Our day at the Aussie Open

Today was the day that we had tickets to the Aussie Open in Melbourne. We checked in at the local railway station yesterday it took about fifteen minutes to get a car park so we figured that wasnt an option. We got Myiki tickets, $3 for the card and the guy put $4 on them which he said would be what we needed to take bus and train plus return for the day.

Gates opened at ten with the matches underway at 11 am. We left the caravan park at 8.15 to catch a bus, had about a five minute walk. As we walked into the train station and found a seat the train pulled in. The station is the end of the line so it wasn't going anywhere for a few minutes.There were a few people going to the tennis and I hear them say that during the tennis they open the other end of the station so people came walk straight there.Once we got to Richmond, hoards of people got off and swarmed down the footpath, we were swept away with the crowds. That was no problems but finding where to go once we got into the arena was more of a hassle, luckily it was sign posted and we walked around the main arena because it was cooler to find the Margaret Court Arena where we had seats.

Although we were up high about nineteen rows back from the action, we were able to see everything, it was brilliant.

The camera does seem to put it further away than it actually was.

We saw Madison Keyes and Andy Murray.

Warren decided to wear his Emirates hat that he was given at the Brisbane International, I just had to take a photo of it.

Once we has finished watching, we took an easy walk back to the station and as we walked in, the train pulled up, I'm sure we were just lucky but it was great timing. 

Brisbane International Tennis

This year Warren and I are again volunteering at the tennis.

This is the uniform for the event with dark blue shorts. The shorts are okay when standing but do ride up a bit when sitting. There is a wide brimmed hat that is also put of it, with open weave on the sides to breathe.

It hasnt been as hot this time which is good and yesterday was wet all day so some matches had to be changed, luckily there was one match were someone pulled out which meant one outside match could go inside and then that finished reasonably early and so they put anpther on as well. As these matches were schedules for outside, people could go into the arena on a ground pass so people were happy.

It was a quick turn around as they finished at 6.15 pm, it had to be emptied and cleaned before it was opened again for the night session. Tight but doable.

I am not working each day as the heat gets to be a bit so I am only working every second day, Warren is working every day but we wont do the finals. By then it is only the main stadium and only half of the volunteers are needed.

Swapped car for microwave

Not really but we did buy a new microwave after getting the money for the car. As we were both together and out at the same time, I had suggested to Warren that he bought some new shorts. He likes to wear shorts most of the time and has quite a few tennis shorts, thank to volunteering at the Brisbane International. These shorts are fine, for tennis, not so fine for socializing.

He grumbled a bit but agreed to look although he didnt want to go to a mens wear shop only to Kmart. As we were nearing the mens department, one of the smallest sections in the store, we past by jocks and socks and there were lots of jocks with the days on them. Joking, I said to Warren that he should buy a pack then he would know what day it was when we were travelling. He took me up on it and decided to buy a pack.

On the way to the check out to pay there was a microwave advertised for $49. I had been looking on-line at new ones and they were around $100 or so. Our old one had developed a few rust spots and I thought to replace it but it wasn't a high priority but at that price I couldn't go past it. Our house sitters will have a brand new microwave. It works well, thankfully it operates much the same as the old one and being smaller its takes up less space on the bench.

A weekend of Sports

I am an Armchair sports person, love watching most sports and this weekend has been a bonus for me. Davis Cup on Friday, unfortunately our two young guys lost.

Friday night we were switching between football and cricket, the Ashes are being played in London at the moment and Aussies lost the first test so we need to win the next.

Saturday was Davis Cup again a doubles match with our older guys, Sam Goth and Leighton Hewitt. Leighton is in his last year of tennis but still up there with the best of them esp when playing for country. We won and the boys played brilliantly, it meant that we were still in with a chance. After dinner was another game of footy, Warren's team and cricket. Again it was flicking between channels, something that doesn't usually happen in this household.

Early this morning we drove to Toowoomba, a three hour drive, completed our business there, had a late lunch and arrived home mid afternoon. Hoping that tennis may still be on, I turned the TV on to see Leighton s playing and it seems that he was pulling out all the stops. Yes, Sam had won this morning which meant we were still in the running if Leighton could pull off a win. He was one set up and just powered on to win, putting Australia into the semi finals against Britain later this year. It is the first time that Aussies have been in the semi's since 1938, seems incredible but that is what the commentators said. I will google it to be sure.

So a win in the tennis, a win for Hawthorn, Warren's team My team lost but we didnt get that on TV and it was a match between the two South Australia teams his afternoon and ended up very close. It looks like we will win the cricket too putting us on equal footing then with England.

Davis Cup (tennis)

My cold returned last night, lucky me and as I was stuffed up and it was going to be very cold, I decided to take the day off and hopefully get rid of the dratted cold altogether. I have rugged up well and stayed inside and done very little except keep hydrated. Coffee, hot chocolate, hot fresh orange juice with honey and ginger plus soup for lunch.

