Sunday Snaps #13 - Our Summer

Time flies and I can’t quite believe that it’s been almost 5 months since I last posted on this site. Time has been short and for this, and a bunch of other reasons that I won’t bore you with, this blog has been just a little neglected over the summer. So, in order to get back into the swing of this blogging lark, I figured that it would be a good idea to resurrect my Sunday Snaps thread and share a few pictures that either Dori or I took during the summer. I hope you enjoy them :)

These first two photos were taken in St James’s Park, just across the way from Buckingham Palace in London. They were taken on the beautifully sunny day that followed the Royal Wedding way back in April. It was a lot calmer strolling through the park that day than it had been 24 hours earlier amongst the joyous chaos of the wedding celebrations!

These nest three snaps were, fairly obviously, taken during our trip up to this year’s Wimbledon championships. The day we were there was one of the hottest days of the year, though as the rest of the summer was fairly non-existent, that isn’t saying too much! Anyway, we had a great time and saw some really great matches, as I talked about over on my sports blog at the time.

The last couple of pictures are from our day-trip down to the south coast town of Bournemouth. We had a really great day out, and thoroughly enjoyed our first visit to the coast for 3 or 4 years.

Well, that was the summer that was. Halloween is just round the corner, and Christmas is only three months away. I swear that time is speeding up! Anyhoo, I will be trying to blog a little more regularly again from now on, so please drop by when you can and pay a visit. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!! Til next time.

Weekend at the Yellow House

I hope that everybody who celebrates it had a great 4th of July. Coming from two places, as we do, Dori and I get to celebrate the holidays from both places, which is great. We can celebrate Independence Day, as well as Bonfire Night, Memorial Day, St George’s Day, Thanksgiving and all the others. There is nothing like a good excuse for a celebration :-)

On Sunday we cooked burgers, corn on the cob and beans and bacon and had a great eat-out meal – although we actually had it indoors for one reason and another. As a Brit, I guess I shouldn’t really be joining in on 4th of July celebrations, but what the hey! It was a good day.

As we ate our celebration food, we also watched the men’s final at Wimbledon. Not unexpectedly, Britain’s Andy Murray failed to make it into the final and so it will be at least 73 years now between the last British finalist and the next! Both the men’s and women’s finals were a little one-sided and were decided in straight sets. But both were won by true champions of the game, and congratulations have to go to both of the deserved winners – Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal. It has been a great Wimbledon fortnight this year, with many a cracking match – not least the longest tennis match ever. And there was not a single rain delay in the whole two weeks, which is a very rare occurrence indeed! The Wimbledon fortnight is my favourite two weeks of the year, as I have mentioned here before, and this year was no exception.

Of course, this year I also had the added distraction of the World Cup taking place simultaneously, over in South Africa. On more than one occasion I found myself watching the football on the TV, whilst having my other eye on the tennis on my laptop! It’s not easy – even less so when you are also tweeting about both events at the same time!! Who says that men can’t multi-task!

Talking of the World Cup, we are now at the semi-final stage having seen some shock results in the quarter-finals. What was looking like a Brazil-Argentina final has now totally been thrown out of the window after both teams were eliminated in the last round. The quarter-finals also saw the end of the last African team in the tournament, as Ghana were beaten by Uruguay in a penalty shoot-out. This now leaves Uruguay plus three European teams in the competition. Tonight sees Uruguay take on the Netherlands, and then tomorrow Germany will play against Spain. The winners will meet in the final, to be played on Sunday.

Other than the sport, it has been a relatively quiet time at the Yellow House. Dori is now just about recovered from the jet-lag and we are slipping back into our routines. It is good to be back together again :-)

We have a wedding reception to attend on Friday, so that may prove interesting as it is being held in a hotel that we have been trying to find an excuse to visit for a long while. LOL You may hear more about that on one of our blogs at the weekend!

I hope that you all have a good week.

Crunch Time

Today is a big sporting day. At Wimbledon it is men’s semi-finals day, and in South Africa we have the first quarter-final matches of the World Cup. My place on the sofa in front of the TV is already reserved!

