tennis

4 London Summertime Traditions, 1 (Long) Weekend

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July was a particularly busy month this year. Between loads of end-of-school-year activities for both kids and people trying to get their summertime soirees in before everyone headed out of the city for the month of August, our family calendar was booked.

And there was one week in mid-July that must have broken some record in how many things I managed to squeeze into four days. Apparently I was trying to do as many British summertime activities as I could before spending a month doing American summertime things. Here’s a recap of the weekend we did All the Things: Continue reading →

Wimbledon No. 1 Court Celebration

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Last Sunday, the famous Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club opened its new £70 million, five-years-in-the-making retractable roof over No. 1 Court (and also closed it, due to rain), and threw a big do to celebrate, which was broadcast live on BBC1.

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Since I have as yet been unlucky in the Wimbledon Championships ticket lottery every year we’ve lived here, and we won’t be here forever, I figured this might be the closest I ever get to attending the Championships. These tickets were easier to get, and I still got to eat strawberries and cream and drink Pimm’s while watching the pros play on the famous lawn court. And we had great seats, too! (Plus, some of the proceeds went to charity.)

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Weeee are the chaaampions

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Queen’s Tennis

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Well, I’ve been unsuccessful two years in a row in securing tickets for Wimbledon (unless some miracle happens between now and July), but last week a broker M works with offered him two tickets to the Queen’s Club Championship Finals, which is kind of a warm-up for Wimbledon and draws some major players, and we jumped at the chance to go.

We got a babysitter for the girls and enjoyed that rare treat: a day date! Continue reading →

Watching the Wimbledon

~ walksbetweenthecommons ~ 2 Comments

The Wimbledon tennis championships are a big deal here, as you may have guessed, and I really wanted to go. Turns out it’s not so easy to get tickets. You have to put your name in sometime before Christmas and hope you get lucky, or else have a connection to get you tickets. And if you don’t get tickets ahead of time, you join The Queue.

There are a whole bunch of rules about queuing for Wimbledon tickets, but in a nutshell, you have to get there really, really early, or even camp there overnight. This is not really an option for mothers of young children.

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