So that's the tennis over with for another year. Well, until the US Open in August, which isn't on TV and is mostly at night. The evenings suddenly seem so much longer, I almost don't know what to do with them.

Of course it helps to have some time in the evening. Last week was the end of the Rotaract year, so Monday and Tuesday I was out at both the Rotary clubs handover dinners, which took all evening and meant I had two late nights. Wednesday was ballet as usual, Thursday I had stuff to catch up with and before I knew it it was the end of the week. So then after all that I woke up dizzy on Saturday morning, which wasn't really a surprise.

As of last Friday I'm no longer a Rotaractor. And my Rotaract club no longer exists, which is the sadder thing of the two. We've been talking about it and sorting out closing it for so long it hasn't quite sunk in yet. And we stopped doing stuff every Tuesday a while back, so I won't even notice much on Tuesday. I do still have some website stuff to do, but there's no rush. Now I have all this free time I could conceivably do something with it. I have established I can go out two nights a week (but not three). I have lots of ideas, the trouble is having the energy to do them.

Wimbledon started and I've been listening to it on the radio at work in the afternoons and have had it on in the evening. When it started I was a bit unsure what I was going to do with all this Wimbledon on. I got used to not being able to see much of the French Open and Queens and I just concentrated on the big names.

But then I remembered what Wimbledon is all about. It's spending evenings doing nothing much while watching tennis. Until 8.30pm you even get a choice of two matches. I am making the most of it this week because next week I'm out more than I'm in. It's mostly Rotaract things, so I can't begrudge it that much, as I'm only a Rotaractor for another week and a day.

And I'll be making it up for next year. This year we couldn't go to Wimbledon due to both my bosses being off. So we went to Queens instead where it rained all day... So next year we'll be going to Queens and Wimbledon, and the ATP Tour Final as we have the past two years and will do this year. But also we have tickets for the second and last day's of tennis at the Olympics. Although on Court 1, but we're bound to see something interesting.

Since jay_of_lasgalen asked, a write-up of my two days at Wimbledon. Read more...

The end of Wimbledon's like finishing a good book - you don't quite know what to do with yourself. It's good that it's over because now I can get some stuff done. And there's only so much tennis you can watch (and Virginia Wade you can mute). The downside is that there's now no tennis, two weeks of TV on my PVR to catch up with and stuff I ought to do and don't want to. It's a good thing I'm not into cycling as well, otherwise my summer would completely consist of sport!

I was going to write about my two days at Wimbledon, but I just don't have the energy. And work is busy enough that I'm not going to get the energy before I forget it all. But there are lots of photos. And I mean lots. There are 41 from the first Thursday (including my annotated ones - also Murray, Nadal and the Queen) and somehow I managed to take 110 yesterday... I now have more photos from Wimbledon than anything else, at least based on my flickr tag cloud.

I suddenly feel that weekly posts might be more common from now on... Basically, work is very busy and not looking to get any less busy. In fact, I think it's possibly only likely to get more busy. And to make it worse, that means I won't get to see as much Wimbledon because I'll be getting home later and the World Cup is on every afternoon so I won't get to listen to it at work either.

I am looking forward to Wimbledon, though. I have picked out my fantasy Wimbledon team which will hopefully not be as crap as last year's. Although since I take no notice of the women my team mostly consists of the Williams sisters and cheap people who have interesting names. I have added the Wimbledon feed to my Twitter, so I can read all about what happened at Wimbledon six hours later when I get home.

Friday night I went to see the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue stage show. It was so good my throat still hurt on Saturday from laughing. The new series starts tomorrow - it'll be one thing I won't be saving for after Wimbledon.

TGI the weekend. This week has been so busy at work - I've been doing 9 hour days. Which at least means I leave after the rush hour, but doesn't leave very long evenings or energy to do anything in them. This would be why I haven't been around very much.

And my right wrist hurts. It's caused by me sleeping on it, and I sleep on my right when I'm stressed (and I've been dreaming about work this week - and not sleeping much because my brain won't stop working). And the bit of my left hand between my thumb and forefinger hurts. I only just worked out last night that it must be caused by holding the mouse. I might have to try a small mouse out next week and see how that goes.

On the plus side I didn't get as tired and as dizzy as I thought I would. But I did get a sore throat instead. And had to miss my two Rotaract meetings this week, which is really annoying. I do only have a four day week next week, as on Friday I'm going to see ISIHAC. Although this does, of course, mean doing five days work in the space of four. Mind you, this week I did six and a half days work in the space of five...

I did, however, manage to write 25 of my 100 drabbles (well, I started on 1st June). I ought to sort out posting some of them this weekend. I did also find mini eggs in the health food shop, which kept me going in the afternoons (I was looking for smarties, and got some of those too, but mini eggs are nicer).

