It was the right day to sport a hat of a proportion to rival Carmen Miranda’s.
I missed snapping the self-styled ‘Hat Man of London’ – aka Chito Salarza-Grant from Battersea – going past with the early morning crowd but later caught up with him by chance.
The Hat Man tells me it’s his eighth Wimbledon and he creates a new millinery assemblage each year, decked with ephemera garnered from previous Championships.
His headgear is adorned with fridge magnets of strawberries and buttercups and, of course, the tennis balls which are de rigueur.
It also has a flashing light buried deep in its layers but you have to forage in the foliage and fruit to find it.
"When it's dark, it looks better!' says Chito.
The Hat Man was sensible to come as his eponymous self.
Today’s repertoire of announcements has all been about the deteriorating weather picture – apart from the roofed Centre Court, play eventually had to be abandoned.
On a day like this, spectators only hear a proportion of some of the scripts that are written.
The forecasters here use satellite and radar imagery to survey both the larger evolving picture across the UK and localised maps to ensure their predictions are as precise as possible.
But my announcements have to take into account the fact that the Grounds are large enough to experience differing weather conditions from one court to another across more than 40 acres.
Announcements also have to be timed to coincide with developments on court. And if there is play on Centre Court I have to wait to make any announcement until the players take a break. Even though the public address system allows me to opt in or out of sections of the Grounds, you can get the sound filtering through.
And the last thing I want is to throw one of our top seeds off their stroke with a sudden blast about the weather.
