went up to Level S and along to our seats. We had a fantastic view!

Gradually, the seats filled, and we had a row of people in front of us who had Hospitality lanyards around their necks. I could tell that they were wealthy just by looking at them, but they didn't seem interested in the tennis at all when the Ladies' Quarterfinals started between Marta Kostyuk and Jasmine Paolini. They were solidly engrossed in their phones, checking emails and messages (I could see clearly from where I was sitting) and showed no emotion at all.

We watched avidly as the spectators in the Royal Box arrived, and I spotted Queen Camilla immediately. She had a lovely blue dress on! We also think we saw Roger Federer and his wife (I later found out that Jason Isaacs was there, as well as Dominic West!).

The Royal Box

Sophie and I thoroughly enjoyed the Women's Quarterfinals and predicted that the Ukrainian player, Kostyuk, would win. She did so in two sets. There was a short break before the Men's Quarterfinals started, and we finished off the sausage rolls and the Cava!

Luckily, our seats were in the shade the whole time we were there, and I did feel for the spectators opposite who were sitting in full sun. The people were using fans to cool down, but it must have been so hot.

Shaded seats, thank goodness!

We were looking forward to a great match between Cobolli and Fery, and I hoped it would have some drama and tension. Fery won the first set 6-4, and there was a tie-break in the second, with Fery winning. The crowd went wild whenever he won a point, and Sophie said she felt a bit sorry for Cobolli, as he was definitely the underdog. This is a huge thing for Great Britain, though, as we don't seem to produce winners at tennis (I sometimes forget that Andy Murray is British, as he seems so passionately Scottish first and foremost!) in any great number!

We both thought that Cobolli gave up in the third set as he lost without winning a game. I couldn't believe the great roar of noise when Fery won the last point, and everyone stood up to cheer and go wild! He will face Zverev in the Semifinals on Friday, and Sinner and Djokovic will play as well. Who will be in the Final on Sunday?

We stayed for the interview and then made our way out with thousands of other people. Sophie wanted to visit the shop to buy a towel (£40), and she also bought some hair scrunchies as well. We then went in search of the loos and stopped to buy a bottle of Evian water on the way. We had consumed two bottles of wine over the four hours and hadn't drunk any water at all, so we needed some desperately. We had no choice but to buy a bottle for £5 each; if we had bought them earlier, they would have been filled again for free.

After using the loos, we made our way out of the grounds, but left a different way. Sophie tried in vain to get either an Uber or an Addison Lee car, but a lot of the surrounding roads were closed, and hundreds of people all had the same idea...

I had to stop and take some tablets for a thumping headache (I only had myself to blame), and we started going up a long, steep hill. It was utterly horrible and still relentlessly hot! Sophie then said we were going the wrong way, so we turned around and went back towards the grounds. We spotted a taxi rank queue (horrendous) and one for the bus to take people to the train station.

Some people were being picked up by sleek, black Mercedes and cabs, but it was fruitless searching for an Uber, and we were quoted £120 for one to Marylebone. Sophie descended into a bad mood after the elation of the match, and I tried to cheer her up by saying we would sort something out, but we might have to forego a nice dinner!

In the end, we had no choice but to join the bus queue, which cost us £4 each! People were also queuing for the Park and Ride, and they looked fed up as well! It took us about an hour and a half from leaving the grounds to get to the station, and thankfully, the bus was air-conditioned, so we had a pleasant journey. On the High Street, we saw lots of lovely restaurants and every other person seemed to be carrying a Wimbledon bag!

We used our debit cards to buy tickets and took the District Line to Victoria, where we could change. At first, the train was quiet, but at Southfields Station, a huge swarm of people boarded, obviously all from Wimbledon, so there was a huge crush. I was glad the train was air-conditioned as well!

A lot of people disembarked at Earls Court, which gave us some room. At Victoria, we took the Victoria line and had three stops to go before Euston. We had given up on having anything to eat as we didn't want to be too late back to Northampton.

Unfortunately, the underground train we were on was hot and stuffy and at Oxford Circus, the train stopped, and there was an announcement that there would be a slight delay. I was already uncomfortable being on the Underground (I hate it), so we decided to go and get a taxi. Standing on a hot train was not my idea of fun, and we had no idea of how long the delay would last.

Up at ground level, we hailed a black cab that took us to Euston. We were able to board the 8:56pm train immediately, and made the mistake of sitting next to a very strange man who reached out to touch Sophie's Wimbledon bag. We rapidly found another couple of seats!

On the way to Northampton, we chatted to a woman in the opposite seat who was very interesting, and ever so slightly mad! She was three years older than Sophie and told us all about her job and how she gnawed at her fingers when she was anxious!

Keith was waiting to collect us and take us home. Driving back, it was still registering 27c! Phew! Sophie spent some time outside with the cats while I had a drink and made myself cheese on toast. We watched a few bits of the matches today, and then it was definitely time for bed!