The Street Where I Live

I’m settling into my cute little house on Trentham Street in Southfields. This is a small pleasant little community that borders Wimbledon. The area where I’m renting was developed in the late 19^th century and consists almost entirely of Victorian built terrace houses. These houses are connected and share common walls on both sides. They are tall and narrow, with pleasant but small back yards. Originally a working class neighborhood, the old terrace houses have been redone by young successful career people, and are now quite attractive, expensive, and trendy. Over the years I’ve rented a number of them and find that each has it’s own style and charm. It’s interesting to see what the owners have done with the space as all of these terrace houses were originally much the same.

I’m sharing a two bedroom with my good friend from Australia, “The Coach”. He has a radio show called The Coach, where he interviews people and gives reports as though he were a coach. The show is light hearted and funny with mad Aussie humor. He jokes and asks crazy questions that only the coach could get away with asking. He’s simply been called “Coach” for so long that I think everyone has forgotten his real name. We’re good mates because we both have the same level of neatness .. very high. This is important if you are going to be sharing a house with someone for two weeks.

The house is about a 30 minuet walk to the site, and as I walked across the park to the site this morning, I saw what seemed like a never ending line to purchase tickets for today’s matches. One woman told me she had already been in there for 3 and one half hours. This was at 10 AM this morning. I’m not sure if they really love tennis that much or just enjoy hanging out in the park. They come equipped with radios, lunch, blankets, games, and plenty of tennis gossip. They meet up with friends and acquaintances from previous years of queuing. I think that the queuing up is part of the fun of going to the matches for the day. Of course the English are know for the queue. This, incidentally, is the Latin for tail, so these fans are forming a tail to the Championships! There is a saying here that if an Englishman comes upon a queue he will just automatically stand in it, not necessarily even knowing what is for! Queuing at Wimbledon is such a tradition, that if you go to the official Wimbledon site there are actually guidelines and a code of conduct to follow. I will be keeping you updated on “Queue” tidbits in future blogs.

As for the matches, it was a tough day for the Serbs. Novak Djokovic who most people considered a serious contender for the title went out in straight sets to Marat Safin. Although the big Russian came into the Championships ranked 65, he was one of the most dangerous floaters in the draw. However, no one expected Djokovic, who is on the rise and has been hot lately to bow out in such an unspectacular way, double faulting the last point of the game at 5-2, in the third.

Safin, who is often the King of Clowns was uncharacteristically, calm and collected. Maybe he has finally matured enough to make the most of his spectacular talent.

While this was going on, number one seed, Ana Ivanovic was having her own problems on Court one. She finally prevailed but it took three hours and twenty three minutes for her to subdue the 97^th ranked Nathalie Dechy of France.

Well, I got here, but my bags didn’t. This is the third time in a year that my bags have been delayed. Last year at Wimbledon they didn’t show up for five days! I’m going to have to do a dance, light a candle, cast a spell for the Baggage God.

Posted by Cynthia Lum at 7:19 PM