South Africans have a particular affinity with Wimbledon and having been in London at the start of the tournament I thought I would make a trip to Wimbledon this past week. Firstly, Wimbledon is much further south of London than I would have imagined – requiring a long trip on the tube, followed by a train ride that was advertised at 20 minutes but which took 30 minutes. From there you have to catch a bus to the actual tennis courts, which is another 30 minutes and essentially, from Central London, it could quite easily take you 1 ½ hours to be outside one of the entrance gates.

Unfortunately for me, it is only at that time that you realise that even on the opening day, and even to go and watch “Mickey Mouse” play on the smallest outside court, the event is for all practical purposes sold out, and you have to join a queue, which takes 5 hours to get to the front of it, to get a ticket later that day. So, my first trip to Wimbledon did not meet with any success, only to note again while we have a culture in South Africa of booking tickets at the last minute, that does not work in big cities and if you want to do something, or there is an event that you are interested in 6 or 8 weeks’ time, you need to book tickets straightaway, book train tickets straightaway and be fully prepared – or stand in the queue, as I was offered, for 5 hours!