Because our overtime year ends at the end of June and I'll have at least three and a half days then, I'll get paid for it at the end of July. And I've just won tickets to the final Saturday at Wimbledon (Women's Singles Final, Men's Doubles Final, Women's Doubles Final) and because I know this money is coming to me, I can afford to go. I am also going on the first Thursday - both times are to Centre Court too. Mind you, if I'd got tickets to the final Sunday I wouldn't be caring how much money I had

Wimbledon starts on Monday! I have my fantasy team assembled, which includes Federer and Murray and an assortment of women who's names I liked, since I know nothing about the women and don't care about them either. I must remember to find my radio from wherever I put it when I moved in six months ago.

After deleting my Facebook account it started sending me notifications. So I had to undelete it to find out what was going on and found that not only had it ticked every notification box but it had also allowed my profile to be seen by everyone! So I reset it, but now I don't trust them to actually delete it, even though it looks as thought they do now, so I haven't. But after fixing all that I see no reason to ever visit the site again.

I had an epiphany about Twitter too and what I actually wanted to use it for. There's loads of people I follow who I'm just not reading and who aren't following me so we can't have a conversation over it and when they post interesting stuff I want to ask about, I can't ask on Twitter. So I have temporarily shunted everyone I don't think I want to read into a column and I'll see if I miss them, or if they've said anything I do want to read in a few days time. But I did discover there's a Wimbledon feed, which is vaguely interesting. There are also feeds for various courts and Henman Hill! Tim Henman has an account he rarely posts to but interesting, Andy Roddick has one that he uses and posts interesting things to as far as I can see. Unlike Andy Murray...

I am looking forward to melliyna coming to visit on Wednesday because I want to see her, but also because it'll be someone to talk to. Blogs and Twitter aren't really the best replacements for a social life. But, I am up to 13 fast on the first exercise. Or I was on Friday - I spent yesterday too tired and dizzy to do anything and today too dizzy to do anything except for the things I really need to get done this weekend.

Well, wow. That was the best part of five hours spent on the edge of my seat. Or seven hours including rain breaks. I don't think I've ever seen anything as exciting as the Mens Singles Final, including all tennis and everything else (yes, including last night's Doctor Who - in the latter you always knew the good guys would win in the end). Read more...

...but Virginia Wade is commentating and she talks rubbish in an annoying posh accent, so I'll have to continually mute the TV. And my neighbours never went out today and have currently decided I need to hear what they're watching, which is boring.

It's almost enough to make me watch Doctor Who.

For a bit of it seemed like a good idea at the time and still hasn't seemed like a bad one, I'm running the Sarah & Harry (with optional Sarah/Harry) ficathon. Sign-ups are open till 5th July (Ladies Finals Day).

At some point I will wake up enough to post about having my tooth out and tennis, but today should have about eight hours of good tennis followed by Glastonbury and Doctor Who might have to wait till tomorrow morning when there's nothing else on.

But first a meme:

When you see this, quote from Doctor Who.

Brigadier: Naturally enough, the only country that could be trusted with such a role was Great Britain.
The Doctor: Naturally. I mean, the rest were all foreigners.

- Robot

I am alive after my tooth extraction on Friday. That's only technically alive, though, I'd be quite happy to do nothing but sleep all day and all night. Sadly, I have to be really ill before I sleep during the day, although when ten hours a night isn't making me any more awake, it's a bit academic.

The post I would have made on Monday, had I felt better, is to point out that Wimbledon has started and as such the next fortnight consists of nothing but tennis and certainly nothing more important. Except possibly sleep.

Well, that's Wimbledon over for another year. Today was a great day of watching tennis all day - only the second time I've been able to do that. I was quite enjoying the men's doubles final while I had lunch but that was just a prelude to the main event. I really wanted Nadal to win because Federer's won Wimbledon before. But it was such a good and close match that I just really enjoyed it, and in the end I wanted them both to win.

There's such a contrast between the two of them. Nadal's always really sweaty and Federer never seems to break a sweat. I don't think I've ever heard him grunt either. Those two things, and his ability to just hit an ace breakpoint down (which must make it so frustrating to play against) make him such a cool customer on court. He makes it look easy. And he is the one person who can get away with wearing flannel trousers and a white blazer.

And then, we had the mixed doubles final. Radio 5 commentated on it - they never usually commentate on doubles because it's impossible to keep up with the rallies, they go so fast. Which is why I like doubles. But in this case it also features Jamie Murray - Andy Murray's older brother. Jamie's more of a doubles specialist and only asked Jelena Jankovic to play on the second Tuesday. And then they won! It was a great game and we have a Wimbledon champion for the first time in twenty years since Jeremy Bates and Jo Durie won the same event. Which I very vaguely remember.

