First there were two guys brushing the lawn, followed by another two with lawnmowers, close on whose heels cam the man repainting the white lines, culminating with the guy with giant hairdrying to dry off the lines. What fun for the first hour of our first ever trip to Queens.
That's one of the upsides to moving away from England, one tends to do those things that you always say: "We must . . . ". It didn't work on Saturday morning when jokingly John suggested a trip to the coast . . . we had too much work to do around the house/garden, though I was up for getting in the car immediately and going off. Instead, after watching the men's tennis final at Roland Garros, I suggested we go to Queen's on Monday since we'd never been there before.
Being organised, we pre-booked tickets, and woke up to pouring rain! It was still raining slightly when we arrived at Baron's Court, but, luckily soon stopped.
We made a good choice of court - it truly reflected our current lifestyle. The first match was between two Brits (Ward beat Cox for those of you who give a damn), followed by 2 francais. So we didn't have to choose between our native and adopted countries (Arnaud Clement beat Benoit Paire)!
Being typically British weather, after the rain the sun came out and burnt us quite badly, then went away again and it got so cold we decided to leave. Unfortunately, our plan to eat at Racine (a deluxe Bistro at South Kensington run by a chef we saw on Saturday Kitchen) was scuppered when we looked at the state of the restaurant (very posh) and the state of us (not posh at all), so we went home. Why is it when there has been a stoppage on an underground line there are long gaps between trains? If there are enough trains to run every 2-3 minutes, where do they all go after the stoppage? There had been a broken down train at Oxford Circus, so we had to wait almost 20 minutes to get the tube we wanted. Swings and roundabouts though, since we got to Tottenham Hale just 2 minutes before our train arrived rather than having to wait for 22 minutes!
To top and tail this anecdote, we also want to make sure we get to go to all the restaurants we have been meaning to for some time. Since the Spanish restaurant was closed on a Monday, we were forced to have the meal out John had intended for my birthday but time had run out - the Lock Fyne Seafood Restaurant in Hertford.
We also have decided NOT to count the money we spend on meals out until I don't have any work and we have to economise. Unfortunately, my bathroom scales isn't into this not counting lark. Oh well, there's Veeraswamy's on Wednesday too (if you don't know it, it was the first ever Indian restaurant in England).
