Sarah Hélène : Royal Ascot Ladies Day 17th June. (2004)

  What can I say  ... Ascot was awesome ... WOW.

  The day started late as usual .. my  fault getting my act together. We left my friend Linda's house about 10.25, when we had planned 9.45 to 10.00. However, Ascot is my area, only about 2.5 miles as crow flies from home, so using my local knowledge and ignoring the "AA" car park route signs, I got us 8 1/2 miles there parked in 30 minutes .... impressed ... I was myself ... lol

  But what about Royal Ascot. Well the weather forecast wasn't good ... windy and showers. Well fortunately the forecast was only half right, the £25 umbrella I bought to match my outfit got left in the car ... and wasn't needed. But the wind did make the hat a little light at times ... so a genteel holding of rim with finger and thumb, with colour matched nails , was order of day at times.

  Linda and I had booked initially through backpacker.co.uk, to get our tickets for £65. This company nearly let us down before we got there, it was only daily phone calls that got them to send the tickets out with a few days to spare. Their instructions were to meet their coach number 8 there in car park 10A for lunch. We found most if not all the other 9 coaches of there 10, and none of the organizers could tell me where there other coaches were, or how to get hold of them. Call to London office failed to get any response. We won't book through them again for anything for sure.

  Anyway .. we had also been in contact with the ladies at www.adamandeve121.co.uk  and organized to have lunch with them too ... was a good thing to as it turned out. A & E ( Adam and Eve) ladies Josie, Lisa and Terrie ( seriously caring ladies these are ) had bought along 4 really nice girls (clients) .. Juliet (quiet and reserved, just like me really) , Jennie ( only out for a while and proud with it) , Martina ( the photographer and chatty as anyone ) and Jade ( who was totally upfront and outrageous (slightly)) . We eventually got to meet them when after many phone calls we discovered they were not actually in car park 10 as they kept telling us, but in 10A. Anyway ..we had a pleasant champagne lunch with them and off we trotted with them and the crowds to the course.

  One thing we learnt here about Royal Ascot ... the horse racing is only 5% .. the rest is social and people watching. We watched people, and they watched us. You arrive 2 hours before you go to the course ... and picnic in the car / coach parks, drink to much champagne if your not driving (doh)  .. then walk about 11/2 miles to go the long way round, through the under course tunnel (which I didn't know about) to get into the enclosures. You also learn to queue .. to actually get in and especially for the ladies loos ... glad I got long range tanks ...  lol.

  I must say public reaction to us girls was fantastic, specially the rg's who kept coming up to us to pay us compliments, take our pictures with and without them, ask me where my hat came from soooo many times I lost count and engage us in conversations. At one point 3 blokes came up behind us and one was heard to mention "trannies" so naturally a couple of us turned to engage ... One chap soon walked off ... one stood gob smacked beer in hand, while his talkative friend and us had a chat for about 10 minutes .... he was pleasantly surprised by our attitude and reasons ... and ended up on our side, shook our hands then departed .. respect ... thank you !!

 Did I back any horses ... do ducks float, did I back a winner ... do ostriches fly ...!!!!. I did back one horse both ways, it came in second, my £10 stake got me ...£10.26 back ... hey it was a profit .. lol. Then put £10 on a 25:1 outsider ( Happy Crusader [apt name I thought] and running in purple colours, my favourite as many of you know) to win in the last race ... was second as it came round the final bend .. finished about 6th ..

  Some of the girls "chickened" out early because they were cold, and went back to the coach ... Jenny and I stayed to the end.  When we returned for refreshments, the coach party "next door" was a young lady from Cheltenham and a crowd of her and her mothers friends on her "hen day" ... she's getting married soon. She and her mum though we were great, as did some of their friends, who chatted for ages wanted to know "why" and trying to unload some of there food on us. Mum and daughter would have loved some of us at there wedding, however some of mum's friends we assumed who were sitting in their coach not looking to happy, or maybe I imagined that.

I've been out and about in day light before as many of you know ... but this was the best day in Sarah's life so far ... WOW ..... I nearly got up and dressed to go again the next day ( as I had already booked it off work for reflection ) ... happily solo ..cause I know somebody would talk to me sooner or later ... and if not .. I just love being out.

Role on next years Derby, as Ascot won't happen again till 2006 or 2007 as the course is being totally redeveloped.

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