One way to the UK?

Mara and I flew from Jersey to Gatwick Friday afternoon, got the tube out to Mile End, emptied our packs, re-packed with clothes for the races and weekend and then got the tube, then national rail out to Sutton to meet up with Sarah and Emma – thanks so much again for letting us stay at your place Sarah! This was all in preparation to attend Derby Day to 1. view the races and 2. celebrate sarah’s approaching birtrhday.

Pronounced Darby Day, even Queenie turned up on this years cup day to mark the 54th anniversary since her coronation! Mind you all we could see on the screen on The Hill was a blue blob with a hat on walking amongst the owners and jockeys!

The Hill, free entry to the middle of the race track, which mind you in absolutely huge, contains loads of grass to sit on, a market with many stalls and a fair-ground with all sorts of rides and games! We got the the Hill quite early, and lucky too as soon enough the entire space filled up with people and I’ve never seen so many people attending a single racing event before! The weather turned out excellent and after starting drinking (our 16 litres of cocktail pre-mixed by Sarah’s man Mike the night before) and sitting in the sun for a bit, we all decided that we would soon be ROASTED and so Sarah and Mike were lovely enough to buy some little shade-tents (like the ones you see on beaches in Aust.) and so a few of us crammed in underneath them. Yes we did have some sunscreen, but over here the ratings start at about 6SPF and go to 50SPF or something, and we had 8 on the day which really probably didn’t do much at all! I got burnt and my legs & arms are already brown however my shoulders and neck (which were already peeling from Jersey) are still red and sore now!

All in all the day was great – I placed a few bets and finished off the day about £13 DOWN but that’s racing for you. Everyone said to bet on Dettori (jockey) to win the actual cup but Ed and I decided not to just out of spite and to be different….. stupid idea as you could probably guess already Dettori did ride home the winning horse and won a clean race by about 4 meters! We all went out in Sutton in the evening after the races and had dinner and drinks at a place called Chicago Rock Cafe 🙂

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.