Just like last year, Britain’s Andy Murray has made his way into the semi-final at Wimbledon, and that means that the nation and the press in particular are now getting very excited about the prospect of a British men’s champion for the first time since 1936. Although Roger Federer has now been knocked out, it still won’t be an easy task for Murray, as he has to play world number one Rafa Nadal today. Should he reach the final (a big if) he will be the first Briton to play in the men’s final since 1938. The nation would, no doubt, go into complete tennis fever !!

That fever will be heightened because there is no longer a distraction being caused by the England football team at the World Cup. They were beaten – well beaten – last weekend by Germany, and left the competition in ignominy. England has perhaps the greatest club competition in the Premier League, in which many world stars compete, but the national side have performed nowhere near those levels. In fact, so poor were they that there has even been a call for a Parliamentary inquiry into their abysmal showing! I have to say it is the worst performance I can ever remember from an England team at a World Cup finals, but that may be taking things a tad too far!

Anyway, the competition continues, and today sees Brazil take on the Netherlands in what could be the game of the tournament, and unfancied Uruguay play against the even more unfancied Ghana. It would be wonderful if Africa’s first ever World Cup were to see an African nation in the semi-finals, and they certainly stand a chance. Tomorrow will see Germany play Argentina – another clash of the titans – and Spain will play Paraguay. It should be a very exciting couple of days, and I am sure there will be much drama. The semi-finals take place on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, and the final is on the following Sunday.

So, even with the inglorious showing of the England team, there is still plenty of sporting action to look forward to over the next 10 days. Now I have to go and claim that space on the sofa...

A Sporting Time

So, I’m in Brit Boy sporting heaven right now :-) The World Cup has been going for 10 days already and is reaching the end of the group stage. This is where the fun really begins as every match is absolutely crucial.

England’s campaign so far has been abysmal, but long experience has shown me that they nearly always start big tournaments slowly and then improve as the competition progresses. They have drawn both of their opening games, and so have to win their third group match on Wednesday to go forward into the knock-out stages. Their poor performance so far has been a major item on all of the news shows here, quite often being the lead story! The country is certainly getting itself into a bit of a lather over their below-par showing. So, I am keeping everything crossed that the players will rediscover their form tomorrow and be able to beat Slovenia.

And, as well as the football still proceeding, yesterday saw the start of Wimbledon 2010. And what a start to the fortnight it was too! Six-time champion Roger Federer came extremely close to going out in the very first round. He lost the first two sets to Alejandro Falla, a Colombian ranked 60th in the world. But Federer isn’t the great champion he is just by accident. He drew on all of his reserves and experience to claw his way back into the match, and eventually ran out the winner, taking the fifth set 6-0.

That wasn’t the only near shock on the opening day either, with Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko both being taken to five sets to win their matches too. Djokovic’s match didn’t finish until 11pm local time, and was completed under Centre Court’s new roof that was installed last year. Late matches like this are a new thing for Wimbledon, having only been made possible by having the aforesaid roof put on the top of Centre Court.

I am sure that Dori was glad she wasn’t here yesterday as there was 12 hours of sport on the TV non-stop! And that is likely to continue for a while yet – as I said, Brit Boy sporting heaven!

The Summer of Sport

Spring has finally sprung – both ’officially’ and in reality, and now is a time to look forward to the warmer months ahead. And for a sports nut like me, that means a host of great events to anticipate.

This coming summer will see the biggest event of them all – The FIFA World Cup, which is being hosted by South Africa. This will be by far the largest sports event ever to take place on the African continent, and promises to be a spectacular tournament. The opening game will take place in Johannesburg on June 11th and will feature the hosts taking on Mexico. Some 32 nations will compete over the following month through the group stage, quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final itself to be crowned World Champions on July 11th. Spain and Brazil are the current favourites, but there are plenty of other genuine contenders to claim the trophy.

The first major tournament of this sporting season will be the US Masters, which as always takes place in Augusta, Georgia. This year the big focus will obviously be on Tiger Woods’ return to golfing action after his personal troubles that came to light very publicly on Thanksgiving last year. What price a Tiger win in his first event back? The Masters is my favourite golf tournament of the year and Augusta is a beautiful course. Getting to go there in person one year is definitely on my To Do list.

And then there is what is often referred to as the Great British Summer of Sport, featuring such events as The Boat Race, The Grand National, the London Marathon, the FA Cup Final, the Derby, Wimbledon, the British Open and the British Grand Prix.