I am not a fan of daytime TV but not having much energy to do anything else I was flicked through the channels to pick the best thing to watch when I noticed Davis Cup Tennis live from Darwin. Thats it, that's where I am, in front of the TV with my many drinks, rug over the knees and wearing Warren's ugg boots. I don't possess any as I don't need any (today is an exception and he is wearing his $35 pair of NZ socks anyway).

First game is over and unfortunately our young guy got beaten, he is only nineteen but I think he will end up being better than the our other two young guys. They are 22, 20 and 19 years of age and ranking is 26, 38 and 69 at the moment.

While there is a break, I am catching up here and clearing up some cups. I have almost finished a kids beanie while the first game was on so should finish it in the second game.

Australia is playing Kazatan (my apologies for spelling)

Massages

I am in demand at the moment to do said massages. Warren pulled a muscle or something in his forehand last week. It must have been very bad as he coudnt finish his game of tennis. A couple of times a day over the weekend, he asked with a sheepish look "Could you please do my arm?"

I had never done any massaging before he started footy boundary running at age fifty, the knots that he got in his leg after a game was incredible and I was instructed to massage baby oil and push through the muscles. It must have worked as I have been called many times since then.

He went back to tennis yesterday a week of lay off and was happy with how he served and he played again today so i figure that it is almost back to normal, although he did mention that it needs a good rub again tonight.

Maybe I should set up a payment plan?

Yay,The tennis is coming!

Warren and I are volunteering at the tennis again this year, that's the Brisbane International. We have been in this morning leaving home at 6.30am for a induction morning of three hours. The uniforms have been done by a different group this year and they feel good.

Instead of unisex shirts and men's shorts I was able to get women's sizes, the women's are fitted but I was quite comfy in it. We get two shirts and two shorts plus a hat.

Five weeks until it starts 2015 will not be going over New year but starting on Fri 2nd Jan, We have our passes and our rosters plus our timings, we are both in the same group as last year so its nice that we know them already.

"There's been a fall"

Warren went bike riding last Sunday, he hasn't been since we went to Jandawee in July, due to either weather or other things on or no-one to ride with him. Far better if they have a "buddy" if there is a fall or worse then some one knows they are out on the track, although the organizers do a good job of clocking each rider out and back in again.

Anyway, this ride was only a couple of hours away tops and it was a one day rather than a weekend and I decided not to go (I needed to stay home and write!) .

Some one who will remain nameless had a fall off his bike and the bruises have been coming out all week. A scrape on his upper arm, a stiff finger, a cut under his chin probably from the helmet strap and a sore knee. I said to him when he got home "I suppose you won't be playing tomorrow then?" "of course I will, I'm sore on my left arm I don't play tennis with my left!" oops sorry I asked but I gathered that the injuries weren't all that bad then.

He had apparently gunned it up a slope and it was turning to the left and got into some loose gravel and the bike started to go and he knew that he just had to go with it. He said that he was out in front so no-one actually saw him fall off.

Spring

First day of spring today and it is a beautiful day, 25 degrees on the patio. I feel as though I have an extra afternoon off today as we were going to go to the Tennis centre and help out with a mail out, but they rang this morning to say that things were not ready yet so we have the afternoon to ourselves.

I shopped this morning and used my Coles voucher so got $107 worrth of food for $53, I stocked up n some items for the pantry. MY DD say that its not savings unless the money that you didn't spend goes into savings so I took it and added it to the car loan. I reached my own goal for the end of the month so feeling a bit chipper about that. I like to challenge myself to see if I can do it. My next goal is to be under a certain amount by the end of October, doable I think but will need to be on top of things to achieve it.

Anyway, with our free afternoon we are continuing to prepare the caravan for its first trip with us. Warren is cleaning the roof and I am going to clean inside the cupboards ready t put crockery and cutlery in. We also need to check if the lights etc work as it has sat in the back yard for eight months.

I also want to change over my clothes, put away the jumpers and get out the lighter things out.

Wimbledon tennis

I love watching the tennis and have been watching Wimbledon this week, unfortunately it is only shown on TV at 8.30pm. I have et the rule that i will watch the first set as its usually an Aussie up first and we tape the rest of the match.

Even though we heard that Lleyton (Hewitt) our number one player had won his first match we still watched what we had recorded.

This year Australia had the most player in years, I think thirteen, maybe it was an unlucky number as we only have one after the first week. Nick Kyrgio played last night but it was delayed because of rain so we were able to watch all of the footy (Brisbane v North Melbourne) I'm sure no-one expected Brisbane to win but they got in front and managed to stay there, winning by nine points in the end. During the week Jono Brown had retired, he had been their go to player for years but in his last game had been concussed again and doctors advised him to call it quits.  It did seem as though the players were giving 110% to win a game for Brownie, he was there for his send off and walked the boundary at half time with his kids. In an interview, he said that it had been a busy week for him, Sunday evening he had met with his coach and discussed his options, Monday he announced to the media his immediate retirement and next Tuesday morning his wife gave birth to their third child, since then he had been between the hospital and giving interviews.

