A dress rehearsal for a dress rehearsal. And a casual bit of Lee Chong Wei.

First things first, despite not getting my letter, I did find the entrance to Hogwarts today. Or at least the trolley in the wall at King's Cross.

Today was my first day in uniform and I have now realised that this means I probably need a better obscure train station knowledge... Luckily I am turning into a bit of a beast as far as the map of the underground in my 'pocket guide' goes, however I don't know any of it from memory, so my apologies to quite a lot of tourists who expected a quick answer, but I tried my best and I hope that you got there!

I arrived at King's Cross quite early, so sat around for a while, but was kept amused by the Great British weightlifting team , who were told off by a man for walking through the picture that he was trying to take of Platform 7!

I got to Wembley early-ish and managed to find a shop that sold flags for when the cycling comes past the flat at the weekend. I also found a newsagent's which sold cow's drink. I assume that this is otherwise known as milk?! I then got to the Arena, went through security, collected my meal card and, whilst searching for my Team Manager, managed to find Lee Chong Wei instead. 

All of the courts are set up now and each of the nations have an allotted training session to have the opportunity practise on them. Our team (which has possibly the best abbreviation: FOP) met up and had another tour of the Arena and the practise halls to orientate ourselves a bit, because things have changed since we were last there. We then had a bit of time to kill before the rehearsal, so we went up to the stands to watch the training. Malaysia were there for a bit, as were Denmark and Finland, and Thailand came at the end as well as Sri Lanka (yes, Pete Higman!). I did take a lot of pictures, but I can't put them up until the venue opens properly, so for the moment, here are the backs of the some of the Russian team walking through Wembley (!):


Our rehearsal, we found out today, was actually a dress rehearsal for tomorrow's dress rehearsal when the broadcasters arrive (presumably so we give a good impression tomorrow). We did a lot of walking on and off court with all of the line judges and umpires to work out the best ways of getting on to the courts, and my job was made all the more interesting by the fact that there, at the moment, appears to be a billboard in front of my chair, so at the moment my court mopping will be accompanied by a jump and a leap! The rehearsal was also made more comical by the fact that there were no players, so people were having to act on their behalf!


The umpires had arrived later in the afternoon than we had, so we were allowed to leave before 11, which means that tonight is a slightly earlier night/ journey back than   anticipated, which was good, because tomorrow is a full rehearsal and I imagine it will be quite extensive!

Olympic spot of the day: Zoe Smith in King's Cross.