New balls please.....

With a long-planned visit by my elderly mother from Ireland, plans were thrown into confusion by a conversation between her and a fellow crocheter (?!) who had just returned from Wimbledon.  Mum expressed how much she would have loved to have gone at some time, but felt that the opportunity had passed her by.  Well within a few hours, Mum was presented with the offer of a couple of complementary tickets for the Ladies Singles finals on Saturday from a well-connected relative of her friend.  An opportunity too good to miss, and I was happy to take her on the 480mile round-trip on Saturday.  We managed to park in the car-park nearest to the main gate, and as I had a wheelchair to save Mum walking, we were put in the nearest part of the car-park to the gate!  I do not think it would have been possible to get any closer.  

I picked up the ticket which had been left in a booth for us (£105 pounds face value each!), and found our way the short distance to our seats.  A bit of a hassle to find a secure place to park the wheelchair, and just made it in to the arena in time for the players to walk out.

Getting a bit late to the seat, and a little flustered I missed the reminder announcement to turn mobile phones off, something that I normally do religiously, as I get hugely annoyed by the thoughtless numpties that allow their phones to go off at the most inopportune moments...    Sure enough, shortly after the match started my phone started emitting the rather loud call of a Scops Owl and I struggled to dig my phone out of my pocket to silence it.  It just happened to be my best mate Pog texting me to find out where we were sat in order that he could look out for us on the TV.  Bloody typical, if rather amusing in hindsight, but I had visions of being featured on the 6 o'clock news as the idiot that interrupted the 2012 Ladies Final!

No apologies for the indulgence of a few action shots of the day, and some shots of the two of us taken at distance by the generous benefactor who had supplied the tickets.

A quick close-up of the Royal Box, and I reckon there is one minor Royal, one actor and five Ladies tennis players...how many can you see?   Answers at the bottom of the page.

And some more photos of the after-match presentation.

Mum and I are extreme left, 2nd row in, me with the dark baseball cap....

 

A great day out, some superb tennis, including part of the mixed doubles, and some strawberries and cream from Centre Court, and Mum achieving a life-long ambition....

Marray in action...at least he won...

ANSWER to the celebs in the Royal Box
...and those in the picture were Prince Michael of Kent in front row, John Hurt in 2nd row with Navratilova, in third row Billie-Jean King, Ginnie Wade and Ann Jones, and Tracey Austin in row 4.