Anyway, rather than chose between the footy and the tennis, we got to see both until the rain came and stopped it. Nick was down four games to one and we really thought that he may have gone out but we taped it anyway. This morning's news before we could stop it we heard that he had won thru.

We havent seen the match yet but will probably watch it tomorrow. Nick was/is the only teenager playing (male) as there is a sixteen year old female who has now gone out. Nick had to play qualifying to get a place and has already put out the thirteen seed no hes no slouch, looking forward to seeing him jump up the ranks. I have an app on my tablet re tennis and after his game two days ago he has gone from 245 place to 86, there are now five aussies in the top one hundred.

Federation Cup (women's tennis)

A couple of weeks ago we both received an email asking us if we would like to volunteer as ushers at the Fed Cup. We were going to buy tickets and had not got around to it, thank goodness. We said yes and we were in!

We had to go in for an induction meeting and collect our uniform which consisted of a hat, T-shirt and our pass. Fed Cup lasts for two days and was the best of three out of a possible five, four singles and a doubles match.

Only twenty ushers were needed so we felt quite honoured to be asked and then selected. It was much more relaxed than the Brisbane International. I was put with another woman, who had only worked in Corporate services before,so I had to show her the ropes of being an usher, due to numbers there was only two on each door but it was pretty easy as there was no need to check tickets and patrons could sit where they wanted,so our job was really only to open and close the doors at the right time and make sure that people didn't move round while play was on.

Yesterday we started at 10am, with the doors opening at eleven, play starting at 12 noon. They played the  two singles and both our girls didn't play that well and they lost their matches, but they were playing girls rated higher than them. It was a Semi finals against Germany.

Today, play was later starting and it took us over two hours to get there because of trail track work.We had to take a bus between Roma Street and South Brisbane. Sam played Kerber today and won the first set but went missing in the second set, losing it six nil, the third set was very good and it could have been anyones but Kerber won out in the end. That was the third and meant that Germany had won their way into the final.

Although it was a dead rubber, the doubles were played by Casey and Ashleigh, boy did they play well and ended up winning in a profession tie breaker. Some people left but many people stayed and watched the doubles which was good for all the girls.

Play finished around 5pm and then dinner was supplied for us, we were thinking sandwiches and maybe party pies. Prawns, oysters party pies, scones, fruit, boy what a feast! Best thing for me was our girl team, Sam, Ash and Casey came out and pinched some our food when passing by and I got to speak to all of them.

Arrived home at 8.30, legs are tired and so is the rest of the body but it was a good weekend.

Lake Boondoonma

A few weeks ago I reminded Warren that we promised ourselves that when we retired we would take off for a few days every six weeks or so. The last time we went somewhere was in November and it has been hot so we decided on the last weekend in March. We got out the mapand camping books and chose a spot, I thought only a couple of hours from home but Warren saw a place which he thought would be nice. AFL tickets came up and we bought three day games in Brisbane, the first being on yep,you guessed it 30 March, when we were going to go away. easy fixed we just brought our camping trip forward a week.

As we do have commitments through the week, even though they are social, we tried to fit around them so we went from Friday to Tuesday, Warren would miss one session of tennis. I packed all our food for the four days as well as lunch and coffee to have on the way.

Our Navman keep wanting us to take small goat track roads which we didn't so we continued on the road, unfortunately we had only packed the Camping book not a map book. Following the bitumen road, we ended up on top of a mountain and then the road went into dirt, we retracedour tracks. Finally we got there, determined to change the settings on the GPS.

Although we had rang and booked a spot, the park put us into the old park or over flow which was about 4kms away on a cliff looking over the lake. Hummmm, about twenty other vans there and all the facilities were three toilets and two showers, no kiosk, no picnic tables, no playground (that didn't concern us)no boat ramp, no camp kitchen, and no access to the water and no discount for having to drive four kms to these. Oh I forgot, as mentioned on the web site there was a tennis court in our part, we had packed the racquets and ventured over. The painted lines were pretty worn, the net was a cobbled together with cables ties and there was holes in the asphalt plus a few/lot of weeds growing through it, in other words unusable.

The next morning we made our way to the kiosk to buy a fishing license and bait and bread if they had some, cost us $22 for those three things. Sunday we went into the nearest big town but as it was Sunday most things were closed. We did manage to get fuel thank goodness and found Joe's dam, not going to try to spell his name! Premier of Qld, we sat and watched skiers while we ate our packed lunch.

It was quite hot and the camper is not the coolest thing around so we decided to return home a day early, even though we had paid for four nights. I said to Warren that we need to research our places better and next time it would be my choice. We did get the chance to relax and do very little with no phones or computer so it wasn't all lost. Many people were there but they were mad fisher people who had boats and were going out to net red claw. Didn't

even take any photos. This is our camper taken elsewhere but the set up is the same.