Be careful what you wish for; goes the saying. And yesterday’s bride wished beyond all else for an ‘outdoor wedding’. Not for her the finery of a West End hotel. She wasn’t interested in Country House splendour, that’s not what vegetarians crave. They crave the wilds of ‘the outside’. And so chose, along with her now husband (of 15 hours), the son of one of my best mates, a ‘farm in ‘ertfordshire’ as their venue. Not, like, the cow shed, nor indeed the farmhouse. Just the farm. In particular, one field of that farm. A rather beautiful field sitting next to a lake. Surrounded by trees. Grass. Greenery. All that countryside stuff. Fortunately no animals sniffing round, that would have been one cow-pat too far, methinks.

Of course, this is England (not ‘Britain’, nor ‘Europe’, certainly not ‘Europe’!) so when the day dawned wet and rainy and windy and then more wet, things were not looking promising for our ‘day in the countryside’. More importantly, for the bride & groom’s day in the countryside.

And yet the rain stopped, they opened the roof at Wimbledon, and they put the chairs outside the marquee for an al fresco wedding ceremony. Which was fantastic. The wind blew. And blew and blew, but the sun shone and the marriage took place under a canopy held in place by eight strong men charged with not letting it blow into the lake. And was wonderful. Amen.

Meanwhile, Andy Murray was on his way to victory. He wasn’t at the wedding. There was a strict ‘no Scots’ policy in that part of the countryside. A brilliant victory for the man who, Djokovich aside, played the consistently best tennis of the tournament. A victory for speed and agility over brute strength and power.

We danced. We certainly drank. We ate. Vegetables. But they count, they’re food. Nice food too. And the football kicked off in Paris. I’d forgotten about both Heather Watson, who won the mixed doubles for ENGLAND, and Lewis Hamilton who’d won the British Grand Prix, and focussed on the celebration of togetherness, and the football. Though, to be honest, I didn’t really care whether the French won, just didn’t really want the Portuguese to win. But heh, 9 out of 10 ain’t bad for a day’s work.

Happy Monday. Sport has now officially closed for the summer. Nooooooooooo…

A xxxx