And as one of the 5 Live commentary team said, as an older sister, I'm also very glad Jamie's won a Grand Slam title before Andy.

Royal Mail are really pissing me off now. They tried to deliver a parcel last Tuesday at 1.30pm (!). So I went on the website to get it redelivered. Except they've taken the address off the 'you were out' card and don't want you to find it on the site, so I had to ring up to find out what the address was. So I asked for it to be redelivered on Thursday at work.

So it didn't turn up, surprise, surprise. Last time this happened it only turned up because I rang. But I was busy yesterday and thought I could go and pick it up on Saturday. So I went down there this morning and there was a sign on the door to say they're closed due to staff shortages. They're only open while I'm at work and not at lunchtimes, so the next time I can pick it up is in two weeks time and they only keep things for three weeks. So I will be ringing them on Monday to tell them what I think of them. And then a few times a day until I actually get it.

I enjoyed the tennis today. I had one men's semi on the screen and the other in a little picture in the corner. And the one in the corner was the one they were focusing on on the radio. It's annoying that the picture through Freeview is so far behind the radio, because I knew the outcome of the shot before they hit it! Interestingly, at one point BBC1 and 301 were showing the same match and the little picture was fractionally ahead of the big one.

Then I enjoyed the women's final. I was hoping Bartoli would win but thought it unlikely. I was right, but it was a good match, so I don't mind. The mixed doubles with Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic was a really exciting match. And because they're so far behind there's lots more doubles action yay!

I hope the men's final is good tomorrow. I don't mind too much which of them win, as long as it's a good, close match.

And then Monday I won't quite know what to do with myself with no tennis to watch. Apart from all the other stuff I have taped to watch, and other stuff I have to do that's been building up because I've been too busy watching the tennis...

I was having a bad day today at work - I started on today's work at 5.15pm. Which is marginally better than starting on it the next day, which does happen when we're busy.

But then there was non-rain interrupted tennis this evening! I left work just after Williams evened up the match with Henin and got back to find Henin serving for the match. It would have more exciting if Henin had won it, rather than Williams lost it but still. At least now perhaps Serena will rest her leg - given that the only person who thought she was ok to play on it was Serena herself.

And then there was actual doubles! Mixed doubles with Brits in, partly because they're so far behind mind you. So that was good to watch, although less good to listen to since they had Virginia Wade commentating. She has an annoying posh voice and talks complete crap the whole time that I'm just not interested in. The good part was that when they stopped at 8pm for Today at Wimbledon and I could switch over to channel 302 to continue watching it.

I was going to quite happily carry on watching tennis until Taggart and then watch that on time delay but my best friend rang instead, so I spent an hour and a half on the phone. So Taggart has been postponed until another day. So have rather a lot of other things - when Wimbledon finishes I always end up not knowing what to do with the extra time I have, but I have plenty of things queued up.

It's been another frustrating day. Play started at 11am but since it didn't look like the matches were going to be that interesting, I didn't bother with the tennis till lunchtime. The minute I got myself set up to watch it, it started raining. They started playing an hour and a half later, which is not helpful. And then I spent the afternoon getting up and down a lot, so kept putting the headphones down and not putting them back on straight away. Which meant that every time I sat down to listen to the tennis it rained, and whenever I stopped for a long period, they played.

It was quite interesting to hear the thunder over the radio. It thundered here an hour after it did there, but that was all it did. As a result I saw, I think, one Nadal game before they went off again. And that was it for the day. Why they didn't play on Sunday I don't know, because they might not have been that far behind after Saturday, but they certainly are now - starting on all courts at 11am and using every single courts - including ones that don't have a number.

I finished The Myth Makers, which is Vicki's last episode and I'm all sad because I liked Vicki. And I am discovering Doctor Who is a bad influence - it's really hard to type doctor with a small d.

Well, we had tennis and it was exciting. Although mostly it was the Five Live commentators making me laugh - Michael Stich will take any opportunity to criticise the Hawkeye, Jonathan [something] persists in saying 'three points away', 'two points away' etc, although I think he's doing on purpose to wind everyone else up. One of them decided to commentate on the warm up to show how ridiculous it was, and accurately predicated the rain (which wasn't difficult really).

And then there was the whole thing with Serena Williams. I ended up watching her match this evening, even though I could have watched Nadal's because I was trying to work out if she was injured or not. It was bizarre.

I've reached the point with my Doctor Who watching when more of the episodes are lost than not. I hate reconstructions - I get bored of looking at the pictures and end up looking away just as some action scrolls across the screen. Although since it's white on a black background and moves I can't read it anyway. So I'm listening to the narrations instead. Peter Purves has a good voice for it I think.