Here are some of the important dates to note:

The Boat Race	The Thames, London	April 3
US Masters	Augusta National, Augusta, Georgia	April 8 - 11
Grand National	Aintree, Liverpool	April 10
London Marathon	London	April 25
FA Cup Final	Wembley Stadium, London	May 15
Football League Play-Off Finals	Wembley Stadium, London	May 22, 29, 30
The Derby	Epsom Downs, Surrey	June 5
FIFA World Cup	South Africa	June 11 - July 11
Royal Ascot	Ascot, Berkshire	June 15 – 19
Wimbledon	Wimbledon, London	June 21 - July 4
British Grand Prix	Silverstone, Northamptonshire	July 11
British Open	St Andrews, Scotland	July 15 - 18
England Test Cricket Series	England	July 29 - August 30

And then finally, and I accept this is way after the summer will have ended, there will be the Ryder Cup. This year it will be played at Celtic Manor in South Wales from October 1st to 3rd, and the Europeans will be out to avenge the heavy defeat that they suffered at Valhalla back in 2008. The captains this year will be Corey Pavin and Colin Montgomerie and I am sure the competition will be as white-hot as usual.

I just can’t wait

Strawberries and Cream

This is my favourite time of year. The evenings are long – not getting truly dark until about 11pm – the mornings are bright, the weather is (sometimes) glorious, the trees and bushes are at their height of greenness and there is Wimbledon on the TV and radio.

As you know, I am a bit of a sports nut. Football is my main game, but I have always loved Wimbledon fortnight. It is something that I have grown up watching, always on the BBC, and I fondly remember listening to the tennis on the radio, in Victoria Park in Bath, after my exams had finished when I was a student in the city. Nowadays I always make a point of taking leave for at least one of the two weeks of Wimbledon, so that I can fully enjoy the vibe of the fortnight.

Last year we were extremely lucky to get tickets on Centre Court for the second day of play, and got to see Venus Williams, Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray all play. It was a dream come true, and the actual experience of being there did not disappoint after all those years of expectation. Of course, we obviously had to do the “Strawberries and Cream” thing while we were there, as seen here:



Dori blogged about our trip to Wimbledon at the time, check out what she had to say here.

As this is Wimbledon fortnight, I have been on leave since last Friday, and we have had a quiet week so far. The untimely passing of Michael Jackson, on Thursday evening, left us both feeling rather flat for a good few days. It has been difficult getting up the enthusiasm for doing much of anything. Over the last couple of days though we have stirred ourselves into action and started to get some of those “I’ll do it when I get time” jobs completed. This morning it was gardening and mowing of the lawns, which we completed earlier in the day as it has been getting quite hot in the afternoons over the last few days. Doing the jobs early in the day also means that the afternoons are free to enjoy the tennis :-)

Today is men’s quarter-finals day, and, as I write this, Roger Federer is already through to the semis and Andy Murray is trying to emulate that feat. Here in the UK there is considerable excitement and anticipation that Murray could become the first British male player to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry way back in 1936. Of course, there is still a good deal of work to do before that could happen, and I think Federer must still remain favourite at this point. But if the first full match to be played under Wimbledon’s new Centre Court roof is anything to go by, Murray could provide a lot more thrills and spills in the coming few days!

Now, back to the tennis.....

Sunday Snaps - 1

This is the first of an occasional series, where I will post photos that Dori or I have taken on our travels. As today is also the day when the first match is played under the new roof at Wimbledon's Centre Court, where better place to start than with a couple of snaps that we took when we were lucky enough to get tickets for last year's Championships.

This is a view of the Centre Court, taken from what is colloquially known as 'Henman Hill', named after Britain's former top tennis player Tim Henman. The picture quality isn't brilliant as it was taken towards the sun on my mobile (cell) phone!

And this is a shot taken from our seats in Centre Court before the play began.

As it happened, we were able to see both the eventual men's and women's champions on that day - Rafa Nadal and Venus Williams, as well as current British No.1 Andy Murray. It was a fantastic day and we hope to experience the Wimbledon atmosphere again in the next few years.

Check out Dori's take on the whole day over at her blog.