Love English speaking countries

Writing this from London where we arrived on Sunday after a lovely couple of final days in Belgium.  We had a pretty quiet day on Saturday after our big day in Luxembourg.  Went for a canoe down the Ourthe River which proved a bit of a challenge.  After our float down the Dordogne this was a bit more "dangerous" as the river was quite shallow and full of rocks.  Thank God for kayaks that skim off rocks especially when the water is cool.  Still it was lovely and we find paddling very relaxing.  Caught up on a couple of pubs in La Roche in the afternoon, John visited the "crumbly" - the castle overlooking the town - and we had a nice dinner out.

Sunday we drove acrosss to Lille and caught the Eurostar to London where our friend, Alana Britton, met us with Oyster Cards and good advice and brought us back to her place.  We basically threw our bags in and went down to Greenwich, not far from her place.  The Cutty Sark has now been remodelled and is their in all her glory.  Greenwich was buzzing on Sunday afternoon and we enjoyed walking around and going to a book shop or two, wandering through the market and then having beef and ale pie at the King's Arms.  Perfect. 

Yesterday we got up early to go out to Wimbledon for the first day of the tennis.  We had to sort out a problem with the return of our car in Lille so we were delayed a bit and got there about 8.45.  Well, Lanie and Ben, you will know what I mean when I say the queue was amazing.  We got ticket number 5704 and 5 and they issue 6000 ground passes a day.  It is so well organised and very civilised.  Can imagine this happening in other country and it sends shivers up my spine.  But not in England.  They have it sorted.  We got into the ground about 12.30 - the tennis started at 11.30 - and there we were at Wimbledon.  Had to pinch ourselves.  We went straight to a court where Carsten Ball (the Aussie) was playing doubles and got good seats and watched him.  He did not play well and they lost.  Had a good walk around.  We were surprised - it didn't seem as crowded as we thought it would be.  We got seats at every match we wanted to watch.  It's good going early in the tournament as although we didn't see any seeds you see the up and coming players who are so determined and very well matched.  Think I would rather see that than Federer win 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.  We didn't leave Wimbedon till about 8.30 pm and really enjoyed the day.  It is predicted that the weather will be iffy (well it is England) for the next two days thought today I wake up and it looks good outside. 

Glad you are home safe and well, Phil and Bea, and found that nice apartment.  You did very very well.  We didn't get to see Sam Stosur play but I tell you when we are in the country she always does well.  Like Mark Webber - I hold great hopes for him for the British GP as we'll be here.  Carmel, you look after yourself.  That does not sound good.  Look forward to our catch up on our return.

Take good care everyone.