Today the weather is threatening to rain. Which is a complete pain, as I am off to Wimbledon later this morning. I won two tickets in the Steep Tennis Club ballot for Court 2, and I am going with another woman from the C Team, Louise Braithwaite. Louise paints ‘happy Lowrys’ of perfect British locations, from Salcombe to Scotland, lavender fields to the Ritz. I want her to paint the Old Rectory, with cricketers in the background.

I love this time of year. I keep Wimbledon going, non stop, on the tele, from 1pm to sunset, and I pop in and out to see if any of my favourites are on court. I feel no guilt whatsoever! I don’t always watch the technique closely, whether they are slicing or top-spinning, I just love the vibe. The perfectly manicured green grass and the players’ white attire. Strawberries and cream, and Pimms.

When I was at university in Sydney in the early 80s, I used to finish studying at midnight, and then I’d tune in to Wimbledon, which was just starting at lunchtime there. I didn’t even play tennis. I had no connection, whatsoever, to the game. But every year, I’d be up half the night watching it again. I found the back and forth of the ball, ‘conk, conk, conk’ and then ‘Out’, very soothing after a day at the books. Back then, it was Martina Navratilova versus Chris Evert, and who can forget Yvonne Goolagong, our very own Aussie champion. I loved Becker, Borg, McEnroe and Connors. It felt so glamorous.

But there were two Aussie blokes that canned the doubles’ title at Wimbledon during my Uni years – Peter McNamara and Paul McNamee – they won in 1980 and 1982. They were called the two Maccers, and Macdonalds was aspirational then, not dodgy for causing obesity. I managed to stalk McNamara at the Hurlingham Tennis Classic a few years in a row, and I finally managed to get the pic with him. He seemed happy to oblige.

It was a dream come true, from 1989, to be actually watching the tournament on tele during the day in London, not too far from the All England Club. In the summer of 1997, Shaun and Wendy, my brother and his wife, came to visit with baby son, Ryan. They piled into the top floor of Elms Crescent. Nicky Barber came, with baby Harry, to celebrate Ryan’s first birthday in mid-June. We tried to make impressions of the boys’ hands in clay, but it just ended up a sloppy mess.

Jo Fothergill’s father was very senior at the All England Club, and she gave me two Centre Court tickets for Wimbledon. I took Shaun. I had no idea how special those tickets were – the sheer luxury of them. On the news over the years, I had seen long queues outside the grounds. People even slept overnight to be in the front section of the queue.You can still obtain, if you are lucky, tickets to the three main courts, Centre, 1 and 2, on the day, by queuing at Turnstile 3 (there is something so democratic about that). If you have a ticket to one of those three magic courts, the seat is yours for the day. Otherwise it’s a scrum.

But when Shaun and I turned up at Wimbledon that day, I had no idea of how it all worked. I thought that, even with a ticket to one of these premium courts, you had to run and grab a seat once you made it through the gates.

So it was with some delight, we discovered on arrival, that we didn’t have to queue, but we could bypass the queue. Just stroll in! When we went to Centre Court, nice uniformed people explained that the seats were ours all day, and we could pop in and out as much as we cared to. Even if we went for a bite, nobody could play Musical Chairs and take them. It was like finding out that instead of Economy, you were flying First Class. Bliss!

So off to Wimbledon I go.