Ok so he lost. Andy Murray will not be the winner of Wimbledon this year and will not be the one to save our blushes from the shambolic World Cup. Never mind, that’s yesterday’s fish and chip paper. In the mean time, let’s just dust ourselves off, chuck the tennis rackets in the cloakroom along with the footballs and get our bikes out instead. Yes, there is still hope, because the Tour de France Grand Depart took place last weekend in beautiful Yorkshire and we have the boys from Team Sky to support, not least defending champion Chris Froome. Sadly Mark Cavendish is already out with a shoulder injury set to destroy his chances at the common.
I hoped the sun would shine for the riders and the throngs who turned out to watch them. Now I do like to watch a bit of sport myself and even ventured to London for the Olympics. A bit of weight lifting here, some volleyball there. But when it comes to cycling, well I’m not so sure. My husband was keen for us to go over to Yorkshire to watch the race so I decided to weigh things up.
1. We would leave the day before the event and park the van wherever we could squeeze
it in – most likely about 50 miles from civilisation and anywhere resembling the route, or a
toilet.
2. We would then have to sleep in said van, after cooking pasta on a camping stove and
having a warm beer before getting up at the crack of dawn and cycling down to get a
viewing spot on the road.
3. At this point we would have already given up a whole day for the cause…
4. We would then have to wait for up to five hours before getting even a sniff of a bike, by
which time the crowds would be so thick that we would have been pushed to the back by
fanatics.
5. The cyclists would then whizz past at about a million miles per hour in two seconds flat –
just as I was tying my shoe lace…
Needless to say, I opted to stay at home and watch it on the tele! The husband was packed off with a camping mat and a Little Lucy Willow Bella Quilted Bedspread after the sleeping bags went astray. Now it is gorgeous but I’m not sure it will keep his cockles warm on a cloudless night in the Yorkshire Dales. I shall report back. So I had a lovely weekend, I had my feet up, kettle on and watched the riders put through their paces from the best vantage point there is – my sofa!