Since I have conjunctivitis it's working quite well to take my mind off how much my eye hurts, and I can curl up with my eyes closed, so it's hurts a bit less because then I don't move it. Although it feels a bit strange closed, so that's only helping so much. It doesn't help that it hurts when I touch it and it keeps feeling like I've got something in there. It's probably just as well that I wear glasses, so it requires more effort to poke.

It's been a really frustrating day. It's the one day of Wimbledon you get to spend the whole day watching tennis, not just in the evening. But instead we got nearly an hour of one woman thrashing another. I could have watched a different match on 301 or 302 but frankly, it would have just been the same. I would have been quite happy watching tennis from 12 till 9ish, then watched Doctor Who, but it wasn't to be.

The only good thing about it was I got time to clean the house and make flapjacks and they decided just before Doctor Who started that there would be no more play today, so I was free to watch it live. Although I shouldn't have done because I had five minutes of Galaxy 4 part 2 to go, which was a bit surreal to listen to afterwards.

There were some things in the episode that I liked and other things that annoyed me, but I'll put them behind a more since they contain SPOILERS:
Read more...

I thought I should make a post about the new Prime Minister being the fourth since I was born. Five Live did a whole afternoon on it yesterday, so I listened to the tennis on Sports Extra instead. I mean, it's interesting but it's not that interesting. Mostly it's just weird - you get used to one being there forever, or at least that's what it seems like. And it seems like much more fuss than any of the others. Major was the first time I noticed politics (and worked out Paddy Ashdown was not in fact in the headmaster of the local secondary school, just because it was called Ashdown - it was logical at the time).

Then Blair was a general election four days before my 18th birthday, so that was a big event for everyone not born at the beginning of May. But this one, I came back from Romania wondering if Brown had been elected yet. I never quite got round to asking or looking it up. I don't think I need to yet.

The date I was born makes naming PMs easy - Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown - anyone older than me has to know the one before: Callahan. No idea what his first name was, mind you. Mind you, I can tell you my MPs party, what school she went to and I think I can remember her first name. Her last name could be anything though. I also can't tell you what my constituency is called since it has such a strange name.

Oh, and Henman's out of Wimbledon - it's a good thing because now we can focus on some more interesting players who don't favour long drawn out matches. I want Nadal to win.

I've really had one of those days. I woke up at 7am and did get back to sleep but the dreams I get when I do that are always really weird in a slightly disturbing way.

So then I went to work and was involved in doing something not at my desk at one point during the morning and came back to it at 11.57 to a reminder that I was supposed to be going to a meeting at 12 on the other site, which is a few minutes work away. And I had something I had to get done before I went. So of course when I phoned to say I was going to be late there was no one there. I eventually left at 12.10 and the meeting ended up only lasting five minutes.

Then Henman drew out his match this afternoon, as per usual, which was incredibly distracting.

So then tonight was Rotaract. I was good and left early, partly because I couldn't remember how long it took me to get there. I got there at 7.55 and realised that we've moved the second meetings of the month. At which point I couldn't get anyone on the phone at all. I went home to get my car, at which point I got a text message that confirmed I had gone to the wrong place. And I still couldn't phone anyone.

The meeting started at 8pm, I left at 8.10. Amazingly, I got a phone call as I was waiting at the lights, so could tell them I was going to be late. I eventually turned up at 8.20 to find it was just about my turn.

And I am now giving one Rotary club a talk about my Romanian trip at the end of July, so I will need to get on and write it.

The scary part of the evening was getting out of the car park. It's on a hill, so the part where you park is particularly steep and looks into the river. So you turn the engine off, put it in first, pull the handbrake as hard as you can and gingerly take your foot off the brake. And breathe in as it creeks and lurches a bit but doesn't go into the Thames. Getting out of the space is even more fun as it involves practically putting your foot to the floor to get the car to move backwards rather than forwards down the hill. The car sounds absolutely terrible doing it too.

It's that two weeks of the year again - where I don't talk about anything else. Although I was gripped by tonight's match (and some of the ones during the day too, but it's harder to be that gripped when you have to work at the same time) it means I'm only just about to start on some of the things I need to do tonight. I'm just hoping it rains tomorrow and Thursday evenings, since I'll be out then. It usually rains beforehand, then the players come on just as I have to leave. Sod's law for you.

Remember how I accidentally dyed some of my clothes pink before I went to Romania by washing my red jumper? Well, when I got my washing out of the machine yesterday I realised I'd done it again. I might end up getting some stuff to get the dye out because I'm fast running out of white tops now, and there are only so many pinks tops you can usefully use.