Open Writing

The great thing about summer over here is the extremely gratuitous amount of public holidays. Starting with Australia day in January there follows Anzac Day and Labour Day, then Easter. This is paid for with a long wait in winter where there are no holidays. However for now we’re blessed.

Australia day is the one day of the year when Australians get to celebrate something they are really good at, basically being Australian. They all sit down and fire up the barbie then spend the day drinking beer. Well most do. Some of the younger and more bogan of the population will go to the pub and spend the entire day filling themselves with alcohol. Usually they can be seen around closing time staggering down the street, Australian flag draped round their shoulders, or worse, vomiting into the gutter.

The day itself is dedicated to Australian culture and in between beer and meat pies, BBQ’s and Southern Cross flags every Aussie gets a day off work to celebrate.

We decided that this year we would do something different, so we had a BBQ on Sunday instead and then on Australia Day we went to the tennis. The Australian open was into its final week and we had seats in the main arena. We had two women’s matches and one men’s. The sun was shining and it looked like a great day.

We got to the Rod Laver Arena mice and early. Around the outside of the arena there are screens on which crowds can watch tennis, similar to Henman Hill/Murray Mount at Wimbledon.

Looking around the arena it became obvious I would only have one thing to worry about, whether to buy a large oversized tennis ball or a towel. This was an important decision. The choice of souvenir sends out a strong signal to other spectators. Did I want to be seen as childish and a fun person, or someone in need of a towel. To me the choice was obvious.

Tennis is great fun to watch, all that bouncing of the balls and whacking of the racquet. Getting drinks from the bar was a logistical nightmare as the doors were only opened for a few minutes each time the players switched ends. Usually three games would be missed while going for a drink. We timed this carefully and avoided leaving when something important was happening.

The women’s matches all went to the limit, with three sets being fought out. Whilst every effort was done to reduce the disruption caused by the spectators getting drinks there was no way of stopping the disruption caused by the jet display team. They flew over the arena and around the arena as part of Australia Day celebrations and the tennis players were not too happy to see them as the sounds was quite deafening.

The tennis was great but we really wanted to see Andy Murray play. His match was in the evening and we had day tickets, but we thought that we would go into the public park and watch on one of the screens. However
rain started to fall and we decided that it would be better to watch the Murray match from the safety of our front room.

The pity of the day was really that we didn’t get to see anyone who got into the finals, Andy Roddick was kicked out in the following round and Justine Henin didn’t get much further. However it was a fun day, and it was a lot easier to get into the Rod Laver Stadium than it is to get into Wimbledon.

I still use the towel when I am at the beach!