Oh, Wimbledon fortnight, you are my favourite fortnight.
You define a perfect part of the summer. A time when I don't have to think twice about wearing shorts. A time when grass and flowers and fruit are bright, before the season ages into dark greens and rusted yellows.
This is the part of summer when I am powered by a constant friendly sunlight, and iced coffee is a novelty, and it still feels refreshing that I am exercising my body and not my brain, and the garden spiders haven't got terrifyingly fat yet, and I am outside more than I am inside.
And yes, Wimbledon fortnight, you have your faults. Each time Federer plays you give me nerves and heart palpitations to rival Mrs Bennet's. Sometimes you invite the rain and everybody jostles grumpily with their umbrellas. Sometimes dinner is really late because nobody can tear their eyes away from a long match. "Just one more game, and then I'll..." is the mantra you feed us. But your two weeks are the only two weeks of the year where I am productive enough to conquer my to-do list before 1pm, so that I can watch tennis all afternoon.
This year I was lucky enough to actually go to Centre Court, for the second time in my life, to watch the men's quarter finals. (It was also the second time in my life I *just* missed out on seeing my man Federer play; less lucky.) But still, lucky, because so many others are classed/priced out, and seats are taken up by corporate fatcats who get to go every year and spend most of the time boozing in the restaurant, emerging only to applaud Murray. Don't get me started on the Royal Bores.
SW19 is a strange unreal world of rich folk and overpriced Pimms. But it is also a stage for some of the world's greatest sportsmanship and athletic talent, poised perfectly against a backdrop of high summer. Wimbledon fortnight, you are two weeks of an almost magical season I can never reconjure come January. A fortnight where everything, even my reading list, shimmers with unlimited possibility. Where the grass is green on every side, and every court (well, you do go a bit bald round the baselines).
You are my favourite fortnight.
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