wet, wet Wimbledon

Although my neighbourhood is considerably further down market, I'm really just around the corner from Wimbledon. It's technically walkable - but it's a long walk - made longer by the way the roads are cut. If I were a crow, it would be a pretty short flight.

My point is, I've lived really close to Wimbledon for a number of years and I've never been. In the opening days of the tournament you can queue for tickets at the grounds and it's quite likely, with a little luck and a little patience that you'll get to see someone quite famous. And I don't even think it's that expensive really - not in the early days.

But the truth is, I've never really gotten in to tennis. I can't play it and I can't follow it. When my c-section anaesthetist suggested that we might be anticipating the imminent arrival of a Wimbledon tennis star - me and the Vol-in-Law just scoffed. His tennis skills are almost as low as mine.

But I have to admit that I usually really like the buzz around Wimbledon. There's the usual hope and aspiration that maybe this year there'll be a British tennis star who'll win the big giant cup. This year -despite lack of play from rain - the British hopes were dashed astonishingly early.

Financial spillover

I know someone who lives in Wimbledon who rents his house out every year for the tournament and makes a bucket load of money. Although we don't live that close, we live close enough (you can pick up a special tournament time bus to Wimbledon near our house). Soon we should have a new bus route that stops almost right in front of our house (though thankfully in just the next road over - so we don't have buses going in front of us). Maybe next year we could at least organise a house swap? That might be cool.

The real spillover

Of course, the real spillover effect we get is the weather. It's a quite a cliche to say "Oh, it's Wimbledon - so it must be rainy" - and indeed this year that's been the case. And we get Wimbledon's weather. During this tourney, it seems like it rains almost exclusively during the hours of play. Early in the morning, it's lovely - blue skies, but ten the sky is leaden and by the time of kick off (or whatever the tennis equivalent might be) which is around 11 it seems to be pitching it down.

But at least we didn't get this.