Ju's Day at the Races - Ascot 2006

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Fresh from seeing the Queen the Saturday before, and enamoured of all things Royal, I was looking forward to Amy's birthday - she was set for a celebration in style, having organised a trip to the Royal Ascot races!

With all the planning and shopping beforehand, it was set to be an exciting day. My wonderful mum (hugs, mum, and thank you once again!) packed off my dress, which only took one week to get from NZ to Blighty. Then I had four days in which to hunt down accessories - which is why Friday night at 8:45 found me in Topshop, frantically deciding that the hurty silver shoes weren't as bad as no shoes at all.

I managed to get on the train to Amy's at 9am, only a little late - which of course found me early, as all the plans for early departures and orderly arrivals went out the window and the six of us gaily dressed girls converged on the wine (and Pina Coladas.) Jules had made Amy a magnificent birthday peppermint chocolate cake, and after the obligatory song we had no probs wolfing some of that down as well, before we made final touches to our appearances and teetered off to the supermarket like so many butterflies. If butterflies teetered.

The supermarket staff had never seen the like, and looked on in amusement as we ransacked the place for strawberries and fresh bread, before marching off down the road for the bus.

A bus and the tube brought us to Waterloo, and after a bit of ticket buying, we waited on the packed platform, trying to spot any passengers not heading to Ascot! We had champagne on the train, and detrained onto the most crowded platform I've ever seen in my life - we were kept in the train, the doors shut, for a full five minutes to allow the passengers from the last train to drain out of the station, and then our turn came and we swept across the bridge and started the 1/2 mile hike up the road to the racecourse.

It was all rather festive - a stream of well dressed gals and guys all over the (closed) road, all heading the same direction. The park next to the road was full of similarly dressed revellers sitting in circles having picnics. We had heard the rumours about picnics being disallowed, but we decided, in true kiwi fashion, that it was a gorgeous summer day and we might as well try. After all, it was Amy's birthday! We re-distributed our plastic bags of goodies so everyone had one or two, and joined the throngs in the queue for the gate of the Silver Ring.

The police, ticket checkers and bag inspectors at the gate seemed to have no problem with our goodies - and so it was that a little after lunchtime we found ourselves sitting on the grass of the Silver Ring, enjoying all our goodies.

It was the perfect sunny and fun filled day, and we were up and down and round and about with friends, aquaintances, food, betting slips and jumps for joy. Beaming faces, blistered toes and cases of sunburn shoved themselves back on the train that evening, packed tighter than sardines. The after party in Clapham, a rapidly organised houseparty, was promising to go all night when I added myself to the number of exhausted people slipping away in the early hours to catch buses home.

Happy Birthday Ames, and long live... whichever horse won.

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